Eugene O'Neill, an American playwright, is the author of Mourning Becomes Electra, one of the most controversial plays in American history. O'Neill had been married at one time, but his marriage fell apart and ended in divorce. During this period, O'Neill became fascinated with the psychoanalytic view of life, which continued to haunt him for most of his life. After the divorce, O'Neill remarried, but was still fascinated by psychoanalytic views. His obsession with such views became downright palpable with the publication of Mourning Becomes Electra, where he "encompasses the Oedipus complex, the Electra complex, female sexuality, penis envy, castration anxiety, the uncanny and the interpretation of dreams” (Soloski, villagevoice.com). This fascination made O'Neill a common soldier. In fact, he felt so indebted to this theory that he wrote the play which "did not yet relieve O'Neill of his debt to psychoanalytic theory" (Bogard, 85). When writing the play, he did not discuss it with anyone, not even his wife or close friends. Mourning Becomes Electra is actually based on a Greek trilogy that O'Neill condensed into one play, divided into parts and then acts. Part of the reason O'Neill made Vinnie such a tragic hero is that he believed in the Greek tragedy that she had too tragic a destiny in her soul to let it fade from heroic legend (Bogard, eoneill .com). And so, although O'Neill changes Vinnie's personality to get his point across, he keeps her essentially the same as in the Greek tragedy, but makes her a little younger. For example, the current time period is the Civil War, which is important because in the original play there was also a war which helped set the scene for the play and bring out the emotions of each character. Compare...... middle of paper ...... characters and move the plot forward. The characters themselves even realize that what they want is immoral and wish to “be forgiven!” » (O'Neill, 407), however, even though they wish to be purified, they still have their incestuous needs to satisfy. So even though they despise themselves for feeling this way, it's these feelings that drive the plot forward that push the characters into situations where they make decisions that others without these desires might denounce. In conclusion, Woodard summarizes how, although the play is an immoral tragedy, the characters methodically envelope the reader in their problems and the reader is forced to feel sympathy with them even though he or she believes the character to be stupid. “Whether grief became Electra or not, it became her life... She draws us into domestic torments and tensions as we respond to her interiority” (Woodard, 131).