Mourning Becomes Electra The Haunted, Act 1, Scene 2 Summary

  • Speaking of dead people and pictures, we're back in the sitting-room (aka the Hall of Dead Relatives), and Lavinia's by herself.
  • She yells at the pictures, saying she did what they wanted her to do and they should leave her alone.
  • Orin suddenly walks in, moving kind of like a robot.
  • He manages to startle Lavinia, but things are only going to get weirder.
  • Orin tells her that he's just come from the study, where he thought he'd find Christine waiting for him. For obvious reasons, he's wrong.
  • The pictures hanging in the sitting-room frighten him.
  • He says he hopes they'll leave him alone, and Lavinia tells him to knock off the strangeness.
  • Trying to get him to think about anything other than their dead mother, Lavinia asks Orin if he's excited to see Hazel again.
  • All Orin says is that he doesn't understand why she's been talking about Peter and Hazel the whole way back home.
  • She says it's because they need to focus on living in the present and trying to be happy.
  • Orin says he can't get over how much like Christine Lavinia's become in the past months.
  • Rather than being grossed out by this, Lavinia actually seems kind of flattered.
  • Off in his own guilt-ridden world, Orin goes on about how Lavinia looks, acts, and thinks like Christine, and how weird it is that Lavinia killed her only to become her.
  • Lavinia says she's sick of that kind of nonsense and wouldn't have brought him back home if he wasn't over saying stuff like that.
  • Orin says something about it being his brotherly duty to get her off the island—which is a big hint that some not-so-cool stuff went on there.
  • Lavinia tries to convince Orin he doesn't need to feel guilty. It's taking every ounce of Lavinia's energy to convince her brother that mommy was a murdering adulteress who got what she deserved.
  • Peter shows up and is stunned that they're back so soon. And by how much Lavinia has grown to look like her dead mother.
  • Of course, the fact she's wearing a dress that's her mom's favorite color probably doesn't help.
  • Peter finds himself overcome with love and lust for this newly voluptuous Lavinia.
  • Like some kind of lost kitten, Orin has wandered over to a window and is staring out of it.
  • Lavinia tries to get his attention.
  • After a little polite chatter between Peter and Orin, Orin mentions that Lavinia's adopted Christine's signature color.
  • Lavinia and Peter brush it off. Peter asks all about her travels.
  • Orin mentions that they spent some time in the South Pacific islands, a regular tropical paradise.
  • Not wanting to make Peter jealous, she said she didn't really have that much fun.
  • Orin, who's decided to be a butt-head, mentions that Lavinia didn't mind checking out men while they were there. Especially this one guy named Avahanni.
  • Doing her best to brush it off, she tells Orin to quit being a little fibber, babying him the way Christine used to (O'Neill really wants us to notice a pattern here), and telling him to go find Hazel.
  • He goes, but not without giving Peter a dirty look.
  • When Peter wonders about why Orin's acting so strangely, Lavinia chalks it up to him never being quite right after the war, and that grief has made it worse.
  • Lavinia gets to flirting with Peter, talking about how much the islands changed her for the better and how much she missed him.
  • She literally throws herself at Peter, and says she wants to be married—but then remembers that she can't leave Orin alone.
  • (Lavinia blames it on the way he's grieving, but it's really because she's afraid he'll talk about Brant's murder).
  • They agree to marry anyway.
  • Peter says Orin can live with them, and that they'll try and make him better. They seal their agreement with a kiss just as Orin and Hazel show up.
  • Orin realizes what's just happened.
  • At first he seems jealous, but then he acts strangely happy.