Reading Challenge Update: Mythology

I finished Mourning Becomes Electra the other day and I loved it. Mourning Becomes Electra is a 1930s play by Eugene O'Neill, based on and inspired by Aeschylus' trilogy The Oresteia. The original story features characters from ancient Greek myths, specifically the curse on the House of Arteus, which involves Agammenon and his descendants, a final installment in a long line of gruesome crimes. In The Orestia, like other Greek plays (Odepius Rex, Antigone), the writer explores themes of man defying the wrath and omniscience of the gods, as well as the role and relationships of family in one person's life. The tangled web of family creates complex stories in Greek mythology, which is rife with incest, patricide and pride. Many of the characters are vengeful, like the gods they worshipped.

Eugene O'Neill distills themes of familial avengence and pride, stressed and complicated by war in an updated, American setting. Mourning Becomes Electra takes place in a New England home at the end of the American Civil War. O'Neill mirrors the murderous acts (wife kills husband, son kills mother at sister's behest) in a jealous, secretive and prideful family. Where Aeschylus utilizes the Furies, deities of vengeance, O'Neill employs the more modern concept of self-blame and guilt. O'Neill also streamlines the complex Greek culture and extended timeline, collapsing his version into the span of one year. However, O'Neill maintains clear parallels to The Oresteia so that the original sheds light onto the updated telling.

I confess, I have yet to read The Oresteia, but a few google searches equipped me to see the throughlines from the original apparent in Mourning Becomes Electra. O'Neill writes a gripping story that I strongly recommend. By updating conflicts and themes present in Greek myth, O'Neill demonstrates that the urgency of family, revenge and pride is still upon us. A primary idea in both tellings of this generational story is that of philos-aphilos, which means, "love-in-hate." The murders in both texts are committed not against an external enemy but against a part of the self. O'Neill and Aeschylus explore the complex ties of child to parent and how that relationship defines the individual identities of said family members. At the time Aeschylus wrote, protecting the family name and line was of utmost importance, so a son must avenge his father. In Mourning Becomes Electra, the son feels closer to the mother, and as such cannot see her for her betrayals to the family name. His identity is so linked to his mother and her approval, that he blames himself completely for her death, though he never perpetrates physical violence against her. Additionally, the story is further complicated by the mother's loyalty to her lover, which she takes while her marriage is still intact. This puts her own needs and desires as an individual above that of her children or family. Betrayal runs rampant in Mourning Becomes Electra, like its Greek counterpart, resulting in rash behavior.


I really enjoyed reading Mourning Becomes Electra and strongly recommend it to readers interested in American playwrights. O'Neill beautifully transplants ideas from another era to a period in American history. In that vein, I also suggest Mourning Becomes Electra to those interested in texts that offer retellings of classic stories. I think that this reading challenge involving mythology, fairytales, folklore and fantasy really lends itself well to that interest. There are numerous retellings of classic Greek tragedies and myths and legends like King Arthur.

Up next: Fantasy (The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin)

- KER