Assignment: Role of fate in the life of characters with reference to "Mourning becomes Electra"

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Role of Fate in the life of characters with reference to “Mourning  Becomes Electra”

M.K Bhavnagar University

Department of English

Sem 3

Name- Hema Goswami

Roll no. 13

Enrollment no. 2069108420180020

Paper no. 10- The American Literature

Topic: Role of fate in the life of characters with reference to “Mourning becomes Electra

Introduction

Fate plays a vital role in the life of characters. It is responsible in making the life tragic or comic. It brings downfall or also brings success. Therefore in any success or failure story, there is great role of fate. From very ancient time the writers have written several major texts in which fate of the protagonist plays vital role and change the life totally. Some texts are “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles, “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and many more.

Mourning becomes Electra is also significant text in study of fate in the life of characters.

Mourning becomes Electra

Mourning becomes Electra by Eugene O’ Neill is a retelling of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. The characters are the parrallel characters from the ancient Greek play. Character of Ezra Mannon is taken from the Greek play character Agamemnon, similarly Christine’s character is taken from Clytemnestra, Orin from Orestes, Lavinia from Electra, Adam Brant from Aegisthus (Wikipedia contributors). Therefore this triology is based on Greek Tragedy with all its kings and curses.

Role of Fate: A challenge for Eugene O’Neill

It was a challenge for Eugene O’Neill to bring fate into such a play, which an intelligent audience of today, possessed of no belief in Gods and supernatural retribution. So he had discovered a modern equivalent for the Greek idea of fate. All the characters of “Mourning becomes Electra” are wind up to dead. Fate plays here the great role in the death of the characters. Fate stalks the Mannons and shoves them along towards their inevitable end. According to the belief of Greeks Fate determines our lives, they also have one Goddess “Tyche” who controlled the fortunes of men (shmoop editorial team)

Greek Goddess Tyche

Tyche meaning luck, in Classical Greek Mythology, she is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus. The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no one cause can be discovered to events such as floods, drought, frosts, and then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche (Wikipedia contributors).

Role of fate in the life of Ezra Mannon

Ezra Mannon is a self made man. The play portrays his character in a positive way as it never shows his negative side. In the very beginning of the play there is one line which welcomes Ezra, “This town’s real proud of Ezra”. All have good opinion for him but none of them have good opinion for his wife Christine. The trouble in the life of Ezra begins with his wife Christine; she is responsible to change the fate of Ezra from success to downfall, from life to death. Through the character of Christine Eugene shows the bad luck of Ezra.

Ezra is on the front and is expected to return to the town soon and he does return earlier than expected but merely to meet his death. At first his wife fools him about Adam Brant’s relationship with their daughter  Lavinia. Later during night Ezra blames her of lying to him about love since their wedding night. The quarrel begins and it goes on till she finally declares that she has been in love with Adam Brant. Ezra Mannon got struck by hearing this and meets his heart attack. He needs medicine instantly. But 

Christine gave him poison instead of medicine. He has trust in Christine that’s why taking the poison by thinking it as medicine to cure his heart ache. But when suddenly the poison started spreading in his body he realized the cunningness of his wife, but now it’s too late to realize. He wants’ help but there is no one. Before his final breath Lavinia heard some kind of voices and immediately came to the room of Ezra Mannon, finding him taking his last breath. Ezra pointed out to Christine for the reason of his death and therefore Lavinia got the message and then plans to take revenge from her own mother (Rise notes contributors)

In this Ezra destined to meet his tragic doom through the character of Christine.

Role of fate in the life of Christine

Here in the character of Christine, Lavinia plays a vital role in changing the fate of her. Lavinia is the only daughter of Christine but responsible for the death of Christine. She has not giving any physical torture to her mother, but gives a lot of mental torture.

Christine is responsible for the Oedipus complex of her child Orin. Christine is not happy with her husband Ezra Mannon. She dislikes him, that’s why having an extra-marital affair with Adam Brant. There is one line which shows the hatred of Christine over Ezra Mannon.

“You want the truth? You’ve guessed it! You’ve used me, you’ve given me children but I have never once been yours!”

Christine hates Lavinia, because Lavinia is the sign of her and Ezra relationship. She didn’t want any type of memory of Ezra. She differentiated between Orin and Lavinia. She cares too much for Orin, and wants him to settle down and marry his cousin Hazel. She always remains unfaithful to her husband and poisoned him when he returns from war.  

Later on in the story we feel like she was in deep love with her son Orin and wanted to settle down with him. But unfortunately Lavinia as her bad luck always shatters downs her plans. She along with her brother Orin murdered the lover of her mother that is Adam Brant. Therefore when Lavinia left no choice for Christine to survive, then she commit suicide.

In this way Lavinia is responsible to make her mother’s life tragic. Fate plays vital role, if Christine got caring daughter then the case will be different (Rise notes contributors)

Role of Fate in the life of Orin

There is another tragic story of Orin Mannon, son of Ezra and Christine. In his story Lavinia has work as a bad luck that is responsible to make Orin alone and at last Orin also commit suicide like his mother. He loves Christine a lot. There is Oedipus complex in between Mother and son relationship. For her mother he ignores Hazel whom he supposed to marry. He has been never in love with Hazel. He took interest in Hazel just to create jealousy in her mother.

“That was only to make you jealous!(then bitterly) But now you are a widow, I’m Not home an hour before you’re trying to marry me off! You must be damned anxious to get rid of me again! Why?”

Orin is the only male heir of Mannon family but his death brings the fall of the family. Lavinia never leaves any chance to convince her brother against Christine. She makes her all efforts and was succeeding also in the end because as per the plan of Lavinia Orin murdered Adam Brant, the lover of Christine. Then Christine commit suicide, finds herself all alone, without Adam, without Orin. After the death of mother Lavinia was left with Orin. Then Orin has been taking fullest interest in her because she resembles her mother. He even proposes her to stay with him and ignore Peter, but Lavinia can’t. As a result Orin feels defeated and missed badly his mother. Therefore he decided to choose the same path as his mother has chosen, suicide, the only way to get rid of his life (Rise notes contributors)

Conclusion

In this way fate plays a vital role in the life of the three main characters of “Mourning becomes Electra”. They are destined to meet their tragic doom in one or another way. Therefore Eugene O’ Neill reveals the tragic psychological fate in the play by making his characters appear on the stage all with the same “life-like mask, a mask used to hide and pretend their true inner selves (Yijin).

Works Cited

Rise notes contributors. Ezra character in mourning becomes electra. <https://www.risenotes.com/electra/Mourning-Becomes-Electra-character-of-Ezra-Mannon.php>.

—. Mourning becomes electra Orin character. <https://www.risenotes.com/electra/Mourning-Becomes-Electra-character-of-Orin.php>.

—. Mourning becomes electra: Christine character. <https://www.risenotes.com/electra/Mourning-Becomes-Electra-character-of-Christine.php>.

shmoop editorial team. mourning becomes electra theme of fate. 11 december 2008. 13 october 2008 <https://www.shmoop.com/mourning-becomes-electra/fate-theme.html>.

Wikipedia contributors. Mourning becomes Electra. 28 october 2018. 3 november 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mourning_Becomes_Electra&oldid=866146883>.

—. tyche. 23 july 2018. 3 november 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tyche&oldid=851642802>.

Yijin, Gong. "Mourning becomes Electra: morbid psychology under the mask." IRA- International journal of education and multidisciplinary studies (2017): 22-26.