A textual Comparison - Term Paper Example

This paper will attempt to compare and discuss O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra and Sophocles’ Electra in order to ascertain the extent of the influence of classic literature to modern drama. When a writer provoked comparison with the ancient Greek tragedians, as O’Neill does so, he cannot quite protest if his dispute is recognised and he is evaluated rigidly by their standards. Certainly, what would be offensive and an act of intentional and insulting denigration, would be a thoughtful analysis of Mourning Becomes Electra as rather ‘well done’ for an American, but apparently not, a work to be evaluated by European standards.

I will not replicate that mockery to O’Neill. Because he boldly tries to write on the level of the three ancient Greek tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides), this paper will give him the privilege to evaluate him by the same standards applied to the ancient playwrights, particularly to Sophocles. The preliminary acts of Mourning Becomes Electra could have written only by a natural dramatist. Even though the play is lengthy, the acts are efficiently constructed, even in the final, scattered portion of the trilogy.

The general of the Greek armies, and fortunate king and husband of the regal Clytemnestra, when he set forth on the expedition against Troy left behind him two smouldering fires of revenge. His father had been guilty of the blood of his own brother and nephews. One of the boys, Aegisthus had been spared and was now growing to manhood with but one purpose in life—to shed the blood of his more fortunate kinsman. But even more sinister was the pain he left in the heart of his wife, for before sailing, to insure the success of the enterprise, Agamemnon had been forced to slay his own daughter Iphigenia.

During the long years of the war, the wife and the cousin can brood and plot, making common cause in behalf of justice. Justice—the call is as old as human nature. It’s a