Mourning Becomes Electra Analysis

A Small Seaport Town in New England, 1865-1866 Even though O'Neill was clear that he wanted to create a modern psychological drama, he decided to set the story in the past. His re-creation of Ne...

Third-Person Omniscient Technically, since this is a play, there isn't really a narrator in the same way there's a narrator for a novel, short story, or poem. The narration is really in the desc...

If you're looking for a laugh-out-loud, fun-for-the whole family good-timey romp, don't read Mourning Becomes Electra. We might stop scowling for a sec when we see Peter, Hazel, Orin, and Lavinia...

Detached vs. Dark; MelodramaticWhen we're reading the playwright's descriptions of characters and places, or the notes about how characters say or react to something, O'Neill's narrator is matter-o...

Short and Simple, but Sometimes Surreal Overall, the writing style is pretty straightforward. O'Neill was a twentieth-century American playwright, and the play reads like it was written by a twe...

In a play that's definitely got its fair share of strangeness, the title itself might also seem more than slightly odd. Mourning Becomes Electra. Who's Electra? There's not even a character named E...

A series of plays that's an updated and remodeled version of a classic Greek tragedy is not going to have a happy ending. Still, in a trilogy where pretty much every major character is dead by the...

The language and style of Mourning Becomes Electra make for some pretty smooth sailing overall. But there are times when reading it can feel like playing tag with a semi-truck with no brakes lo...

Exposition (Initial Situation) Home is Where the Hate Is Even though Mourning Becomes Electra is technically a trilogy, it's kind of like the literary version of Lays Potato Chips—you really ca...

O'Neill's own family had its own share of dysfunction, and he mined it in writing his plays. Drug addicted mother, suicide attempts, a distant father, alcoholism—he didn't have to make this stuff...

When it comes to things that make a caregiver want to cover their kid's eyes, Mourning Becomes Electra has it all. Not a single part of the trilogy ends without a major character dying. Some of the...

Literary and Philosophical References The Oresteia by Aeschylus: This stuff is literally everywhere, from how the trilogy is structured to the names of characters—notice how "Ezra Mannon" s...