Editing Mourning Becomes Electra (section)

== Themes ==
There are literary readings that classify ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' in the [[naturalism (literature)|naturalism movement]]. This is based on O'Neill's focus on violent emotional states of men to emphasize the subconscious and inner spiritual forces<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism|last=Newlin|first=Keith|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2011|isbn=9780195368932|location=Oxford|pages=433}}</ref> as well as man's inability to escape the cyclical pattern and outcomes of human action. Like the Oresteia, the play explored the theme of revenge, where the crime of the past determines the actions and the suffering of the protagonist in the present.<ref>{{Cite book|title=O'Neill's Shakespeare|last=Berlin|first=Normand|publisher=University of Michigan Press|year=2000|isbn=0472104691|pages=103}}</ref> For this theme, some observers note that O'Neill's approach is more similar to [[William Shakespeare]]'s outlook in [[Hamlet]] than Aeschylus' in Oresteia.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Modern Tragic Vision|last=Singh|first=Balwinder|publisher=Lulu Press|year=2016|isbn=9781365050770|location=Raleigh, NC|pages=52}}</ref>

O'Neill also differed from Aeschylus on the theme of fate and the role of the gods in the lives of men. In Oresteia, as was the case in the [[Greek tragedy|classical Greek tragedies]], the divine is part of the environmental forces that humans cannot control but determine their fate. In O'Neill's interpretation, these forces are eliminated in favor of Freudian and Jungian psychology.<ref name=":0" />