Mourning Becomes Electra as psychological play

Mourning Becomes Electra as psychological play

A play primarily concerned with the emotional and mental lives of the characters rather than the external events of the plot. Character and characterization are of extreme importance in such works. In a psychological drama the stress is laid on the motives which impel to perform an action rather than the moral consequences. This kind of drama rests on the discoveries made by Freud and his successors in the field of psychology.

Freud and his followers described human relations in terms of sexual connotation which laid the bases of critical approaches which try to interpret literature with respects emotional and mental bent of characters. They also give the concepts of Oedipus and Electra complex. Moreover, they said that repressed sexual desires mould the whole character of human beings.

Their work gave a new understanding of human actions and deeds. From their work came the concept of psychological realism. Modern writers never neglect psychological realism. With help of psychological realism humanism took a great leap further. Before Freud and his doctrines, human beings were considered either virtuous or vile. Hence virtuous were adored and loved, vile were hated and loathed. But psychological realism showed that human beings are neither virtuous nor vile. Rather they pushed into their role by a number of circumstances. These circumstances can have their roots in social, biological, religious and many other sources.

If we apply the above mentioned remarks on the play Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene, we find that the play abides by the remarks mentioned above. Mourning Becomes Electra is about an aristocratic family. This family is ruined and finally wiped out because of some flaws in the members of the family. Ezra Mannon fails to love his wife Christine because she is below in status. Christine falls in love with another man, Adam Brant. When she is discovered by her daughter, Lavinia, she kills her husband by poisoning him.

It not difficult to interpret why Christine falls in love with Adam Brant and why she finally kills her husband or the behavior of any other character in the play. Ezra loved Christine before their marriage because of her physical beauty and charm. But as soon as they are married and Christine comes without any dowry, his love ceases. And when Christine watches this change in the behavior of her husband, she is emotionally cut off with her husband. She finds solace in her children, especially in her son Orin, but when Orin is taken away from her she becomes very desperate. Her position in Mannon House was that of an extra man. Conversation between the servants in Act one of the play is an ample proof of her status in her home. Again behavior of her daughter shows the magnitude of torture she was undergoing on basis in the Mannon House. A person facing this kind of circumstances becomes surely desperate. Though we cannot approve her action, we can understand them and it is this understanding that we feel sympathy for Christine in spite of the fact that she commits an unforgivable sin by murdering her husband.

Now her murder of her husband was the vilest thing ever expected from any woman but had she any other option? Perhaps no. She could not have secured divorce from Ezra as Lavinia tells her bluntly and if she had run with Brant, her life could have become very miserable because Ezra was an influential person. And even if Ezra had not got Brant blacklisted, she could not have gone on living with Brant without marriage because Brant would have got tired of her finally and she had the example of Marrie Brantome. Her only chance was if Ezra had died some way. Then she could have married Adam and she could have got her share out of Ezra’s property to live comfortably with Brant. She was hoping that war would that but her hope did not come true and she had to do it herself.

Similarly we can understand the actions of all other characters because the playwright has laid their minds and souls bare before us by their psychological portrayal. Lavinia’s love for her father and Christine’s love for Orin can be explained in psychological terms. Here the writer used to hint at what Freud and his successors termed as Oedipus and Electra complex.

On the surface the play seems to be a revenge story and the playwright seems to hinting that revenge is a self-destructive passion. In other words revenge destroys both parties involved. And this is what actually happens in the play. Adam Brant uses Christine to revenge sufferings of his mother and Orin kills Adam Brant to revenge the murder of his father. But the story does not end here. It has other dimensions and avenues. At the end of the story, we can safely say that a family with upbringing like Mannons was sure to suffer because pride and hypocrisy had gone deep in their bones. Abe’s pride and hypocrisy showed the seeds lf their destruction when he disowned his brother who fell in love with a maid. However his action can be interpreted in psychological terms. He was forced to that decision because of fear of society and religion. Eugene shows us how these forces make a human being what he becomes.

In conclusion we can say that Mourning Becomes Electra is a psychological play because in this play the playwright shows how the past experiences of people influences their life. All the characters have been drawn with great psychological insight. That is why we fell sympathy fall the characters. Although all of them perform vile deeds, we feel that we will not do justice if we say any of them vile because they are forced into those actions because of circumstances in which they are placed. Anyhow whatever they do and howsoever they behave is convincing and based on realism. It does not that everyone will do what they did or behave the way they behaved. It only means that human beings are capable of behaving the way they behave if they find themselves in the kind of circumstances in which they playwright has placed the characters of Mourning Becomes Electra.