This document provides an overview of Eugene O'Neill's play "Mourning Becomes Electra". It discusses expressionism as a modernist movement originating in Germany in the early 20th century. Expressionism rejects realism and naturalism, using distorted representations to convey subjective emotions and psychological states. The play is an example of expressionism, with distorted characters and dialogue expressing diseased minds and a case study for psychiatrists. It explores themes of family, guilt, incest, and death through the dysfunctional Mannons family after the death of the patriarch Ezra.

1. M.K.BHAVNAGR UNIVERSITY
Paper : 10 The American Literature
Expressionism
In the play
‘Mourning Becomes Electra’
M.A. SEM -3
Enrollment No : PG14101020
Email- ID : bhumivjoshi@gmail.com
Presented By : Bhumi V Joshi

2. Major points of My Presentation
:What is Expressionism?
Historical Background
Subject matters
Characteristics
About play – Mourning Becomes Electra
How Expressionism is applied in this play ?
-Characters
-House
-Mask- technique
-Example dialogue from the text
-Death
Epilogue

3. What is Expressionism ?
Expressionism was a modernist movement
Initially started in poetry and painting, originating
in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century.
Expressionism, the post-World War I
disillusionment.
One of the symptomatic features of this
disillusionment is the protest against the stultifying
patriarchal concept of a family.

4. Historical Background
 It was the period of just before, during, and after the
World War First.
 Departed from realistic depictions of life and the world,
by incorporating in their art visionary or powerfully
emotional states of mind that are expressed and
transmitted by means of distorted representations of the
outer world.
 Expressionism itself was not a concerted or well defined
movement.

5. The arrival of Expressionism
announced new a standards in the
creation and judgment of art.

6. Expressionists reject Naturalism &
Realism
Expressionist wanted to project in outer
symbols a state of mind, an inner crisis, a
psychological condition.
This also involved expressions of the
dream state
Expressionists describe Subjective
emotions
The artist accomplishes this aim
through distortion,
exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy
and through the vivid, jarring, violent,
or dynamic application of formal
elements.

7. Subject Of
Expressionists
Agony
Anxiety
Distorted
Death

8. Characteristics Of
Expressionism
Anti-
Realism
Utopia
Exaggeration
and
distortion
Individuality

9. Introduction Of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill was the first American
dramatist to regard the stage as a
literary medium and the first U.S.
Born on October 16, 1888, in a New
York City hotel room, writer Eugene
Gladstone O'Neill was one of the most
admired playwrights of all time. His
talent for poignant and piercing
dramas sprang from a life marked by
challenges.

10. About The Play : • In Literature, a technique of
distorting objects and events in order to
represent them as they are perceived by
a character in a literary work.
•Expressionism’ was a kind of technique
which not becomes vital part in the
literature but it existed as experimental
technique for literature.
• Analysis of a diseased mind,
• A case study for psychiatrist
• Characters are too far removed from
the realm of common experience.

11. “Realism ends where the superconsious begins.”
Character has only to express a
desire for something in order
the get just to opposite before
the end of the act.
“ More sense of unreal
behind what we call
reality which is the real
reality.”

13. Characters :
Ezra mannon's the image of pride , Puritanism , egotism,
and retribution.
Christine …..
“ Has a fine voluptuous figure and she moves with a flowing
animal grace.”
She has physical charms , rich copper hair and fine eyes.
Lavinia is copy of her mother in her attractiveness.
“ Her brown gold hair is arranged as her mother’s has
been.”

14. Mask- Technique
The description of the mother and
the daughter -Mask like faces and
ways of speaking and moving ,
sometimes with horror of an
automation.
“ The effect is more potential than Actual.”

15. Dialogues :
“I know you, Vinnie! I’hve watched you ever since you
were little, trying to do exactly what you are doing now!
You’hve tried to become the wife of your father and
mother of Orin.’ Yo hve akways Schemed to steal my
place.”
Christine says..
Lavinia says..
“My father needs me more . I want to be the wife
of my father.”

16. “Mother! Don’t moan like that! How could you grieve for that servant’s
bastard? I knew he was the one who planned Father’s murder! You
couldn’t have done that! He got you under his influence to revenge
himself!...But you’ll forget him! I’ll make you forget him! I’ll make you
happy.”
where Orin rebels against his father and is in love with his mother,
with the love-relationship suggesting a Freudian urge.
Orin says to Lavinia….
“I love you now with all the guilt in me-the guilt we share! Perhaps I
love you too much, Vinnie……. There are times now when you don’t
seem to be my sister, nor Mother, but some stranger with the same
beautiful hair-”.
Orin says..

17. Death
“Life was dying , death was being born”
Death of Ezra Manonn
Suicide of Christine
Murder of Adam Brant
Suicide of Orin

18. Disillusionment is the protest
against the stultifying
patriarchal concept of a family.
The protest is invariably
directed against family
relationships and the way in
which these relationships
prevent the youth from
developing their individuality.

19. Subjective treatment, tap their stream
of consciousness if need be, penetrate
into their inner most beings, and lay
bare their dreams , their infibulations
and the hidden workings of their minds
– reactions and mental state could not
be included in the external observation
of the camera.
“ Eye -of the X-Ray instead of the
camera.”