An adaptation of Greek trilogy “Oresteia” by Aeschylus, “Mourning Becomes Electra” is a marvelous play of modern literature by an American playwright Eugene O’ Neill. It deals with the dark psychology of characters, their hidden emotions, fears and deprivations embedded in the subconscious, unfulfilled desires, bleak grudges and revenge motif. Its three parts are called

· Home Coming
· The Hunted
· The Haunted

Parallel to its counterpart ‘Oresteia’ that contains “Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumendies (furies)”, the later is the story about curse on the ‘House of Atreus’, and it revolves around the aftermath of the abduction of the most beautiful and famous Helen at the hands of Paris the prince of Troy.

“A thousand ships were launched to teach a lesson to Troy”, Agamemnon, brother of Helen’s husband Menelaus, goes with the Greek expedition to wipe out Troy. His wife Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen, in the absence of her husband, takes for her paramour Aegisthus. In a course of time Agamemnon returns, along with Cassandra, the sister of Paris and daughter of Priam. Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murder Agamemnon, his daughter, Electra, prays for the return of her brother Orestes who had been out of the country long ago. Orestes comes back and slays Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. For this crime of matricide, he is pursued by Eumendies (furies) but after a long wandering is cleansed of his sin with the help of Athena (goddess of wisdom). This Greek legend, echoes through the corridors of centuries and invests O’Neill’s story with its agony and gloom. The Greek classical atmosphere and the sense of doom, hang over the play from the very start. In this play General Ezra Mannon comes back from Civil War after the victory of his side, and is murdered by his wife Christine with the help of venom supplied by her lover, Captain Brant. In Greek story, Clytemnestra assassinates her husband because he had sacrificed their daughter, Iphigeneia at the altar of Artemis (goddess of hunt and moon) in order to get favourable winds for their fleet. While in this play Christine kills Ezra because she did not love him and wanted to marry Ezra’s cousin Brant. Thus both these tales hinge on the theme of crime and punishment. Lavinia Mannon, daughter of Christine and Ezra stands for Electra, she is tall, flat breasted, angular and imperious in manner, extremely fond of her father and fiercely jealous of her mother. While Ezra was fighting in the Civil War Christine had been having an affair with Captain Adam Brant, unconscious desire to have Adam for herself leads Lavinia to demand that Christine give up Brant or face a scandal that would ruin the family name. Unable to go on living with a husband she loathes, Christine plots with Adam to poison Ezra when he arrives. At the time of his death, Lavinia enters the room; her father tells her that her mother had given him a poison pillet instead of his heart medicine. Shocked at the cruel truth she vows to avenge her father’s death. When her brother Orin (who stands for Orestes) comes back, wounded and distraught, from the war, she gives an account of tragic occurrence, insinuates the dark vigor of revenge in his mind, puts a seed of hatred in his heart, waters it with tears, nurtures through sighs and sobbing, until the flowers of agony blossom and fruit of vengeance ripens. At first Orin refuses until she proves her mother’s guilt by a ruse. Blaming Adam for the murder, Orin goes to Adam’s ship and shoots at him, when he reveals to his mother, what he has done, she kills herself. After the saga of revenge is over, Orin and Lavinia then close the Mannon’s mansion and voyage to the South Seas. Lavinia now blossoms into a replica of her voluptuous mother; she plans to marry and start a new life, agrees to the proposal of her former lover Peter, but loves Adam subconsciously and cries out to Peter, ‘Take me, Adam.’ The name of Adam slips from her tongue.

On the other hand Orin hounded by his guilt, threatens to reveal the Mannon’s misdeeds and tries to extort from Lavinia a promise never to leave him, but in her anguish she rebukes him bitterly and ruthlessly drives him to suicide. Now convinced that the Mannon blood is tainted with evil, she resolves to punish herself for her family’s guilt, orders to throw out all the flowers, to lock the doors and withdraws into it forever.

Even before Orin’s death the road was open for her to marry Peter and lead a blissful life, but mourning becomes Electra (Lavinia). Like a proud Mannon, she rejects the love of Peter and resigns herself to a life of tragedy, of loneliness and shuts herself up in the haunted house of dead Mannons. Her last act of self-sacrifice makes her one of the greatest tragic figures of literature. She is a woman who deserved love, she loved Peter and hopes to find solace and leave the haunted house by marrying Peter, but strong, as her craving for love and happiness is, she nips it in the bud after Orin’s death. Afterwards she discards all idea mirth and accepts the life of a recluse in the haunted house. She felt guilty of having goaded Orin to his death and wants to expiate her sin, by self-abnegation, when she says.