Mourning Becomes Electra - Eugene O’Neill

Mourning Becomes Electra

-        Eugene O’Neill

           Eugene O’Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate. He was among those first writers who introduced realism in American drama techniques. O’Neill’s characters used to struggle a lot and maintain hopes but ultimately slide into illusion and despair.

      “Mourning Becomes Electra” is a play cycle published in 1931. The story of this play is adopted from “Oresteia” by Aeschylus. “Orestia” is a Greek tragedy and the characters of the tragedy are driven by the fate. O’Neill has presented the tragedy by including psychological fate in it. The play includes two major psychological terms Electra complex and Oedipus complex.

       If we compare Greek and American tragedies, there are several similarities and difference in characters and situations

Greek	American
Oresteia	Mourning Becomes Electra
Aeschylus	Eugene O’Neill
1 Agamemnon	1 Home Coming
2 The Libation Bearers	2 The Hunted
3 The Eumenides	3 The Haunted
Agamemnon	Ezra Pound
Clytemnestra	Christine
Orestes	Orin
Electra	Lavinia
Adam Brant	Aegisthus
Trojan War	American Civil War

 

         Here I would like to share O’Neill’s view when he was writing the play. O’Neill asked himself – 

“Is it possible to get modern psychological approximation of Greek sense of fate into a play, which an intelligent audience of today, who has no belief in Gods or supernatural retribution” three years later he founded an answer, he used “Psychological fate”.

       The play includes themes like family, lies and deceit, sex and lust, death, justice and judgement and society and class. Electra complex is displayed by Lavinia,

Lavinia – I can’t marry anyone, father needs me.

Peter – He’s got your mother.

Lavinia – He needs me more.

Orin displays Oedipus complex by loving is mother,

“The breaking of the waves was your voice, the sky was the same colour as your eyes, the warm send was like your skin, and the whole island was you.”

Online Discussion - Is GOD Needless hypothesis?

#  Instructions by Teacher

     After reading in the given context, your task is to answer these questions:

1) Have we outgrown the psychological,  emotional and spiritual need of God?


2) How far can u agree with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris who have cogently and eloquently argued that far from being a negation of moral codes and an ethical life, atheism as a form of consciousness raising is an affirmation of spiritual transcendence?


3) is it time we outgrew that 'Needless hypothesis'?    

 #  My answer of the given task:

1)  Believe in God is good but it shouldn't be blindly. The problem is not with the concept of God but the structure of Religion.

2)  We must follow our heart with our moral values, not with religious values. The rules by religion are not from God but humans who has developed religions.

3)  God is all about spirituality which creates the sense of divinity in human life, which helps humans to get peace in life.

      This was my answer in semester 1^st, but if now I think about this discussion I can discuss more about this. I can take a stand that yes “God is a needless hypothesis” because I have studied the theory of “Ubermesh” by Fredrik Nietzsche. In country like India, this theory is impossible to accept because from the birth of a child people start telling that “Bhagwan ki den hai…” and when a person die, again people say that “Yahi marzi thi bhagwan ki…”

    1)  We can never come out of the psychological, emotional and spiritual need of God, because we cannot accept our deeds with courage so we need the concept which forgives and hides our bad deeds. If God is there, control is there. If there will not be a fear of God, people will start doing immoral things easily. God is like a teacher or captain in the class. We can never come out of it.

    2)  Religion distracts and spirituality shows the right path. One should be spiritually developed rather than religiously corrupt. Atheism leads to the spirituality with our ethics, while religion leads towards God (whose existence is questioned) with the rules of religion.

    3)  Yes, now we can come out of this needless hypothesis. After being aware by such theories and concepts of astronomy, no one has found God in space. But to come out from this needless hypothesis is to come out of the ‘fear’ and it is not easy. 

Online Discussion: Quotes of Virginia Woolf: My top 3 quotes.

#  Instructions by Teacher

All students:
Here is an interesting writeup with top 10 quotes from Virginia Woolf.
Your task is to identify top 3 from these ten quotes and organise in the sequence of ur likeness. Do not miss to give the reason/s for your likeness.

Source: http://www.bustle.com/articles/57656-10-virginia-woolf-quotes-that-show-us-why-shes-still-a-literary-boss?utm_source=FBOnsite

1. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
Hell yes. Since Woolf published her famous essay in 1929, “A Room of One’s Own” has become a feminist battlecry. Appropriated from its intended audience of female artists, the simple demand for independence and privacy now feels like the most basic — though sometimes most difficult to achieve — right of women everywhere.

2. “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
Virginia Woolf wrote whatever subject she felt like writing about in whatever style she felt like writing in. Diaries, stream of consciousness, “purple” prose — Woolf refused to be pigeonholed. Oh, and she wouldn’t even give anybody a chance to reject her writing, by going straight to self-publishing.

3. “The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.”
Forget propriety and expectations. We can try to blame the Roaring ‘20s, but Woolf didn’t like to deny herself certain pleasures, whether it was a good book, a good debate, or an extramarital affair with another woman.

4. “Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having.”
Virginia Woolf was not a complacent woman. She worked for the things she wanted with tireless enthusiasm, whether the pursuit was political, romantic, professional, or intellectual. Pretty cool for a woman practically bred for entitlement.

5. “To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.”
Woolf was a member of the intellectual class, but she wasn’t a snob. She wrote a lot about books and reading, and was adamant that access, not judgment, was what readers deserved. It would have been fun to know what she thought of Fifty Shades of Grey.

6. “They can because they think they can.”
Virginia Woolf didn’t like limitations, and gave us robust, thinking female protagonists, from party-throwing Clarissa Dalloway to portrait-painting Lily Briscoe. But of course, the person who broke through the most barriers, rose to the most challenges, was Woolf herself.

7. “Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.”
Woolf believed women should possess intelligence and independence and pursued both in her life and her writing. Many of her protagonists struggle with the desire to achieve one or both of these things.

8. “The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of emancipation itself.”
Virginia Woolf was not naïve enough to believe that just because women got the vote, that they had achieved equality. The more things change…

9. "It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly."
Woolf often said that she was bored by men, and a belief in gender fluidity and sexual freedom paired with her lackluster confidence in men’s authority was evident in much of her writing. Don’t let the cardigans fool you.

10. “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
In a time when silence, exile, denial, and shame were the prevailing attitudes towards sufferers of sexual abuse and mental illness, Woolf remained open and honest about her struggles. In the end, the knowledge that she could not escape her illness nor survive it any longer drove her to suicide at age 59, but she never once pretended that it wasn’t happening to her.

# My answer of the given task:

My three favourite quotes by Virginia Woolf:

1 "Never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having"

     If you are not able to get anything after your hard work, it doesn't need to feel bad and to pretend over society or yourself that the thing or goal was not worth, it was all about dedication that was not sufficient.

2 "They can because they think they can"

     Thinking is the most necessary thing, if one cannot think it’s not possible to for her or him to do any think. first there should be an "idea" and then an "action" takes place. There are so many examples of successful people who succeed just because they think they could, as it is said, 'an idea can change your life'

3 “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."

    One should have that capacity to accept the truth about her/his own self. If you cannot accept yourself with all your faults and bad habits which you are hiding to others, you could never accept others. First you should be aware of yourself and accept it. And follow the concept of truth regarding our own self.

Online Discussion: Ancient vs Modern: Isn't it stupid to think who is better?

#  Instructions by Teacher

Sem 1:


Reference: Dryden's Essay.
Point of Debate: Ancient vs Modern.

Read attached writeup from Chitralekha magazine.
Isn't it true that such writings which narrowly focuses on "Who is better?" conditions our mind to think of "comparison"  always in terms of 'good and bad?. Isn't it true that such conditioning narrows our thinking? We are unable to restore connection between the past and the present when we see things as antithesis to each other.  We always think that one should be better than the Other. The idea of mutual coexistence ceases to exist in our mind and thus we fail to coexist with difference.


The writer would have read Dryden's Essay to understand an important point to keep in mind while we "compare".
"Discussion of Ancient and Modern shud not be for who is better, it shud be more filename tally about how "history" itself functioned and shud be read, thus it shud be about the relationship between past ans present, humanity and nature, and human understanding and knowledge."

What is your opinion about this two viewpoint?
It would be good if you support your argument with personal or general real life experiences.
Sem 3 students should participate along with sem 1 in this online discussion.

#   My answer of the given task:

      There is nothing like modern or ancients, it’s all about accepting the things which we have around us and break down our rigidity so the newness could enter within us. Modernity helps us to invent new things and better living of life, but its also truth that newness only comes with breaking and knowing old rules. So the knowledge of both is requiring. Past is also important to make future and there should be a sense of ancient ideas so one can be modern.

Online Discussion: Threats to Creativity and Freedom of Expression

#  Instructions by Teacher

All students:

Here is attached a brief interview of Javed Akhtar.

There are some rumours about A R Rahman to give music in an Iranian film on Mohmad Paigambar. It is not permitted under Quran to portray Mohmad Paigambar in painting or moving picture. If A R Rahman is involved in such film, it may hurt religious sensibilities of Indian Muslims and so he is threatened that there may be Fatwa against him.

Secondly, there is a film being planned on the life of Tipu Sultan - a Muslim ruler of Mysore. It is rumoured that Rajnikant will play the role of Tipu Sultan. This has hurt religious sensibilities of Hindus. It is also belived that Tipu was against Tamils and so no Tamil should play any role in the biopic on Tipu.

Well, the majority exerts their likeness and prejudices over the minorities and in the process construct a 'culture'. The said culture is appropriate for the majority and so most of them believe it to be moral / right / true way of living life. Later on, such way of life is 'naturalised' and justified by mythical stories of brave people belonging to the majority.

Literary writers, by and large, are part of the process. At times, literary writers pose a threat or protest to such process. Such protests of past are not visible today ad history rarely takes notice of it. But we can read them as they happen while we are living. Observing contemporary times with spectacles of historical sense makes us aware of such process.

Here is an example in this small interview. Javed Akhtar writes that he would rethink several times to write a scene written in Sholay.

What is that scene? Why would he rethink before writing of such scenes?

What do you comprehend from the interview?

Be brief, precise and to the point in your reply.

#  My answer of the given task:

      All artists should have the freedom of using their art in the way they want to use it. There should not be any kind of control and boundaries on an artist by the chains of Religion or history. History presents truth but people are not ready to accept that and that is the reason that Rajnikant is not allowed to play the role of Tipu Sultan. It's not important that what Tipu Sultan has done in history because the situation of that time was totally different and in now days it's very silly to stop Rajnikant to do the film. Religion has became the most sensitive part of Indians, and the strong belief that only their religion is superior, and they don't want to allow any aspect to interfere in that and not ready to even accept the other religion.