As her characteristic
green
dress suggests, Christine is consumed with envy.
Who is Christine counterpart in the Oresteia?
The story is a retelling of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. The characters parallel characters from the ancient Greek plays. For example, Agamemnon from the Oresteia becomes General Ezra Mannon.
Clytemnestra
becomes Christine, Orestes becomes Orin, Electra becomes Lavinia, Aegisthus becomes Adam Brant, etc.
What were Ezra Mannon’s last words?
Indeed, Ezra’s last words are,
“She’s guilty!
” Ezra, the former judge, is pronouncing his verdict. He may realize that, in telling this to Lavinia, who is so devoted to him, he is pronouncing a sentence as well. Lavinia immediately vows revenge.
What forms the background of the play Mourning Becomes Electra?
Mourning Becomes Electra was completed
after O’Neill’s prolonged stay outside the United States
. This trilogy is largely inspired by Aeschylus’s Oresteia but it is set in a Puritan New England town at the end of the Civil War.
What complaint is Christine against daughter?
Christine must only promise to never see Brant again. Laughingly Christine accuses her
daughter of wanting Brant herself
. Lavinia has always schemed to steal her place.
Is Mourning Becomes Electra a tragedy?
Mourning Becomes Electra is considered to be one of the most important and
poignant tragedies by O’Neill
. By using a Greek legend as the model of his drama, O’Neill has reared up Mourning Becomes Electra a universal tragedy of tremendous stature of paramount importance.
How Mourning Becomes Electra is a modern tragedy?
“Mourning Becomes Electra” is also a drama of “Revenge and Passion” like Greek play Oresteia yet gods replace psychological dilemmas in this modern tragedy. It is the hamartia of characters that leads them to their destruction. Ezra Mannon’s father punishes his brother because of true love.
What is the meaning of Mourning Becomes Electra?
Mourning Becomes Electra is a story styled after the Greek legend and the title refers
to how the lead character is condemned to a life of mourning the disasters that befall her family
. In the Greek legends, Electra is the sister to Orestes, and they are the children of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.
What is the name of Brants ship?
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Sebastian Brant (1458–1521), born at Strassburg, spared no class in his epic on human stupidity,
the Narrenschiff ( Ship of Fools )
.
How does Christine learn that Orin murdered Brant?
She leaves to tell her mother of her plans. Alone, Christine sees Hazel meet someone at the gate. Orin and Lavinia appear. Orin reveals that they followed Christine to Boston, discovered
her with Brant
, and killed him.
Who is Adam Brant in Mourning Becomes Electra?
The child of the illegitimate Mannon line, he returns to wreak vengeance on Ezra’s household. He steals Ezra’s wife and seduces
Lavinia
to conceal their affair. Brant also of course bares a striking resemblance to the other Mannon men.
How many acts are there in Mourning Becomes Electra?
The trilogy, consisting of Homecoming (four acts), The Hunted (
five acts
), and The Haunted (four acts), was modeled on the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus and represents O’Neill’s most complete use of Greek forms, themes, and characters. O’Neill set his trilogy in the New England of the American Civil War period.
What are the elements of classical Greek tragedy in Mourning Becomes Electra?
Mourning Becomes Electra takes many of its plot elements from the Oresteia by Aeschylus,
including the mother of the family taking a lover while the father is at war, killing her husband, and in turn being killed (directly or indirectly) by her children
. Despite these plot elements, O’Neill’s play is distinctly modern.
What is the setting of the part of Homecoming in Mourning Becomes Electra?
The play takes place in New England in 1865, just as the American Civil War (1861–65) has ended. The setting is
the Mannon house
, which O’Neill describes as having a Greek temple portico with several white columns at the front. This hides the somber, gray ugliness of the rest of the house behind it.
What is the Ship of Fools a metaphor for?
The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert knowledge, such as monarchies, communism, and democracies as well as virtually every approach to governance human social systems have thus far tested empirically.
