Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Psychiatrist: "I have to tell you, madam, that your son is suffering from an Oedipus complex." Mother: "Oedipus, Schmoedipus! What does it matter, so long as he loves his mother?"
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
The plot of Mourning Becomes Electra may be based on Aeschylus' Oresteia but the psychological motivation is straight out of another Greek myth: Oedipus the King, about the unfortunate guy who unwittingly kills his father, King Laius of Thebes and marries his mother, Queen Jocasta.
After Oedipus's birth, Laius hears a prophecy from an oracle that he'll be killed by his own son, who will then marry his mother. He does what any self-respecting monarch would do—leaves his baby son in the wilderness to be eaten by beasts. Problem solved. But not so fast—the baby is rescued and gets adopted and lovingly raised by a foreign king and his wife. Oedipus hears rumors he was adopted, but when he asks an oracle about it, he only learns that he's fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Naturally, he flees in terror, not wanting to fulfill the prophecy.
On his way to Thebes, he runs into an old man who won't move his chariot out of the way. In a fit of road rage, he kills the man and continues on his way. Unbeknownst to Oedipus, he's fulfilling the oracle's prophecy. Eventually, Oedipus is given the throne of Thebes after saving the city from the curse of the Sphinx. The queen's been widowed, so natch, he marries her.
The oracle's prophecy is now totally fulfilled, but the city is struck with a horrible plague. A prophet tells Oedipus it's because the murder of the king has never been solved. You can guess the rest. As Oedipus investigates the situation further, he and Jocasta gradually realize what has happened—Oedipus was actually adopted, and the guy in the chariot was his biological father Laius. Jocasta, realizing she's been sleeping with her own son, runs into the palace and kills herself; Oedipus blinds himself with a pin from her dress.
In the late 1800s, the great psychologist Sigmund Freud attended a performance of Sophocles' play about this myth, called Oedipus the King. And the rest is history.
Here's the history. Freud had noticed in his work that young boys starting at around age three (the age he believed they became aware of their penises) become sexually and jealously attached to their mothers. He called this the "Oedipal phase" of psychosexual development. During the Oedipal phase, the boy sees his father as a rival for his mother's love and unconsciously wishes daddy were dead so he can have mommy to himself. He then unconsciously fears that Daddy will cut off his penis in retaliation. You may have heard the term "castration anxiety." Well, that's it. (Freud assumed that little boys by this time have noticed that half the population don't have penises, so they figured they were cut off.) Isn't this all so interesting??
In most cases, parents handle this phase appropriately, set boundaries, keep the intimacy between themselves, etc., and by about age 6, the boys have had enough of castration anxiety, give up the attachment to Mommy, repress those sexual feelings and get on with the business of being boys and wanting to be like their fathers. If parents mishandle the Oedipal phase for whatever reason—e.g. the mother acts like Christine Mannon—then the kid can be permanently stuck in this phase, unable to have healthy relationships or a healthy sense of self. He would seek out relationships with women who reminded him of mommy. Freud thought that most psychological problems could be traced to an unsuccessful resolution of the Oedipal conflict. Exhibit A: Orin Mannon.
Don't feel left out, ladies. Freud's famous student Carl Jung coined the phrase "Electra Complex" to describe a little girl's version of this conflict. Electra was Orestes' sister and she helped plot to kill their mother Clytemnestra. In the female version of the Oedipal story, the little girl realizes she's been "castrated", and develops "penis envy."
Her solution is to marry daddy and have a baby, and the baby becomes her consolation prize for not having a penis. Girls who don't successfully work out their Electra complex will always look for guys who resemble daddy, and grow up to be aggressive and controlling. We can see that Lavinia Mannon obviously never resolved her Electra complex, because she ends up turning Orin into her child—and he actually is her daddy's child. That's one twisted solution.
Freud's ideas were hugely popular in the U.S. when O'Neill was writing his plays, so he would have been very familiar with the Oedipal theory. Mourning Becomes Electra is absolutely soaking in it.