Life Is A Tragedy: A Freudian Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Orin In Mourning Becomes Electra

The trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra is one of the greatest tragedies of Eugene O'Neill. It is a combination of the majesty of ancient Greek drama and a strong modern sense. Different from Orestes, a brave, reasonable and responsible man, in Oresteia, the male character Orin in this play is controlled by the Oedipus complex severely, so he is characterized as an impulsive, blind and irrational figure. To him, life is hopeless and meaningless. To be sure, his tragic end is caused by many factors and this thesis aims to probe into the inner cause of Orin's tragedy from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis.The thesis is made up of three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion. The first part is a brief introduction to Eugene O'Neill and Mourning Becomes Electra, contemporary criticism on O'Neill and the play Mourning Becomes Electra and the research objective of this thesis. The body of this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One is a brief account of the theory related to Mourning Becomes Electra, which conveys the basic theory of Freud's Oedipus complex and personality structure.Chapter Two explores the reflection of the Oedipus complex on Orin. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part mainly probes into the relationship between Eugene O'Neill and Orin. As is known, Orin is perplexed with the Oedipus complex in the play. It is widely held that O'Neill was influenced by Freudian Psychoanalysis. Through researching O'Neill's biography, it is found that O'Neill is perplexed with the Oedipus complex as well. The other part of this chapter is about Orin's Oedipus complex. In the play Orin shows his hostility to his father and his uncle while his love for his mother and his sister is obvious as well.The third chapter focuses on the analysis of Orin's personality structure. The id of Orin is strong. In the play his incestuous desire for his mother is obvious. He takes his mother as his real lover rather than a mother merely. He persuades his mother to live with him on the South Sea Islands more than once. Rather, his ego is so weak that it couldn't control the strong id. To some extent, his superego is lost. Although his ego adopts many defense mechanisms such as repression, displacement and denial to handle the anxiety he meets, it doesn't work successfully. On the contrary, the imbalance between the id and the superego becomes more and more serious and eventually goes beyond the control of his ego. In the end, Orin commits suicide.The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the previous ideas and points out that the root cause of Orin's tragedy is the Oedipus complex and his unhealthy personality structure. In addition to the social, historical and cultural reasons, his personal defects are major causes for his failure of struggle. Because of his own limitations, all his efforts are doomed to be fruitless.