Break out the s'mores and flashlights, because it's time to start talking about all of the spooky stuff that gets a mention in Mourning Becomes Electra. In a series of plays where death is literally everywhere, it makes sense that a lot of otherworldly imagery—ghosts, the undead, evil spirits hell-bent on revenge—is hanging out in the trilogy. O'Neill uses the supernatural like some kind of ghost-story ninja, using it to talk about guilt and remorse, madness and fear, salvation and damnation, and a whole lot of other really heavy ideas. He said his goal was to achieve a "power and drive and the strange quality of unreal reality I wanted […] attained without benefit of the supernatural." (Source). The Mannons are haunted as much by the memories of their own actions as by the (imagined) spirits of their dead. The title of the last play—The Haunted—is spot-on. Even if O'Neill intends the haunting to be a metaphor, the feeling of unreality is definitely there.
Questions About The Supernatural
- How are death and the supernatural related in O'Neill's trilogy?
- Do you think there's a difference between the "Evil Spirit" that Seth talks about and the ghosts that haunt the Mannon home?
- Characters seem divided on whether or not the Mannon home is actually haunted. What do their different opinions tell us about them?
Chew on This
In Mourning Becomes Electra, the ghosts are actually expressions of the guilt or shame that many major characters feel.
In O'Neill's trilogy, ghosts are connected to the past and are one way that O'Neill introduces and plays with the idea of fate.