SYMBOLISM IN MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA

Edwin Engel, in his brilliant analysis of the play, pointed to the dominant symbols and philosophy of Mourning Becomes Electra:
Symbolism is the practice of representing objects or ideas by symbols or of giving things a symbolic character and meaning. For example scales symbolize justice; a dove stands for peace; a lion stands for .strength and bravery. In all literary works, symbolism uses a concrete image to express an emotion or abstract idea. A symbol shows more than what is actually seen. Symbolism as ' a literary movement started in France in the nineteenth century.
O'Neill's use of symbolism is highly artistic. His use of symbolism is, artistically intended to extend the scope and meaning of the play. In "Mourning Becomes Electra", O'Neill uses Freudian psychological symbols.
He has used in his play a number of symbols - the mother image, the Blessed Isles (Desert Island), the Mannon portraits, etc. The very house of the Mannons stands as a symbol of hatred and callousness (cruelty, coldness). As Edwin Engel says, In Electra the Mother is a primordial (ancient) image, an archetypal (classic, conventional) experience shared by all the Mannons. Thus, Lavinia is identified with her mother, Christine, and both are the image of Marie Brantome.' Adam Brant falls in love with Christine because he associates her with his mother Marie. To him Lavinia looks like her mother. Only his mother (Marie Brantome) had hair like hers. O'Neill uses the Mother-image in details in the case of Orin. His love for his mother has sexual overtones (hint). He is his mother's crybaby. He used to wait as a child to get an extra goodnight kiss from his mother. When he comes back from the war he finds his mother beautiful, she is his 'only girl'. And Christine replies, 'You're a big man now, aren't you?' Lavinia and Orin are drawn to the parent who belongs to the opposite sex. With Orin, his mother means everything that is sweet, pure, lovely and comforting and peaceful.
He feels his mother around him in the Blessed Islands; the breaking of the waves was her voice. The sky had the colour of her eyes;" the whole island was Christine. So the mother symbol means much more than mother - peace, security, love, freedom from fear. After the suicide of Christine, Lavinia occupies the mother image for Orin and he loves her with all the guilt in him, the guilt they shared. Orin's subconscious motive, in taking Lavinia is to possess his mother completely and Lavinia would be able to share the burden of his guilt.
The Blessed Isles are a symbol of joy, purity and innocence of Orin, 'Lavinia and Christine and Adam. O'Neill is voicing (expressing) a yearning in the heart of the puritan man for an ideal paradise full of beauty and sinlessness. The islands are a place of beauty for Adam; a refuge and paradise for Orin and a lode (level) star for Christine and Lavinia. Thus the Blessed Islands have been invested with psychological dimensions of peace and new trouble-free life. The islands are thus an image of fresh new life. The islands motif (image) runs through the whole play tantalizing (tempting) and attracting Orin, Lavinia and Christine to a life of peace and nature and unalloyed happiness -their dream of an earthly paradise. As Lavinia says, 'I love those islands. They finished setting me free. There was something there, mysterious and beautiful- a good spirit - of love - coming out of the land and sea. It made me forget death. The islands stand for freedom from all puritan tabs (, bounds, check) freedom from pain and misery. O'Neill shows an average American's yearning to escape and return to paradise. But it remains a paradise lost a vision unachieved for grief is the lot of the Mannons and mourning becomes Electra.
The song of Shenandoah serves the purpose of a choral song. In the first part - Home Coining - Seth sings that melancholy song which has the brooding (gloomy, threatening) rhythm, of the sea. The song foreshadows (predict) unattainability and frustration for the characters. The song is there again after Christine's suicide; 'Oh, Shenandoah. I can't get near you,' casting a veil of finality (conclusiveness, determination) and mystery on Christine's death.
The symbol of the Mannon House shows us much more than a large house. It is a house built in hatred (of Marie Brantome's marriage with David). It is a house of death and the dead Mannons' portraits always intervene in the path of' happiness of their younger generation. It is a house, haunted by ghosts and sin and evil.
The use of symbolism adds a poetic quality to O'Neill's prose and universalizes the theme. It adds a new, dimension of emotion and depth of meaning to the dark events of the play. Thus as Travis Bogard puts it,
"Mourning Becomes Electra, perhaps O'Neill's most secular (worldly) play is also his least symbolic work to date. Such symbols as exist in the play, the house, for example, or the portraits, or the flowers, are all ' related to the human-beings at the central focus. Now, none of the conflict between character and symbol that beset (plagued, under pressure) many of the minor works and such major plays as Strange Interlude enters to plague this study of crime and retribution (revenge). There are no ambiguities; nothing is vague or suggested. The characters are drawn precisely, their story fully told, and they move toward a comprehensible (clear, understandable) and convincing destiny."