Mourning Becomes Electra에 나타난 죄와 죽음의 의식 연구 = A Study of Sin and Death’s Consciousness in Mourning Becomes Electra

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose in this paper is to study the aspects and the meaning in sinuated with the Mannons’ sin and death’s consciousness intentively dealt with in the tragedy, Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene Glad stone O’Neill. According to him it may well be that a sin-haunted life alongwith death’s consciousness is human being’s universal inevitable truth.
In chapter Ⅱ, I deal with what and how Ezra’s death consciousness reflects in his attitude of life. And his being is characteristic of the Greek-temple-like Mannon residence. The grand house of the Mannons is himself and his tomb as well as his family. Ezra, in his judge’s robe in his portrait seems to preside over the happenings of the family. But when he turns from the civil war to his family, his one desire is for expiation. In spite, as he said, “Life was a dying. Being born was starting to die. Death was being born,” he is the incarnation of death image appearing the personification of “death in life.” as well.
In chapter Ⅲ, this study drives the logical line to analyze Lavinia’s Fate consciousness. Lavinia forswears the happiness her upcoming mar riage might have brought her, and locks herself inside the shuttered house to atone during the rest of her life for the series of sins of the Mannon family. Her puritan heritage keeping aloof Lavinia, in her living death, must pay the dear price for being the last of the cursed family and is working out the curse-redemption.
In chapter Ⅳ, I attempt to analyze Orin’s sinnings and death con sciousness. He manages to escape from death in life, from the “tomb” which Abe Mannon built to death-birth-peace, to the womb. He longs to fall in such love with Lavinia. Of course, he is given a flat refusal by her only to drive him to death. In other words, Orin’s private Furies, com bined with the puritanical influence of the Mannon family, lead him to adopt the personality and even the office of his own father, while Lavin ia adopts that of her mother. Thus their relationship moves, on his part, closer to that incestuous consummation he was unble to achieve with his mother. Far from reaching peace through the intervention of those around him, he can find his release through suicide.
Consequently, O’Neill shows that any human life in this world which is represented by the Mannons is deprived of order, form and meaning. Their sinning and consciousness can not help redeeming themselves from the sin, and accepting their death. As for the Mannons, their attempts to escape from their psychological sin-consciousness seem impossible for them to. As the play is coming to its end with a return to the house, it is noticed as a tomb in which all the Mannons have committed their secret crimes, drawn out their lives and then must endure their punishment. O’Neill is to be recognized as a successful writer to replace the Greek fate by the natural forces of sin-consciousness we all have.