This paper discusses Eugene O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra from a psychological point of view. It notes how the play relies on Freudian concepts like the Oedipus and Electra complexes to portray the characters' mental states and suppressed desires, which mold their actions. It analyzes how circumstances in the aristocratic Menon family devastated by mistakes lead Christine to kill her husband Ezra, though her action is understandable given her desperate emotional state and lack of alternatives. Overall, the paper argues the play can be best understood through the psychological portrayal of the characters' minds and souls.

1. Paper No.10
Name:- Sanjaykumar N Jogadiya.
Subject:- The American Literature
Topic:- Mourning Becomes Electra as a
psychological point of view
Part:- M.A. Sem-3
RollNo.24,
EnrollmentNo:-2069108420200017
 Email Id:- snjogadiya@amail.com
 Submitted:- Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English
MK Bhavnagar University.

2. Character and characteristics
• External events of the conspiracy after a play primarily relating
to the emotional and mental life of the characters. Character
and characteristics are of utmost importance in such works.
• Mental drama is placed on stressful motives that lead to action
rather than moral consequences.
• This type of play relies on discoveries made in the field by
Freud and his successors.
• Freud and his followers described human relationships in
terms of sexual meaning, laying the foundations for critical
approaches that attempt to interpret literature in terms of the
emotional and mental attitudes of characters.

3. • They also offer Editra Complex ad dips and concepts.
• Moreover, they said that suppressed sexual desires mold the
whole
• Human character. His work gave a new understanding of
human actions and deeds.
• His work revealed mental realities. Modern writers do not
ignore the reality of psychology. With the help of
psychological realism, humanism took a great leap forward.
• Before Freud and his teachings, men were considered either
virtuous or vile. So liked and disliked the virtues, while there
is hatred and dislike.

4. Psychological reality
• Instead, they proceeded with his role through many
circumstances. These circumstances may have their
origins in social, biological, religious and many other
sources.
• If we apply the above comments driven by short-
term electro bias
• Eugene, we think the play follows the comment
above.
• Be Electra mourning about the aristocratic family.
The family was devastated due to some mistakes in
the family members and eventually got out.

5. • It’s not hard to explain why Christine falls in love with Adam Brant
and why she hits the behavior of her husband or any other character
in the play.
• Ezra loved Christine before their marriage because of her physical
beauty and charm. But as soon as they get married and Christine
arrives without any dowry, their love stops. And when Christine sees
this change in her husband’s behavior, she is emotionally cut off from
her husband.
• She is relieved in her children, especially in her son Orin, but becomes
very desperate to take him away from her when Orin is there. Her
position at Menon House is an extra man.
• Circumstances like this are definitely desperate. However, we cannot
allow her action, we can understand her and it is this understanding
that we sympathize with Christine even though we have committed
an unforgivable sin by killing her husband.

6. • Now killing her husband was the rudest thing
expected from any woman but did she have any other
option? Probably not. She could not get a divorce
from Ezra, as Lavinia tells her unconsciously and if
she had run with Brant, her life could have been very
miserable because Ezra was an influential person.
• She hoped to fight but her hopes did not come true
and she had to do it herself. In the same way, we can
understand the actions of all the other characters
because the playwright has placed their minds and
souls before us through their psychological portrayal.
• Lavinia's love for her father and Christine's love for
Orin can be explained mentally.

7. Canclusion
• Here the author was referring to Freud and his
successors known as the Oedipus and Electra complexes.
On the surface, the play sounds like a story of revenge,
and the playwright hints that revenge is a self-
destructive passion. In other words, revenge destroys
both parties involved. And this really happens in drama.
• At the end of the story, we can safely say that a family
raised like Menon was convinced to endure because
pride and hypocrisy went deep into their bones. Abe's
pride and hypocrisy showed the seeds of his destruction
when he rejected his brother who fell in love with the
maid. However, its action can be interpreted
psychologically. That is why he was forced to make the
decision out of fear of society and religion.