CHAPTER-IV

The Neo-CIassic Tragic Vision

Leaving behind the Parnassian heights of The Greek Tragic Vision, aiid the
summits and the belveders of Elizabethan tragedy with specific reference to
Shakespeare, when we enter Neo-Classic or Restoration tragedy whose
practitioners are few and far between, we come down to the slopes and enter
rather a pedestrian world. For example, Dryden's^/Z/'ar Love or The World
Well Lost, the other well-deserved title given to the play, does not have the
magnitude and panorama of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra from
which it is derived, it actually becomes more of a domestic tragedy propelled
by the motive of jeiilousy for Antony's legal wife. The analysis of All for
Love or The World Well Lost, will, therefore, be followed by an analysis of
Antony and Cleopatra to highlight the difference in weltonschauung (world-
view).

This ch^ter on Restoration tragedy and the tragic vision therein, sets
out to explore and exajnine the mind-boggling deep sorrow that lays heavy
on Marc Antony- the protagonist, the Roman generd who fell as per
Dryden's vieiv of sociai-cirni-societal morahly i.e. moral excellency. Yet it is
not actually a moral indictment but probes deep into the psyche and
psychology of the characters, rendering Dryden's tragic vision to
be one of a colossal order. All for Love is a far more moral and
psychological play than Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.
Surfacially, it has an Aristotehan mould insofar as Uie tragedy is of a
high and mighty personage, but the difference- the chief difference- is
found in the fact Uiat the fall has idready occurred at tlie outset and,
therefore, the focus spothglits motivations and psychological morasses,
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imveiiing inner compulsion quite similar to drug addiction. As such,
Dryden's vision transcends mere loftiness, creating a work wherein the tragic
vision anticipates, to a certain extent, the modem one, thereby making it a
work that has stood and will stand the test of time, still having great
relevance today and, hopefully, in the future as well. As such, it is more of a
tragedy of an individual as well as of those who revolve in his orbit. John
A. Vance rightly contends that the play is one in which "Qeopatra's and
Antony's outbursts, marked by insecurity and contia^ction, indicate... a
highly agitated passiveness... that is quite amazingly an inaction resulting
from an intensely active passion."'

He iurther adds that y\ntony's and Cleopatra's "words reveal the

confusion, helplessness, and misplacement of values resulting from an lUicit
love affair."^ All the major characters reinforce fragmentation and insecurity.
Keeping this in view, one can safely state that the psychology of Dryden's
tragic vision truly encompasses the macro and is thus a groundbreaking work
pomting m a new direction. Now the play All for Love is specifically
examined.

Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, of course, predates Dryden's All

for Love. It is common knowledge that both are derived from the same
historical love story of Cleopafra, ill-fated queen of Egypt (of pure Greek
ancestry), and Marc Antony, the Roman general who was so enamoured of
his beloved that he, for the most part, forsook the martial art and military
prowess to lose a kingdom. However, we are concerned with the fictionahsed
versions as given in the respective plays insofar as primarily tlie evolution of
tragedy (do\vn the ages), and secondarily the extreme beauty alongwith
dramatic efFect-cum-achievement.

t55
 Though Dryden's All For Love (the earhest known peifoimance in
December 1677) has generally been considered as an 'imitation' of
Shakespeare's yl72/ow>' and Cleopatra, "the success of the former on the stage
appears to have been moderate, but long-lasting, for it was performed in
preference to Shakespeare's play into the latter half of the next century.'"
comments John Conaghan.

Naturally, Dryden, the neo-classidst, was well-versed with

Shakespeare and thus, of course, wrought his own creation inspired by the
latter. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of over-derivativeness nor blind
cloning. This is amply clear to anyone who has read both dramas. But it is
not our intention to denigrate Shakespeare, nor for that matter, Dryden. Let it
suffice to say that both versions, however different from one another, are
independently great works of art. Whereas Shakespeare uses dramatic poesy
in a highly traditional manner (though not really conforming to rhyme), John
Dryden strikes out on his own with the first well-known and well-wrought
drama in free verse. He does not undertake this experiment because he lacks
facility with rhyme, but rather because he is an ardent behever in the power
of blank verse. His expertise with rhyme is proven lucidly in both the
prologue and the epilogue.

Ridley in his introductory note to Antony and Cleopatra does point

out:
All For Love certainly contains some imitation and reminiscence of
Antony and Cleopatra, but Dryden said truly that he had not copied his
author servilely, and his play can be read and enjoyed as a study in a
different manner, for its different conception of character, and its fine poetry,
without the least compulsory reference to an all-behttling standard.*

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 The chief difference between the Bard and Dryden is one of separate
ages (though hnked but yet standing apart). The biggest compliment we can
pay to Dryden is that he imbibes the spirit of hterary modernism much before
his time. Shakespeare's version has an abundance of characters, whereas
Dryden's has only eleven, not counting Antony's servants and other
messengers, these being less pivotal.

Now to examine both plays, chronologically Antony and Cleopatra is

taken first. The drama is replete with pomp and pageantry, a crucial facet we
will attempt to unveil only after a brief summarry of the play, adding that the
poet has clearly steeped the creation in Greco-Roman and Egyptian rehgion
and mythology- no easy task, only capable of being effected by a brilhant
mind and consummate master.

The drama opens on a foreboding note wherein Philo (Antony's

fiiend) engages in an uitioductory monologue lamenting the great general's
"dotage" over Cleopatra and bewailing his fall, though formerly a veritable
Mars, the god of war of the Romans. The short introductory note
immediately grounds the play and, somewhat, presages the hagic revolution
of the wheel that characters mostly are powerless to stop, jam, avert or
escape from the onrush of tragedy. The male protagonist is completely
drenched in the love-sickness^ quite sirmlar to the drugged, ebulhent state
illustrated in Tennyson's "The Lotus Eaters", all engendering a paralysis of
will- the essential psycho-physical component of warrior, still rooted in Marc
Antony's soul, sometimes briefly ignited, yet, on the whole, largely in a
comatose state. To encapsulate, shghtly at length, Cleopatra is an expert at
practising feminine charms, wholly possessive, completely paranoid and of
the view that even a moment's separation from her lover- no matter how
urgent the affairs of state and war resting on Antony's shoulders- is a threat
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or impediinent to their relationship. She views all news frojn Rome with a
jaundiced eye , In addition, her maids, Charmion and Iras, and particularly
her court eunuch Aiexas, do everything always- manipulation, subterfuge, et
al- to keep the lovelost general in a practically constant state of emotional
puppetry and he is, indeed, a puppet on a chain.

The play's scenes shift from Alexandria to Rome, with Octavius Caesar
holding almost all the cards. In the course of the drama; we learn that Antony
ignobly and dishonorably fled from the sea-battle at Actium when Cleopatra's
royal barge turned tail. An act which later makes him feel- when not
intoxticated by love- an eternal sense of shame, dishonour and guilt. In actual
fact- as per martial duty- he should have continuously led from the front.

M the opening a soothsayer predicts the fall of the power, glory and
prestige of Egypt. However, this is brushed off as fanciful by Charmion, Iras
and .\lexas—a poetic device used to foreshadow the impending events.
Shortly, after a message from Rome, Antony decides to break away from
Cleopatra and resume the hfe of a warrior. Manipulation to thwart this
ensues throughout. Ventidius, Antony's right hand, urges him to regain his
honour. The general agrees. It turns out that they are victorious, though
heavily outnumbered, in a battle. But they have only stemmed the tide. At the
end, Cleopatra, to escape Antony's wrath (that of a jilted lover) "fakes"
suicide. Antony tries the same clumsily. But he dies in her arms. Caesar
captures Cleopatra, but she kills herself with a self-inflicted asp bite . Caeser
pays homage to Antony and thus does the play end.

Now All for Love is briefly summarised . Ser^ion, priest of the

goddess Isis, and Myns, also a priest, read evil omens in the heavens which
presage the fall of mighty Egypt. Aiexas (queen Cleopatra's advisorial
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eujiuch), Charmion and Iras (Cleopatia's maids) after consultation make fun
of him and ridicule his predictions. The predictions, ominous as they are,
foreground, background and well-ground the tragedy to ensue and also act as
a method of foreshadowing the tragic events.

.Antony has isolated himself in a sea of guilt, dishonour and abject

shame- he refuses to see anyone, even Cleopatra, the supreme love of his
life. She is frantic and broods endlessly, wallowing in despsdi-cum-
depression. Only Ventidius, Antony's friend and right hand, dares to enter his
lord's presence, and after doing so, is blunt enough to denigrate Cleopatra
whom he views as nothing more than a prostitute. He also strongly scolds
.Antony, uigmg him to shake off dejection and resume the martial duty he
was bom to and tramed for. At Cleopatra's criticism, Antony takes offence
but later relents, though nowhere agreeing with Ventidius. Ventidius is a
pivotal character who intermittently, whenever chance arises, grabs the
opportunity to persuade Antony to leave Cleopatra, resume the warrior's
code and conduct and thereby regain honour and glory. He is a man of total
action and desires fervently his lord reanimate himself and once again stride
the earth as the colossus that he was- a trait whose germinal root still hes
ludden within and cries to be released.

.'Mexas, largely at the queen's bidding and sometimes on his own

initiative (keeping her interests in mind) to emotionally entangle Antony in a
perpetual, unbroken wheel- manipulates Antony at every step with lies and
faleshoods. Ventidius is never taken in. Antony is, but not always. Charmion
and Iras do whatever necessary as an effort to keep their queen in good
humour.
With Octavius Ceasar breathing down Antony and Cleopatra's neck
(not m the sense of physical presence but as a mortal threat to Antony
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alongwith Cleopatra's kingdom), Ventidius is amazed that Antony still
wallows in the mud. The trusted heutenant never forsakes loyalty and duty to
his lord, though he is often frustrated. At one point he manages to re-inspire
Antony, Cleopatra practices her wiles and Alexas does the same too. Antony
weakens but manages to leave and actually win a battle against Caesar. But it
is just a postponement of inevitable doom with the wheel of time crushing all
that dishonour and disrespect it- Antony and Cleopatra. Before leaving again
to battle, Antony sends Dolabella with a tender message of parting for his
queen. Cleopatra pretends to take an interest in him. Ventidius and Octavia
(Antony's lawful wife) who has now arrived on the scene alongwith their
two daughters, report the matter to the warrior about Cleopatra's interest in
Dolabella. He is incensed, a &e which Ventidius stokes. Cleopatra, after
hearing the news is mortally afraid and hides, pretending to have conmiitted
suicide. The enraged protagonist decides to return to the soldier's rehgion and
ready to fight Ceasar. But the Egyptian navy surrenders. Upon hearing the
false report of Clepatra's death, Antony's will to go to the battlefield
abandons him- in his own eyes he has nothing left to fight for. He asks
Ventidius to stab him but the heutmant turns the sword upon himself
Shocked and in despair Antony stabs himself but misses his heart. Cleopatra
arrives . She tells the truth and is beheved. He dies in her arms. She dresses
up hke a proper queen m all royal finery and before being taken (by Ceasar),
commits suicide by asp bites. The lovers are united in death and beyond. She
has escaped being a Roman toy. Thus the play ends.

Now both plays will be critically examined, uncovering the evolution

of tragedy. Shakespeare did not strictly follow the Aristotehan model.
However, Antony and Ckopatra is bereft of groundling humour, and thus
serious throughout. Of course, Antony's hamartia is that he loves too much,
to the point of forsaking all else. He goes to the extent of s^dng :
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 Give, you gods.
Give to your boy, youi Ceasar,
This rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off:
111 not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.^

Tliough this is evident throughout, even after his marri^e to Octavia-

a pact made to engender trust and friendships between Octavius and himself-
his heart is still Cleopatra's. He deeply desires to go to Alexandria for the love
of Cleopatra ;

"I will to Egypt;

And though I make this marriage for my peace,
I'th' East my pleasure lies.'*

Thus he blimders and is retrapped in the maze-cum-malaise. The

infection actually never dissipated. What dissipates is Antony's soul- the soul
of a godlike warrior, almost a genuine Marc. The hamartia is effectively
brought out in the seesaw inner battle and turmoil he inflicts himself ^vith-
that of a warrior who has abandoned the code whose ghost almost
continually haunts him, except when absol^ltely demented by the queen's
feminine charms and wiles only when he in close proximity to her- but the
real problem is that he is even mentally often with her. He has a brooding
intensity which ravages his spirit and soul.

To concentrate on how far it is a tragedy, Aristotle's Poetics is of great

critical help. As per the first theoretician of tragedy, the play's action is
complete, serious and has extraordinary magnitude. To illustrate, let us draw
a thumbnail sketch- Antony is indubitably an exalted personage undergoing
a great fall due to the hamartia that he is totally blinded by love. However,

161
 Dryden has drawn a crucial difference- the tragedy has aheady begun at the
very opening and only culminates in the course of the drama. The sombre,
ominous note is evident throughout- foreshadowing is employed right at the
beginning with the lines spoken by the soothsayer, no matter the fact that
they are "brushed off' as nonsense by the queen's coterie. So, the foundation
of the tragedy reaching its peak, isfirmlylaid. Also, the lines are beautifully
ensconced in embellished expression to achieve and effect monumental
impact on the reader/spectator. Each line is well thought-out with near
perfect timing, and, of course, there is much serious artisitic omamentry,
though this is not strictly in the Aristotelian mould. But» in this particular
play, it is certainly and evidently close enough. Case in point- evolution is
obvious. Insofar as the action is concerned a contrast, headly tempo is
maintained, climaxing at the end with the suicides almost like an unspoken
earthly pact to defy the heavens~an excellent dramatic device effecting
colossal poetic result and impacting deeply upon the psyche, making us
reflect and causing inward catharsis (more on this particular point
afterwards).

According to Ribner, "hi All/or Love, a close observance of the unities

and restriction to few characters does not prevent the contrivance of an
interesting series of events to the development of which every scene
contributes."^

Unlike Shakespeare with reference to Antony and Ckopatra. Dryden -

-a staunch supporter of the concept of unities, does observe them in his play
All For Love. The time is the last day in the Hves of the two lovers. The place
of action remains Alexandria. The action is organically whole and no event
or incident is superfluous. It has been largely agreed that character and plot
are indivisible, though Aristotle stated otherwise. To focus on this
!62
indivisibility, this is true of the work under discussion. Nowhere are the
events disjointed. Though there is HtUe heavy action (where the Bard departs
from Aristotle), one cannot say it is small in and of measure- at the most it is
variegated and somewhat different. The action is certainly narrative and is
represented dramatically in form and mould and is thus amply, fervently and
effectively brought out on stage. The work certainly arouses pity and fear
(even to the point of terror) effecting catharsis or purgation of dangerous
emotions vicariously. Yet this vicariousness is not hght and soon forgotten-
it dwells within the reader/spectator, forcing him to ruminate, leaving him
greatly reflectful and absorbed- not the kind of state caused by a work
without proportion which is extremely gigantic- in an emotional sense (in
nature).

With respect to the creation of the action- Aristotle would say

imitation (but we mean to imply that imagination is greater a point which wiU
be clarified later and encompasses much more than mere imitation, although
as some one said, "Experience is the only teacher...")- the drama has plot,
character, diction, thought and naturally spectacle- the last to an astounding
yet realistic degree. One notes that song or a chorus is missing -an essential
requirement as per Aristolte. Yet nowhere is the lack of such a demerit or
defect. Of course, in ancient times and ahttle later the chorus functioned as a
single character to heighten and presage the tragedy. However, in
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra there does not seem to be a lack of such
effect. The virtuousity, keeping in miiid particulary and specifically the fact
that we are riveted throughtout the drama's course as the events unfold in
realistically drainadc progression, is of an extremely high standard-
unleashing its potent force to all who encounter it. Insofar as bringing out
the Campbelhan aspect of the tragedy, the play as rendered shows that
Antony is a failed quester. Nevertheless, there are a few successful questers-
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 some of .^tonys friends. Though we shall not risk departing from and
outside the text- it can be said in the references to Antony's former glory and
great stature (by others and himself, it may be safe to say that he is a quester-
successful one- who falters afterwards due to a feeling of obsessive-
compulsive love. He had the glory, the prominence, the experience, the
insight, but m the drama fell by the wayside due to the major tragic flaw of
bemg an obsessive-compulsive lover.

.Antony's tragedy lay in 'Excellency of the Moral.' According to

Chaman Ahuja, " All For love had to end on an unfortunate note simply
because the love here was unlawful. This insistence on rewarding the virtue
and punishing the guilty gradually became the order of the day and was
applauded as 'poetic justice'."^
To return to Aristotle and the continuing tradition-cum-evolution of
tragedy, the plot is whole with the acts and scenes unfolding themselves in
ahnost a rapid fire burst of turbulent emotion. To briefly digress- with
respect to the CampbeUian psycho-mythic model, it may be safe to state that
use of myth and met^hor Avithin the radius of Greco-Roman and Egyptian
mythology, the hero still retains the seed from which heroism springs.
Obviously the drama is replete with characters, all, even the minor ones,
performing a very important function. But it cannot be ventured that the
characters are too numerous. The spectacle which is unveiled is well-
embedded m psychology- of the characters in general and the main ones in
particular through which Shakespeare proves himself gifted with a deep,
depth-oriented perspicacious knowledge of the human condition.To look at
peripeteia, briefly in being victorious in one battle- his last- Antony is
momentarily ascendant, but the anagnorisis or self-recognition does not
occur frilly in the climax, as by this time he has fallen firmly on the wayjdde,
only being able to escape in the form of a clumsy suicide.
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 But to I>ryden, Antony and Cleopatra were tragic characters; that as
tragic characters they could not be shown to be altogether wicked (as per
AiistoUe's terms) and lastly, such characters must evoke pity and fear.
Dryden very artisticaiiy evoked pity by imagining very creatively the private
sufferings of Antony and Cleopatra. Here it may not be construed that
£>ryden justifies the dalliance and debauchery of Antony and Cleopatra as it
would run counter to his announced intention in the preface (of didacticism).
Thus, Dryden's effort of evoking pity, there is nothing contradictory between
his announced intention and ultim£^ achievement. Critics may differ over
this, but Professor Reinert has the following comment to offer:

Its (the play's) failure to raise a warning finger on behalf of reason and
sexual morahty ceases to be a symptom of Dryden's confusion of
thought or of his divided intent. If the play is to be reduced to a moral at
all, it must be one of some such order as this: the lovers perish as all those
must who stake their all on passion rather than on reason. But their fall
effects a purgation of emotion in audience, and this effect is achieved
precisely because Dryden abandons the simple moral scheme of the heroic
play for the complex multiple truth of mature tragedy.'

In the critic's view, it was not that Dryden failed to follow "the neo-
classical moral maxim," but that he was moving on to another set of theories
of tragedy, one that was morally more complex and mysterious to
comprehend than "the simple moral scheme" of heroic tragic drama Bruce
King another critic joins Reinert that I>ryden was gradiially revising and
readjusting his notions on tragedy.™

If we look at the Jimgian facets of the tragedy, it may be averred that

Antony and Cleopatra are both caught in the obsession-cum-compulsion to
an alarmingly grandiose- in the sense of pipedream's degree.

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 The tragedy had undergone a m^or evolutionary ascent by
Shakespeare's era. The double suicide climax does show blood and gore on
stage. Yet this is tastefully rendered and there are no agonizing death scenes
as in Webster, hke The Duchess ofMa^. The climactic scene is not out of
place. It fits quite aesthetically like the final piece of a jigsaw- and is the
crowning point of the play. The climax is, indeed, the jewel in the crown.

Joseph Campbell's terms, 'quest', 'quester* and 'monomyth' are

elaborated in great detail in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell is a
firm behever in the sagacity of the 'Andents' whom he considers
psychologically and intuitively superior to the 'Modems' as the former were
in touch and harmony with the unconscious. The reason why this was so, is
because they had evolved rituals, (whose belief was mostly unquestioned),
shamans (medicine men), or gurus, not to mention heroes who threw hght
on the path- the path of individuation via the quest cycle.This is all within
the ambit and sphere of the monomyth. The monomyth is & priori- universal
truth which the modems are unaware or ignorant of, or (if informed) dismiss
-aU at the peril, endangering the psyche. Of course, the ancients were also in
touch with the conscious and subconscious as ancient culture, to exemplify,
heavily rehed on the interpretation of dreams and other such phenomena.

Quest Hterally means search. However, in mythic and psychological

terms, it means a process wherein the quester or seeker- consciously,
subconsciously or unconsciously (although these three are interlinked) looks
for 'Being in itself, to borrow Karl Jaspefs term. In less esoteric terms, it can
be called a quest for identity. The quest motif is as anciejit as time itself,
being common to all cultures- pre-historic, primitive, ancient and modem-
nevertheless often encased in the spatic -temporal coating of the particular
environment. However, after peehng the layer off, one comes in direct
166
contact with the primordial monomyth- all having the imprint of the
essential oneness of psyche- East or West, Old World or New World.
Surfacially, the quest seems to be rather simplistic and ^yparent: being
victorious in a battle, killing the enemy, becoming a ruler, winning a
princess's love, finding hidden treasure, and so on and so forth. These
examples, even at the hteral level, cannot be disregarded as they involve
exceptional heroism and thus are of m^or importance. The titeral basis as
found in folktales, fairy tales, legends and myths is to lay and found the
psychologjcal-cum-psychic premise of the quest. According to this critic,
Campbell is completely correct in asserting that the monomyth's theme
transcends all cultures without being diluted at all in any way whatsoever.
This mystical view finds few modem behevers among the masses of
himianity, the average man being trapped in a culture-specific mould and
world. As such, the top (the conscious) of experience, naked empiricism is
beheved to prevail. But it is a real, indivisible truth and phenomenon as
per Joseph Campbell- a world-renowned teacher- nay, Guru of the
monomyth, whQ has osmotically imbibed the spirit, reflection and radiating
hght of the ancient teachers. Therefore, he may be classified as quite like a
modem mystic, a shaman uncovering the truths of the ancients- SL priori.

Unhke Campbell, Jung beheves more in empiricism as it is the

'workaday* world which is more significantly important than that of food,
shelter, clothing, a mate, family, and so on and forth. However, he does not
dispense entirely with the wisdom of the ancients. He is concerned with
reconnecting with the myth without throwing away experience.

There is convergence as well as divergence between Jung and

Campbell, The latter wholly, wholeheartedly beheves in the premise that
the ancients were and are superior to the modems, categorically stating
167
that they knew the truth of myth, the reason being they had spiritual
guidance and teaching disseminated by shamans - thereby being in
touch with what Jung calls the unconscious, individual and collective.
Thus, on the surface he seems to be opposed to modem empiricism.
However, he holds the ancients in a bright aura, especially with
respect to dreams and their interpretation- perhaps what engendered
Jung to formulate the theory of the collective unconscious.
Relatedly, Jung was able to comprehend- at least in a psychoanalytic
sense- shamanism.

Though Jung makes no clear distinctions between ancients

and modems (that is, with respect to superiority or inferiority),
Campbell firmly contends that, at the most, the modems can
equal, but not surpass the ancients. Jimg's advocating reconnection with
the last archetypes was a lone voice in the industrial era of
empiricism, particularly with respect to Westem civilization- at that time the
entire industrial world. But Jung, at the same time, did not dismiss the
civilization and era he was a child of as he fervently beheves in the
'workaday world of ego-consciosness- inextricably linked and bound up
with the self in totahty. He did not devalue materialistic extemal hfe as it has
a heavy result on the average psyche- that of common man. He firmly
contends that the extemal world- no matter if some schools of thought call it
an illusion- cannot be firmly negated. Thus, he stresses and prefers
"adjustment" as (wholistic acceptance) as compared to "deeper knowledge" a
la Campbell. Therefore, the "mind explorer-cum-curer" advocates
consciousness that girdles the conscious, subconscious and unconscious.

With respect to the preceding, Campbell is ^parently in harmony with

the Jungjan precept of ego-consciousness. The CampbeUian hero (quester)
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confers the boon on humanity to- at the outset- subhmate and later thereby
dissolve ego-consciousness- the pit of desire and its resultant joy and
sorrow. As such, when the quester shifts his mind from the inner sphere of
thought- transcending truth outwards to the world of phenomena, he
perceives without the largeness of self that he previously had within.
Resultantly, with the accompanying perfected weltonschauung, separateness
dissolves and the hero "is ever in the presence of his own essence..." Yet this
is certainly not a negation of individuahty, but in its depth from the aforesaid
process, re-asserts individuahty after touching the divine- naturally, a self-
enclosed circle. Thus Campbell avers that individuahty is both the initial as
well the end hne.

Comparatively viewed, Jung's concept of reconnection with the

archetypes of the collective unconscious is an attempt to coimterweigh the
conscious and imconscious to resultantly enrich life and make one's own
individual myths in life's personal voyage. Robert A. Segal ^tly points out
the differing views of Jung and Campbell, who basically touch the same end
-the total realisation of'being' (not self in a narrow sense). He puts on record
that for both thinkers, myth acts as a linking agent to the unconscious- yet
they differ on the type of fusion. Campbell, heavily steeped in myth, takes a
"detached, imperious" viewpoint towards the unconscious using myth as
enrichment. However, as Jung had a horrific personal encounter with the
unconscious, he also fears it, and is greatly warier and deferential. Though
the psychoanalyst does seek enrichment from the unconscious, he is well-
knowledgeable that it can destory those who actively court it. Though
Campbell pleads for surreder to the unconscious, Jung pales at such,
beheving only in a 'dialogue'. Campbell beheves the ego will remain in its
place Jung differs, beheving in the opposite. Jung accepts empiricism and
continuously emphasises individuahty. He seeks, knows and dispenses-
169
making lilVs difficult journey fathomable to mankind. Yet his major premise
is centred around the ego as an unveiling fount of adjustment and
tiansfoimation, the archetypes revolving and thereby guiding (in a two way
sense) consciousness. A healthy ego is essential- the working principle- the
end being hving in the daily, routinized world of success and failure, joy and
sorrow, ^vith respect to all three- unconscious, subconscious and conscious.
The most important of these is the conscious- most governing and unveiling
the most concrete reahty of learning behaviour, observation, feeling, as per
sense perception. Conversely, Campbell, the prehistoric rituahst completely
and loyally accepts the myth with an unshakable behef in the ancients a
pnon-univers£d tniths, linding them self-evident- thus he may be called a
(not the) wise old man. The wise old man is a psychopomp. So,
comparatively, Jimg can be classified as a modem- when evaluated against
Campbell.

In this hglil (of the two giants), Antony's quest has basically been
reduced to siu-vdval- though as references make clear, he was a colossus who
strode the earth (in both plays being critically examined, more so in the case
of Antony and Cleopatra). Sh^espeare's tragedy shows that Antony is a
regressed quester (hero). The same is true of the male protagonist in All for
Love.

According to Campbell as explained in The Hero With a Thousand

Faces, in man's hfe there are three stages- Departure, Initiation and Return.
Mtony after the first stage of 'Departure', got initiated into the second stage
of 'Initiation' which starts with 'The Road to Trials.' He became a great
warrior almost a superhuman whose prowess all dreaded. But he deviated
from this great path and succumbed to the magical and infatuating charms of
Cleopatra which reduced him to the status of a half-hero. He could never
170
boimce back to his eariei status of a great warrioi. The hero, according to
Campbell, is "the man or woman who has been able to battle past his
personal and local historical limitations to the generally vahd, normally
human forms."" On the path of initiation, there are great challenges, tests,
trials, pulls and pressures which the hero must brush aside. Antony did not
stick to the 'The meeting with the Goddess' i.e. his legal wife Octavia but
went ahead to shp permananUy into the hug of 'Woman as the Temptress' i.e.
Cleopatra. In such a situation, Campbell asserts; "...the testings of the hero,
which were preliminary to his ultimate experience and deed, were symbohcal
of those crises of realization by means of which his consciousness came to be
amplified and made enable of enduring the full possession of the mother-
destroyer, in his inevitable bride.""

Antony's obsession with Cleopatra, the woman-temptress costs him so

dear that he himself admits his pitiful state:

...I am now so sunk from what I was

Thoufind'stme at my lowest water-mark.
Theriversthat ran in and raised my fortunes
Are all dried up, or take another course..."

In the second stage i.e. 'Initiation' , Antony got plucked midway and
invited his tragic end by committing a cowardly act of suicide. Antony in
AUfor Love as seen in or from the Aurobindonian critical caimon, is the
protagonist whose physical life level was so strong that he became a great
Roman warrior who successfully fought in earUer youthful hfe. Later, his
physical was overshadowed by the vital- the emotional vital wherein one is
in the strong grip of heart commands. Due to his love for Cleopatra, Antony
hid himself in Egypt; ignored the war-call of his first wife Fulvia and let her
171
die in the war; left hi^ sec(md l i ^ wijfe Octm^ fought
the battle (the one he lost) at Actinm not by land as he desired but at sea as
desdred by Qeopatra; she fled the war and he f(dlbwed her and lost the war,
lost Dolabella- a very brave general due to Cleopatra All these examples are
proof enough that he was in the aU destructive grip of his beloved.

Again when Ventidius urges him to leave Egypt and go to lead his
army to defeat Ceasar, Antony-a love slave reacts:

Go! Whither ? Gofiromall thafs excellent ?

Faith, honour, virtue, all good things forbid
That I should gofromher who sets my love
Above the price of kingdoms. Give, you gods,
. Give to youi boy, your Ceasar,
This rattle of a globe to play withal.
This gewgaw world, and put him chee^ly off:
111 not be pleased with less than Qeopatra.*^

Because of the efforts of Ventidius, Dellabella and Octavia, Antony is

brought into 'mental' and again the spirit of a warrior flares up, Antony now
being in the 'mental' says to Ventidius :

Come on, my soldier !

Our hearts and arms are still the same: I long
Once more to meet our foes."

But when Cleopalia invokes the magic spell of her charms and
eloquence, his vital darts up and makes him plummet into the arms of his
beloved. A warrior turned lover made sacrifices-uncalled for and reduced
172
himself to a poor lover who committed a clwnsy suicide in the 1^ of a
beloved.

Dryden, tragic vision as reflected in the doings of Marc Antony as far

as the moral code of conduct is concerned, is also attributable to the role of
anima in Cleopatra. According to a student of Jung- Toni Wolfe, a woman
has four forms of anima in her personahty. The &st- mother the caring; the
second- heiaera the other woman, the companion ; the third- amazon the
independent, the powerful; and the fourth- medivm the goddess. It is the
hetaera in Cleopatra that enamours Antony to such an extent that he a famous
warrior is reduced to a mere puppet in the hands his beloved. Things come to
such a pass that the warrior has to commit a clumsy suicide in the 1^ of
Cleopatra. Her hetaera becomes so heavily negative that it never allows him
to be resihent enough to be that warrior again. Contrastively, Medea's hetaera
is all helpful to Jason and gives him every possible support to achieve
success. The negative hetaera in Cleopatra is one of the major factors that
cause tragedy in^///brZov^. A similar case of hetaera turning negative ij
found in John Keats' poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci,wherein the La
Belle plays her hetaera (negative ) on a prince and turns him into her
lover. He is ultimately deserted by her. The negative hetaera also creates
a big wedge between the man the society. The society turns hostile to
him e.g. Octavia (his wife ), Octavius (his brother-in-law ), his friends and
even the soldiers loyal to him , all become inimical to him. Octavius
finally attacks Alexandria- the place where Antony stays. If the negative
hetaera in Cleopatra becomes the cause of tragedy here in AUfor Love,
it is the negative amazon in Medea that becomes responsible for the
tragic fall-out there in Euripides' Medea.

173
 Comparative study of the two plays i.e. Dryden' AUfor Love and
^\i2k&s^^2ii€ s Antony and Cleopatra shows Shakespeare's version has much
more grandeur and spectacle, pomp and pageantry. But Dryden's is more
weighty (with respect to the inner turmoil) and has greater spiritual gravity. It
dso has one greater heroic figure- Ventidius at the end, Eros is less heroic,
though Shakespeare's Antony is more of a hero in d e ^ than in Dryden's
work. In both plays anagnorisis does occur but it is not well-weighted. So
for us modems, Dryden's hero and work is more ai>pealing i.e. from a
psychological point of view.

Dryden has wrought more 'imier spectacle' whereas Shakespeare has

rehed more on the spectacle of the exterior. This is not an accusation of less
psychological perspicacity, but merely a conmientary on the needs and
dictates of the time that the Bard chose to follow. Both tragedies are more
than tragedies of individuals, but also rather tragedies of a kingdom-
something intangible, except in procedure of operation i.e. when a power
vested person is performing a given act.

It is essential to remember that All for Love focuses largely on a

stranglehold kind of despair. Antony wallows in the mud of lust, and
Cleopatra always attempts to keep him entrq)ped there. Referring to the fact
that Antony may leave her, Cleopatra describes her inner turmoil to Alexas-
the eunuch as follows:

"Sunk, never more to rise." ( V.85 )

Behind such imagery, hes a high thematic purpose. To quote John A.
Vance again:

174
 "[as a] literary artist Dryden is more concerned with manipulating
language to demonstrate the individual's quest for balance and wholeness and
the subversion of that goal by an implacable universe.""

This is true to a limited extent considering Dryden's view of morality,

but is not as fatahstic as to be ascribed to the gods as the playwright seems to
have a more rational bent of mind.

The only steadfast character throughout is Ventidius, who never

personally swerves from the warrior code, not even in suicide. Most of the
time he remains in the 'mental' but his 'mental' does not work because of
.Atony's 'vital' being dominant all the time. Antony's suicid..' in the end is
clumsy, suggesting that he has not esc£Q)ed shame, humiliation and
dishonour. So All for Love or The World Well Lost explores the world of
human failings against the backdrop of civilization from where societal
morahty stems and often punishes the transgressor or the sinner. So the tragic
vision is extremely transcendent, which yet has a wail of lamentation.

[Mniill\. lo sum up, the evolution of tragedy by Shakespeare's

tmie liad made a great leap Ibnvard, remoulded by the particular era.
tiivirojinient. language (English), and culture, the last, however, ntiscent.
In the neo-classical age, that of Dryden, at least in Dryden, it had
made a quantum jump, which became frentic with the modem school of
hterature. All these have aheady been enumerated, and need not be
unnecessarily repeated. The Aurobindonian, CampbeUian and Jungian
schools of thought have also been explained and apphed. It is hoped that this
chapter has laid adequate groundwork for the continuing evolution bemg
examined in the following chapter of this study.

175
 Footnotes

^John A. Vaiice, "Antony Bound: Fragmentation and Insecurity

m All/or Love", Studies in English Literature 1500-1900,26QioyemheT,
1986), p.424.

^Ibid

^John Conaghan, ed. Dryden, (London; Methuen & Co., 1978), p.

392.
'*M.R.Ridley, ed. Antony and Cleopatra (1954; London: Methuen
& Co., Ltd, 1968), p. xxxix.

*John Conaghan, p.430.

''M.R. Ridley, p.65.

^M.R. Ridley, p.xxxviii,

^Chaman Ahuja, The Mystique of Tragedy (New Delhi: Prestige,

1974), p.23.

^Otto Reineit, 'Tassion and Pity inX//>r Lo\e" The Hidden

Sense, ed. Kristen Smidt(1963; rpt., New York: King's Twentieth Century
Interpretations), p.85.

^^Bruce King, "Dryden's Intent in All/or Love'\ (CoUege English

;24, 1968),pp.267-71.

"Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Face s{\9A9\ rpt.,

London: Fontana press, 1993), pp. 19-20.

"7i>/W.., pp. 120-21.

"John Conaghan, p.435.

"/i/(/., p.430.

"//>/•(/.. p.417.

*^John A.Vance, p.426.

176
 CHAPTER-V
Modern Tragic Vision

In this chapter, the intention is to examine modem tragic vision of

Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller in their respective plays- Movming
Becomes Ekctra and Death of a Salesman. The Modem tragic vision is
generally democratised, but comparatively speaking this is more true of
Arthur Miller than Eugene O'Neill O'Neill takes a much more
perspicacious, psychological ^proach which renders the psyche bare and
illustrates his view that science and its child of materialism, offers no psychic
balm or emotional solace to mankind. His trs^c vision thus does not affirm
man but, rather, lays bare the spiritual wasteland that he \s in the
contemporary materialist world. By contrast, Arthur Miller (Death of a
Salesman, the play being spothghted and analysed) attempts to affirm and
reaffirm man within the confines of materialism- a concomitant of
capitalism.

Perhaps, the chief difference between the two playwrights, O'Neill

and Miller hes in the fact of disparate literary rootedness, O'Neill going back
to the Ancients especially Aeschylus- insofar as characterization and
technique is concerned- and Arthur Miller beingfirmlyplaced in the modem
democratic world. Yet the similarity can be found in the canvas,even t h o i ^
its interpretation by the two widely differs. So, O'Neill's tragic vision is much
more bleak, whereas Miller's still celebrates tragic modem man, proving
himself more democratised.

It is important to remember that Miller largely neglects

psychological p^ology, whereas O'Neill is obsessed by it. Miller's
world is comparatively, thus, one of tinsel town wherein the common

177
man is as important as some high personage. O'Neill, on the other
hand, still invokes Fate, the god of psychological forces. Some of his
characters correspond to the Greek furies. So, the paranormal or
unstoppable other-worldly forces, hacve a definite part to play. In
Miller, these are absent, but the competitive race in the materiahstic
world of today comes out to be the chief well-spring. However,
Miller cannot be dismissed as a superficial tragedian, although it is
pertinent and important to point out that he lacks the ^e-defying depth
of O'Neill. O'Neill is much more psychologically existential, but Miller
is materially more comprehensiable and affirmative as he does not
beheve in "Armageddon" and its bearer- the Fifth Horseman. Taken
together, the two playwrights offer a vision which is intensely tragic,
examining the phght i.e. psycho-social state of mankind within the
generations that inhabit contemporary civilization. Both have a piercing
tendency to penetrate the Weltonschauung of human impulses which
dethrone man.

The analysis of Mourning Becomes Ekctra and Dealh of

a Salesman will focus on their tragjc vision in Jungian, Freudian, and
Aurobindonian terms. Neither of the plays has any CampbeUian hero
type of character. So, in O'Neill the morbidity and the psychological
pathology of the modem mindset, is contrasted against Miller's wail
against capitahsm and materiahsm. The latter is more concerned with
social-cum-societal functionahty of the American society. But O'Neill
explores the dark side hidden in the psychic shadows of haunt and have
haunted mankind down the ages. So, the tragic vision of both will be
contrasted insofar as their tragic visions are concerned.

178
 Mourning Becomes Ekctra is a trilogy (which comprises
"Homecoming" "The Himted", and "The Haunted") that makes use of a Greek
myth and its various renderings by the Greek tragedy writer, Aeschylus a
predecessor of Sophocles. O'Neill has dwelt more upon the Freudian
concept, especially the Oedipus Complex, and the Electra complex to
expostulate his tragic vision and show how these complexes become
an impediment in the normal and natural growth of an individual.

Having discussed Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Euripides' Medea and

Shakespeare's King Lear and Timon of Athens, as representative tragedies
from the Greek and the Elizabethan periods as well as John Dryden's All
For Love as representing neo-classical tragedy, we now turn to examine
Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Ekctra a representative modem
tragedy. "Modem American drama by common critical consent begins with
Eugene O'Neill."' O'Neill, a voracious reader, greatly influenced by the Greek
tragedians and the Scandinavian dramatists, Ibsen and Strindberg, who
moulded his sincere literary pursuits, won him recognition. He was duly
acclaimed as a great genius. He was awarded The Pultizer Prize four times as
well as the prestigious Nobel prize for Hterature in 1936. His genius was
indeed so multifaceted that a "Modem scholar fails to identify the 'real'
O'Neill."'

O'Neill, like the other playwrights of the period, was intensely

interested in writing about contemporary life. To such a great extent
was this the case, that he seems to be sharing conviction of Herbert J.
Muller that "Tragedy could be revitalised by sinking its roots deeper in
modem conscioiisness and by relating it more closely to the immediate MQ of
the time."^ To this end, he never adhered to one form, but rather took lesoiX
to various forms- Reahsm, Symbolism, Naturalism, Expressionism, and even
179
to the ad^tations of Greek and Renaissance stage conventions like the mask
and chorus. In fact, none of these could satiate him, so he shifted to another
kind of experiment which involved the ad^tation of The Oresteia by
Aeschylus to a modem and contemporary situation. In this context. Dr.
Ohver remarks, "Though his plays are modem, he strove to bring into his an
effect in harmony with traditional tragedy."* Consequent upon this, he took
to Greek tragedy, which offered him both form and content from Aeschylus
for his most successful and im^jQssive ^Isy Mourning Becomes Ekclra.

A brief look at the play is essential before the critical analysis.

General Ezra Mannon- the head of the Mannon family, is away from
home,fightingin the civil war. It is Jus homecoming at the end of the war.
The townsmen, the people, talk about the reunion of Ezra Mannon with his
family. But we soon come to know that tensions have plagued the Mannon
mansion. His wife Christine has fallen in love with C^tain Adam Brant. He
comes to the house under the pretext of courting Lavinia (daughter of Ezra
and Christine). Lavinia soon sees through the hoax. She also learns the true
identity of Adam Brant- the son of David Mannon who was expelled from
the house because he took a servant- Marie Brantome- as his mistress (the
mother of Brant).

That Lavinia also happens to love Brant and feels her mother has
cheated h^. Lavinia's love turned into jealousy complicates the situation
fiirther. She, bent on revenging her father and punishing her mother, extracts
a promise from Christine that she will not have any link with Brant again. But
Christine does not keep her promise and joins Brant in the murder of Ezra
instead. Ezra reaches home only to be told by his wife Christine that she is
in love with Adam Brant. He is shocked and suffers a heart attack. His wife

180
 as already planned adimnisters poison instead of medicine. Lavinia learns
the awful truth and swears vengeance.

After the death of Ezra Mannon, a great deal h^pens. Orin, the son,
returns home from the war. Lavinia tries to simulate and wean him away
from his m<?ther. Christine suspects Lavinia's intentions but is unable to stop
her. Lavinia becomes successful in playing up Orin's Oedipus Complex
alongwith his jealousy of Brant. Lavinia tells Orin not only about their
mother's adultery with Brant but also about the murder of their father.
Christine's attempt to hide the truUi from him isfruitless;once Orin has been
convinced that mother is guilty, the murder of Brant follows. Christine
shoots herself on learning about Brant's murder by Orin. Orin is distraught
with grief and remorse. Lavinia grimly accepts it as her revenge.

The action of this play occurs after a year. Only two Mannons are left-
Lavinia and Orin. They come back after hohdaying for some months
from the East and the South Sea Islands. They have changed roles in a very
striking way. Lavinia has become very attractive and voluptuous like
her mother: we learn she has felt carnal love on the Blessed Isles with Peter
and his sister Hazel. On the other hand, Orin looks sickly and obsessed. The
past haunts him, keeping him guilt ridden. Lavinia's resemblance to his
mother's physicahty and sensuality gives birth to incestuous love on
Orin's part. He proposes that he and Lavinia, partners in crime, bed each
other- another crime of pure incest. Filled with horror, she calls him vile
and says he is not fit to hve. Hearing this response and provocation, Orin
commits suicide. Lavinia going into her Puritanic shell, renounces Peter-
her lover- and decides to expiate her sins, to spend the rest of her hfe in the
house with all shutters nailed shut, away from human beings- in total
isolation.
!8J
 Since O'Neill based Mourning Becomes Elecira on the model of The
Oresteia, he had to render due place to the conventions of Greek tragedy.
Undeniably, Mourning Becomes Elecira is not a rehgions play, yet it is not
Tvithout rehgious overtones either. Puritanism broods over the play heavily,
the entire tragedy stemming from the distorting effects of fear and hfe-
denying sacrifices. The deep moral issues dramatised are almost Bibhcal. The
sms of the father especially of ancestors, are visited upon the children.
O'Neill used the details that enrich the rehgious coimotations of the play.
The Mannon house is made to look like a pagan temple, and is constantly
referred to as 'a love without sin', and 'beauty without guilt'. The play's
preoccupation with sin, guilt and expiation links it to the concerns of all great
religions. Sophoc.'es' Oedipus also goes through the same process of guilt,
suffering, knowledge and redemption. Shakespeare's Lear does admit that
the fihal ingratitude of his evil daughters i.e. Goneril and Regan is his
own sin visiting upon him. The "holy water* in CordeHa's eyes (IV, iii, 30) has
ecclesiiistical overtones. O'Neill himself pointed out the relevance and
signific ance of rehgion in an essay: "the playwright today must dig at the
roots of the sickness of today as he feels it- the death of the old God and the
failure of science and materiaUsm to give any satisfying new one for the
surviving primitive religious instinct to find a meaning for hfe.'tiS

The elevation of Greek tragedy could be best maintained in a language

that w;is exalted, and accompanied by music and rhythm. The function and
the efj ect of the language that O'Neill uses is in hne with Dawson's opinion:
"The poetic-dramatic language gives the audience or reader the sense of the
thouglit being formed by the character as he speaks under the pressure of the
situation in which he finds himself"*^ But the fact caimot be overlooked that
he was really xmabie to write elevated language. He repeats the episodes
182
and dialogues which have been criticised by a well known critic-
Hoftnannsthal in the follo\ving words: "The habit of repetition which is given
free rein in the plot itself as well as in the dialogue, becomes so insistent as to
overstep the bordei of the dramatically effective and actually to become a
dramatic weakness."'' But contrary to the above statement, O'Neill's motive
and intention behind the repetitive use of patterns ^pear to be diiferent.
He, in fact, intended to keep his audience ensnared while maintaining the
audio-visual impact intact. Davis Alexander points out that "through a
repetition of patterns, O'Neill's is able to keep his audience constantly aware
that the characters are psychologically tr^ped."" Mourning Becomes Electro
is a prose play with reahstic dialogue which still manages to achieve a certain
impression of lyricism, conveyed through a rich use of symbolism, and
musical effect- achieved by the recurring 'Shenandoah' and other songs.
Gould's ^preciation of O'Neill's method may be gauged from the following;
".... repetition brought the rhythm of the sea, of the universe, to his prose."*
So the prosaic rendering of the play was never a problem in its
theatrical effectiveness.

Greek tragedy never showed any violent action on the stage, though
the plot often revolved round some highly violent deeds. But O'Neill has
handled the violent theme with considerable refinement and restraint. Of the
four deaths in the play, two are managed offstage. He has chosen to abide by
the spirit of Greek tragedy but has not adhered to the latter. This canon of
Greek drama of showing violent deeds off stage, has not been completely
observed by Shakespeare in King Lear as tlie blinding of Gloucester takes
place on stage.

The other important Greek convention is chorus. Its function is mainly

to expound the past, comment on the present, and predict the future. In the
183
play, O'Neill has employed this convention- what he dubs it as a 'Styhsed
Chorus' so deftly handled that its likeness to the Greek original is not
immediately apparent. It consists of a set of townsfolk whose function is
expository. They give illuminating conmients on the Mannon Way* and the
'Mannon Looks', and shed ample hght on the activities of main characters.
The chorus used m Sophocles' Oedipiis Rex is hardly different from the
formal and functional point of view in Greek drama but in the Elizabethan
tragedy, particularly in King Lear, the form of chorus is completely changed.
It has been replaced by the 'clown' who stands for the conscience of the king
and the voice of common sense. In Timon ofAihens, Apemantus performs
the role of a 'churhsh pjulosopher" and in Allfor Love , it is Alexas who acts
as an advisor to the queen Cleopatra and Ser^ion's multi-faceted function
helps to mtegrate the play's total action.

Of the 'Unities' of classical drama, strictly observed in Oedipus Rex,

Medea and All for Love, O'Neill has observed only in the unity of action
which insists that a tragedy is an organically unified play which does not
allow subplots. True to the spirit, Mourning Becomes Elecira remains a
unified whole. The other two imities, the unity of time and the unity of place,
have not been observed strictly. In King Lear and Timon of Athens
Shakespeare too has hardly bothered about the imities.

O'Neill's use of masks in this play, can also be traced to the Greek
convention. He, in fact, modified the spirit of the use of masks. Instead of
masks, O'Neill hit upon the idea of a mask-like look on all the Mannons, a
detail to which attention is repeatedly drawn. Ames, one of the Chorus of the
first play, comments on the mask-like look which the Mannons have and
which 'they grow on their wives too'. The idea of such a striking facial
resemblance was a very effective theatncal device to stress the relationships
184
between the varioiis characters and to suggest the idea of something hke fate
running through the whole family.

In Homecoming, O'Neill by and by reduces the stature of Ezra

Mannon and refers to the past acts of injustice towards David Mannon and
Marie Brantome perpetrated by Abe Mannon and Ezra which take place in
Act-I, have already cast a shadow of guilt on him before he spears:

There is the sound of footsteps. A moment later Ezra Mannon enters

from left, front. He stops short in the shadow for a second and stands, erect
and stiff, as if at attention, staring, big-boned man of fifty, dressed in the
umform of a Brigadiei-General. One is immediatly struck by the mask-like
look of his face in repose.,.. When he speaks, his deep voice has a hollow
repressed quality, as if he were continually withholding emotion from it."*

The reluctance to come forth shows a lack of real feeling for his home;
his mask-like face conceals his realself which is repressed, his lack of
emotion shows a dehberate attempt to dehumanize himself Such an
mipression on the audience would drive out the feehng on sympathy over his
death when it comes. O'Neill adopts the same method of dissociating
sympathy which Aeschylus adopts towards .Agamemnon or Shakespeare
towards Juhus Caeser. The idea which has already been instilled in the minds
of the audience that he was in some way responsible for Marie Brantome's
death interferes in the same way as the idea that Agameimon was responsible
for his daughter Iphigenia's death and for the devastation at Tory. But
O'Neill goes beyond this technique of dissociation. He resorts to the process
of immasking and brings out another self of Ezra. The unmasking by Ezra
evokes the rquisite sympathy in the mind of reader or spectator and makes
for a complex reaction.

185
 in fact, O'Neill has injected the suspicion motive created by Lavinia's
letter which makes Ezra's behaviour stohd and frigid, and he has also given
the idea of the puritanic background of the Mannons which makes them
callous and unfeeling. Despite all this, he is a changed person and has a new
feeling when he speakes to Christine about his war experience:

"Death so common.... That freed me to think of life.... Death made me

think of hfe. Before that life had only made me think of death ! ... Life was
dying. Being bom was starting to die. Death was being bom." MBE p.83-84

And he unmasks himself more ;

' I came home to surrender to you - what's inside me. I love

you. I loved you then, and all the years between, and I love you." MBE p.86,

And finally just being unMannon-like, he transcends liis puritanic

stranglehold :
" I've a notion if we'd leave that children and go off on a
voyage together- to the other side of the world- find some Island where we
could be alone a while. You'll find I have changed, Christine. I'm sick of
death. I want hfe !" MBE p.87

O'Neill has very successfijUy removed Ezar's earher attitude of

wearing mask-like look, having a mannerism so typical of a Puritan, posing
attitude that suggest the statues of mihtary heroes, and evoked sympathy for
Ezra Mannon in the minds of audience which all the words or comments of
the chorus or the prophetic revelations of Cassandra can not do in
Agamemnon.

Of all the modem dramatists, O'Neill was basically preoccupied with

man's quest for a meaning in Hfe, and liis perpetual groping for self-
knowledge so essential for leading a healthy and great life. It was due to
186
this background that he resolved to work on a piay presentmg a modem
psychological approximation to tlie idea of 'Fate' so dominant and prevalent
in Greek tragedies. Of all the tragic heroines of antiquity, it was the figure of
Electra that appealed most to O'Neill's creative imagination. Her boldness,
courage, simphcity and the inexhaustible capacity to suffer in this male
dominated and chauvinistic world is h i ^ y comparable with those of
Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Medea and Shakespeare's Cordeha.
ThematicaUy and structiu-ally, both The Oresteia and Mourning Becomes
Electra can be described as works of hate and revenge involving murders
and suicides.. However, the motivations and destinies of the characters in
both the plays diverge strongly. The changes in time and locale destinies of
the characters diverge strongly. The changes in time and locale O'Neill made,
are impressive and spectacular ones.These alterations done on various levels
are much more meaningful than critics have maintained that Mourning
Becomes Electra stands closer to Shakespearean tragedy- Hamlet in
particular than to the Aeschylean The Oresteia. Frenz and Mueller point out:
"In the hves of Lavinia and Hamlet the call to revenge is the turning point
that ends the humihations of the past.""

O'Neill's idea of fate differs from that of Aeschylus. In The Oresteia,

Fate (and the role of gods) is predominant, but though the characters are
often driven by forces (divine or their prophecies) outside their control, they
bear full responsibihty for their fate. But in O'Neill's play, opine Frenz and
Mueller, "the 'fate' O'Neill considers so typical of Greek tragedy does not
exist. "'^ In Oedipiis Rex the curse/fate is determined even before the hero is
bom, and in King Lear and Timon ofAthens, it is the protagonists' character
which is more responsible for the whole gamut of chain reactions
responsible for the tragedy, in All for Love it is the unlawful love or the
compulsive - obsessive love that causes tragedy. In Mourning Becomes
187
in the past, is multiplied as the plot develops ahead. Since it functions in a
theological and social void (which was just non-existent in the hfe of the
.^cients), it is utterly destructive, because "if we are not completely formed
by society, theie is httle left that society does not affect,"" says Miller. This is
particularly so because the Greek "Pohs" is almost non-existent in modem
plays. More so, since characters in the Mourning Becomes Ekclra choose to
re-enact and perpetuate past crimes- therefore, bear full responsibihty for
their actions.

The motivations employed for the tragic intensity and dramatic effect
m The Oresieia by the divine and the social codes are replaced in Mourning
Becomes Eleclra by Freudian and Jungjan psychology. Through a blend of
naturdistic and symbohstic techniques, O'Neill creates a successful
modem tragedy along the hnes of the Greek legend. As has been
mentioned earher, since O'Neill was greatly influenced by Ibsen and
Strindberg, it was but natural for him to incorporate naturahstic elements in
his plays. The modem equivalent to the Greek fate is obviously attributable
to his intimate and deep knowledge of naturahsm. Though Ibsen and
Strindberg influenced him, his handling of the n^urahstic elements is at
variance with theirs. Ibsen's naturahsm was more concerned with heredity
and environment, Strindberg's was dominated by 'Social Darwinism', but
O'Neill's is predominantly concerned with the psychological forces of
Freudiamsm and Jungianism. According to R.S.Singh, "Under the influence
of Freud and Jung and his own experience, he had learnt to see unknown
interests clashing and shaping the behaviour and language of man."" Unlike
Ibsen and Strindberg, there is no mention of the inheritance of the deadly
disease as in Ghosts: and there is no hint of class-struggle, i.e. social
Darwinism, as in Miss Juke, O'Neill has mainly banked upon the use of
psychological forces in apposition to the Puritan ethos.
188
 O'Neill's main purpose of writing this tragedy was to mirror the
'sickness of society- the problem of the twentieth century. He did away with
the Aeschylean rehgious or moral pre-occupation, and concentrated on the
himian psychological relationships of love and hate and the resulting morbid
complexities and tragic abnormahties. The three parts of the trilogy were
progressively modified: so that it is the Homecoming which is nearest to
Agamemnon while ihe Himied and ihe Haunted diverge increasingly from
the Choephoroe and the Eumenides. The divergence in the later two parts
was essential to render the play relevant to the modem society.

O'Neill in his play Mourning Becomes Electra brought in a different

kind of parallelism. Of this the most important was the substitute for the role
of gods or of fate (Greek concept), and his well-thought-out substitute was
the "psychological fate". As Doris Falk says:

"In his detailed" Working Notes and Extracts from a fragmentary work
Diary", O'Neill outhnes his purpose and method in Mourning Becomes
Electra, emphasizing repeatedly his equation of the complexes with destiny.
They are "a modem tra^c interpretation of classic fate without benefit of
Gods— for it (the play) must, before everything, remain (a) modem
psychological play- fate springing out of the family.""

Part of the family doom does indeed stem from O'Neill's particular
treatment of these Freudian concepts. Oedipus and Electra complexes, in
Jungian terminology- archetypal complexes not only determine the actions of
the characters, but are identified and discussed by the characters themselves.
Christine, for instance, accuses her daughter Lavinia thus:

"You tried to become the wife of your

father and the mother of Orin. You have
always schemed to steal my place. "(MBE p.51)
189
 Lavinia's Electra complex- father fixation as pointed oiit by none else
but Christine, appears to have created serious problems in the family, and
pushed her mother toward Adam Brant, and sowed the seed of tragedy.
Orin's fixation on his mother is developed at some length. He has had his
mother's love, he is her 'cry baby'. His love for her, though carrying sexual
overtones, is reverential too. When he greets her on their first encounter, he
says:
"Mother ! God, it's good to see!" (MBE p. 120)

Then he says;
"And I'll never leave you again now.
I don't want Hazel or any One
You are my only girl." (MBE p. 141)

Of course, the term Oedipus complex has its origin in Sophocles'

Oedipus Rex. In Mourning Becomes Electra, it originates in the fact that
Christine loves her husband Ezra Mannnon too httle and Grin, her son, too
much. This Freudian concept explains the attractions and attachments that
motivate events- each Mannon is draAvn by an unconscious impluse to that
person who resembles the parent of the opposite sex. "A reader of ViTiat is
Wrong With Marriage is left with the idea that a man loves a woman, on the
whole, simply because she looks like his mother."" says Alexander. These
father and mother fixations are the great cause of our adult failure to behave
like rational beings, says Dr. Sigmund Freud. According to him, " Every
pathological disorder of sexual hfe is rightly to be regarded as an inhibition
in development."'^ Sophocles states the truth in more clear terms;

For many a man hath seen himself in dreams

His mother's mate, but he who gives no heed
To such like matters bears the easier fate.'"

190
 It is a clear-cut warning to those who are inchned to think that by
chnging on to mother, they can go to heaven and hve a peaceful hfe. In this
context of one's being unable to detach oneself from the lunbihcal chord, a
humanistic, existentid psychologist Rollo May has the following to say:
" the conflict is between every hunitm being's need to struggle toward
enlarged self-awareness, maturity, freedom imd responsibihty, and his
tendencey to remain a child and cling to protection of parents or parental
substitutes.""

Qrin and Lavinia being the victims of such complexe&/ conflicts are
unable to grow into mature and rationed human beings. They are misfits
hvmg m the Jungian 'shadow* part of their uncosciousness. The two are the
counterfeits of Peter and Hazel who lead quite a normal, peaceful and healthy
hfe. The other strongly naturahstic touch in the play concerns itself with the
striking physical resemblances with one another. Ezra Maimon, Capt. Adam
Brant and Orin physically resemble one another. Similar is the case with
Christine, Marie Brantome and Lavinia, especially in the case of their 'hair*.

Brant: (to Lavinia)- "You are so like your mother in

some ways, and look at your hair...I only know
of one other woman who had it... It was my
mother.
Lavinia: /\h !
Brant: Yes, she had beautiful hair like yoiu- mother's..."(MBE p.34)

These resemblances create inhibiting and negative problems in the life

of the characters. After these physical resemblances, psychic ones are also
hinted at. Brant, while talking about his father David Mannon, says:
"He was a coward - like all Mannons...."(MBE p.39)

191
 Like Ibsen and Stiindbreg, O'Neill also uses the naturalistic method
of invoking the past gradually. The crime is perpetrated in the past:
when Brant's mother and father were expelled and starved
to death. The effect of the past evil is tangibly felt in the present. Stage-
setting props and the number of characters are also kept to the minimum- a
naturalistic stage-setting.

In addition to these naturabstic elements, O'Neill's symobhc use of

language, stage-setting and characters contribute greatly in creating a more
powerful tragedy. The white Grecian temple portico with its tall Doric
columns and the black trunk of the tree are symbohc of the contrasted nature
of the objects. The incongruous white-mask fixed to the house to hide its
sombre grey ugliness is suggestive of the mask-like look of the Mannons
who conceal and repress their enormous passions; the Mannon-hoiise itself is
a symbol of jealousy, hatred and evil; the silence of the temple-hke house is
symbohc of its being simster m character; Lavinia's black dress and
Christine's green dress hint at the symbohc control exerted by the dead
Mannons on the hving ones as well as the evil influence- the curse that the
Mannons cannot shake off. Hazel is a symbol of Purity; islands symbolize
peace, freedom and sinless love. These symbohc contrasts and lefeiences go
a long way in enriching and enhancing the tragic vision and impact of the
play- Mourning Becomes Ekclra.

The inherited family curse because of the crimes committed in tiie past
casts its shadow in the garb of a death-wish on the Mannon family members
through an overwhelming, unrelenting sense of imminence of death. To the
town-people, the mannon-house becomes a symbol of death. The events of
the plot- murders, suicides and self-immurement- objectify this sense as does
the sepulchral facade of the Mannon house. "The murders and suicides in
Mourning Becomes Electa owe part of Uieir causation to the pmitanical
distortion of love"" ^ays Alexander. Death, as it seems, is the goal of
O'Neill's hero Ezra Mannon; he meditates on it, he walks in its shadow and
he hves for it. For instance, Mannon says:

"That's always been the Mannons' way of thinking.

They went to the white-meeting house on
Sabbaths and meditated on death...Being bom
was starting to die. Death was being bom." (MBE p.84)

. ^ d soon after Ezra himself bows at the altar of death.

A similar type of wish is also expressed by Qrin towards the end of the
play and he ultimately shoots himself to death. Unlike the death in Greek
tragedy, O'Neill's modifications, however, result in a hopeless reiteration that
death is final. This speaks of his pessimism, conforming to the views
expressed by Parks: "the man who was always a httle in love with death was
assuredly not an optimist when he dealt with hfe."^' In this case, the epiphany
(that is rebirth in The Oresteia) ultimately sHps into the vision of death.
Death-wish seems to be a Mannon-brand. In a world, wherein man's desire is
to drive away death, how come such a family like the Mannons exists!

In addition to this death-instinct, another predominant feature of the

Mannon's Puritanism is their attitude towards sex. Puritanism, for O'Neill's
generation, was strongly repressive towards sexual impulses. For the puritans
in the Mannon family, sex is dirty. In this context, Davis Alexander
concludes, "Literally, then, Ezra Mannon is murdered because Puritanism
prevented lum firom making love to his wife properly on his
wedding night. "^ Christine's giving in to the sexual advances of Adam Brant
and developing relations with him (the root-cause of tragedy), may be
ascribed to the repressive attitude of Ezra Mannon towards love and sex.
193
Adam's resemblance with C)Tin- her son, of course, does facihtate the
relationship. She benig sensual and voluptuous, just could not pull on with
cold and unfeeling Ezra. She is an outsider whose background is different
from that of Mannons. It all h^pened due to her isolation and the inevitable
hold of her instincts. Had she repressed her sexual desires, her situation
could have been comparable to the governess of Henry James' most famous
story- Turn ofihe Screw. "The governess is suffering from hallucinations, the
result of a severe case of sexual repression; the ghosts are dramatic
projections of her own uncoscious sexual desires."^, observe Wilfred Guerin
and others. Again Alexander states, "It is Lavinia's discovery of the adultery
that forces Christine to take action."" Euripides' Medea jumps into the killing
spree when she comes to know that her husband- Jason has made up his
mind to take another woman. In King Lear, when Goneril comes to know
about Regan's romantic advances towards Edmund, she poisons the latter
and then commits suicide. Herein, jealousy, not puritanism, prompted such
an action.

Lavinia's attitude towards love jmd sex is also puritanic. On a certain

occasion, she describes love as a '"sin" (MBA, P.36). Her remarks about the
dreams of love as "dirty" (MBE p.36) confrim the fact that sex is detestable,
in conformity with Puritan ethos. "His method," comments Gascoigne, "was
to give sexual motivation to every twist of the plot."^ Shakespeare's Cordeha
too never had any kind of prochvity towards love or sex. She is as dry and
cold as Lavinia. But Cordeha and Lavinia, of course, add a lot in accelerating
the tragic tempo of the respective tragedies.

.After Lavinia and Oiin return from the Islands, Qru, experiences a
desire to possess Lavinia physically upon infatuation ^vith her blossoming
mother hke attractiveness. The climax is reached with Orin's incestuous
194
proposal. Shelley remarks, "Of all tragic motives, incest is the most powerful
since it brings the passions most violently into play."^ Furthermore,
according to the Pmitan ethos, incest is the confirmation of their mutual
damnation. In Oedipus Rex, it was incest that damned Oedipus completely.
According to some critics, king Lear's testing the degree of love amongst his
three daughters indicates his incestuous desire lying deep down in his heart,
and this invited his tragedy.

The tragedy of the Mannons becomes all the more powerful due to
their inabihty to confess their guilt pubhcly as they are 'elect'. Hence there is
no possibihty for purgation as in the Puritan ethos there is no such
possibihty. This is an essential ingredient of tragedy because in the opinion
of Steiner, "Tragedy is irreparable. It can't lead to just and material
compensation for past suffering.^ Insofar as the tragic trauma Antony,
Timon, Lear and Oedipus fall in, they could never extricate themselves. The
fall of the Mannons is unavoidable because they cannot confess their crimes
in pubHc. For instance, Christine tells Lavinia:

"....Such a public disgrace as a murder trial would be ( For it would all

come ! Everything ! Who Adam is and my adultery and your knowledge of it
- and, your love for Adam !" (MBE p. 143)

Tragically enough, the Maimons are caught in such an imbro^o that

they arefinallythougli gradually strangulated in their own private hell or get
hanged on the Mannon made gaUoAvs. liie whole family is hquidated one
after the other due to their ever deepening and tightening circle of mutual
guilt of deadly passions. R.S. Singh remarks th^ in the Mannon family
"Consuming passions lead the partners to their deaths."^ The moment the
incestuous relationship is estabhshed in Oedipus Rex, the irresistible volley

195
of passions consumes Jocasta and Oedipus* eyes. In Shakespearean tragedy,
it is true of Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello.

Now the play is briefly examined to see its continuous contraction. The
Mannon family is viciously doomed to isolation and introversion due to their
curse and guilt, similar to the curse of the house of Atreus reflected in the
tightening and shortening circle of relationships among the members of the
Mannon family. The process of contraction not only affects the relationships,
but also in the physical hquidation of the family members. The following
circle shortening as the family members go one after the other speaks
volumes of the tragic t r ^ round the family neck.

^Brant
Christine

(l) (ii) (iii) (iv) (V)

The first to face the brunt of fate (i.e. curse) is Ezra Mannon (i) whose
death evokes pity, especially as he is now a regenerate man hke
Oedipus,Tunon and Lear who desperately yearn for a new hfe of love and
understanding. This regeneration, which is something like the anagnorisis of
Greek tragic heroes, is explained as having taken place during the war, and
brings home to the audience a sense of waste of the good in him. The
revenging arrows fired at Ezra by Brant and Christine him at the conflict
between the hbertarian voluptuousness and sensuahty, and the puritanical
repression, which ultimately proves to be the starting point of tragedy. The
second shortened cricle (ii) shows Lavinia's actions- motivated by revenge
for the murder of her father by C^t. Brant and Cluistme, and also to repay
Adam for rejecting her. Further more, Qrin is mainly singled out by the
Oedipal jealousy as Brant ^engaged in sexual relations Avith mother. So the
next to face arrow of Death is Brant. Then he is killed. AJfter Adam Brant's
murder, the brutal death tempo is maintained by suicides. Christine coDapses
under the strain of extreme nervous tension caused by her strong sense of
guilt(iti). Moreover to her, hfe has lost meaning with Adam's death, and
suicide is the only recourse out of the seething torment within. She accepts
death hke a tragic heroine. Her son is indeed the indirect cause. Had Orin not
boasted about his murdering deed to his mother, and if Brant's murder had
been attributed to suicide, she would not have collq)sed. According to R.S.
Singh, "On the whole, woman is brought to sorrow in O'Neill's world by
whisky or by men wJio may be sons, husbands or lovers."^ The next to
undergo the anguish is Orin (iv). Only two family members are left not to
embrace hfe but to hug death and hnmurement. Though both Oiin and
Lavinia undergo a sea-change, the fonnefs is a fiightening one. For example,
Orin's incestuous proposal to his sister- Lavinia is the most j&ightening
aspect of the play. Orin's writing the record of the family history is not to
purge the Mannon sins, but to only blackmail Lavinia into staying with him.
Thus, the idea that Orin must die takes shape in Lavinia's mind, though she
attempts to reject it. When Oiin is about to commit suicide, Lavinia does not
deter him. The next and the last to suffer is Lavinia- Electra of Mourning
Becomes Electra, who says, "I am the last of the Mannons", (v). As death
becomes Mannons, mourning becomes Lavinia (Electra). Towards the end,
she realises with stuiming clarity that the dead will always come between
herself and h^piness. Released from all hopes of esc^e, Lavinia shps into a
deep cabn, the cabn of acceptance. She outrighUy shares Edgar's observation
in the last hnes of King Lear that "The weight of this sad time we must
obey."^(V.iii.323) R.S. Singh's comme.its rightly fit here that "Generally, the
197
woman is a wounded creature who is found left alone at the end of the dark
tunnel of the journey of life to grieve at what time had done to her, her past
or her present."^' She sends Peter away, realising that the Mannon curse
being her lot will destory him if he is involved with her. Before undertaking
the self-imposed punishment of self-immurement, she tells Seth :

"Don't be afraid. I am not going the way Mother and Orin

went. That's esc^ing punishment. And there is no one left
to punish me. I am the last Mannon. I have got to punish
myself! Living along with the dead is a worse act of justice
than death or prison." (MBE p.279)

Then towards the end when she is likely to cross the threshold of the
Mannon temple of hving death, she orders Seth;

"You go now and close the shutters and nail them tight."(MBE p.280)

The family curse, i.e. fate, uitimstfely reduces the family to a single
member who embraces a sort of death in life, which is the worst kind of
punishment. By not surrendering to the onslaughts of psychological fate, her
stature as a tragic heroine is exalted. Moreover, tragic effect is created, says
Gassener "if the protagonist looms humanly large among his fellow creatures
of the play and if his values, however deplorable in their particular results,
magnify", rather than diminish him as human beings."^

In the juxtfq)osition of end parts of the two trilogies- The Oresteia and
Mourning Becomes Eiectra ,we find that while in the case of the former, the
end is deeply drenched in an atmosphere of happiness, in the latter
{Mourning Becomes Ekctra), the end is gloomy and vitriolic. According to
Frenz and Mueller, "Critics commonly contrast the Tiappy end' of The

198
Oresieia with the grim pessimism of Mourning Becomes Ekctra, and then
either condemn O'Neill for his extreme pessimism or -as Roger Asselineau
has done recently- "praise liim for the deeper insight of greater daring with
which he earned the story to its bitter end."*' The last scene oi Mourning
Becomes Ekctra becomes q?pallingly tragic when Lavinia- after undergoning
a long ordeal of irrevocable guilt and ghastly murders- is made to lead a hfe
of self-immurement, nothing short of a perpetual hell.

Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Ekctra as aheady stated is based

on the model of a well-known Greek tragedy, i.e. The Oresieia. He did
follow certain rules of the Greeks but also made some additions in order to
adapt the Greek model to a modem and contemporary situation. Fate is now
taken as instinct and heredity. For O'Neill, tragedy is a conflict between the
conscious and unconscious forces of the psyche. Throughout the
whole play, the Oedipal relationships have been so defUy dramatised that
they go a long way in enhancing the tragic impact of the play,

A brief analysis of O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Ekctra in the context

of Sri Aurobindo's critical cannons will be heipfiil to understand the play-
wright's tragic vision from another angle. According to him, a successful or
great man is he who is able to harmonize or synchronize the three hfe-leveis
i.e. Physical, Vital and Mental. These levels may also be described as the
various layers of psycho- dynamicity of hfe. The most important alter the
physical is the 'vital' layer wherin the tragic characters like the Marmons are
deeply engulfed. The iVIannons being in the 'lower vital' wear mask-like
appearances, they are secretive, full of hate and jealousy plotting against one
another.They develop their fictitious self and remain confined to self-
affirmation. Christine's behaviour is simulative, deceptive, mahcious and
insincere towards her husband-Ezra Mannon. She adds a lot to the tragic
\99
tempo by remaining stuck up in the 'lower vital'. Ezra Mamion does shake his
mask off and comes into the 'mental' but Christine is stubborn enough not to
come up to the same level. Adam Brant is neck deep in the 'central vital' and
remains strongly in revengeful mood. His entry into the Mannon house
ignites the spark of tragedy. Orin too, being in the 'lower-vital' remains
fixated on mother and sister, and does httle to do some constructive work to
undo the damage done to the family. From the whole Mannon family,
Lavinia is the only character who being in the 'mental' tries to keep the fanuly
safe by dissuading her mother Christine to stop the unlawful love-affair with
Adffln Brant. According to sri Aurobindo : "... Our self view is vitiated by a
constant impact and intrusion of outerself- hfe self, such vital being ... for
our vitd being is not concerned with self knowledge but with self-
^ftrmation, desire, ego. "^ But she too cannot save herself from the onslaught
of ail powerfiil- the negative 'vital' in her own personahty and alsofi^omthe
same 'vital' in the other family members. She also suffers from the complex
of father-fixation. She feels jealous when she comes to know about the
Adam-Christine love affair as Adam happens to resemble her father. She also
feels attracted to her father- Electra complex. Such people e.g. Chrisitine,
Brant, Orin and Lavinia commanded by the vital hfe-level are often prone to
shp into the hfe-negating complexes and cause tr^edy not of their ownselves
but of others also. Peter and Hazel are the only ones who are hj^py,
peaceful peace-loving and gracefully normal just because of the proper
harmonization of their various layers of psycho-dynamicity of hfe. The
contrast between the Mannons, and Peter and Hazel is indicative enough of
what is insulatively positive in hfe to safeguard ourselvess from the tragic
trap of the negative forces.

To sum up, the tragic vison of O'Neill hes in the Aristotehan 'hamartia'
which is abundantly present not in one member of the family but in the
200
whole family that suffers from the puritanic hubris; the camion of naturahsm
fixes it on the heredity of the Mannon fjmuly that started from the grand-
father and moved on to crush the grandson and the grand-daughter, in the
Jungian interpretation, it holds the archetypal- universal hfe-negating
fixations; in the Freudian terminology- the Oedipal and Electra complexes
which keep the characters away from the rational bent of mind; and in the
Aurobindonian context, it hes in the lack of appropriate and suitable
synchronization of life-levels. O'Neill's tragic vision as analysed above would
surely help us comprehend the otherwise mysterious vision of life.

After O'Neill's Mourning Becomes EleCiTU, Uie spotlight is turned on

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, anotlier modem representative tragedy.
In it, the overl^ping tragic vision being examined is rather socio-moral in
context and content of all the dramas under review, this is tlie most
democratised one. It is not at all a tale of an exalted personage plunging into
a morass (as per Aristotle's PoeUcs) but rather of a lowly salesman who
pursues the elusive American Dream, actually m^-keted by the commercial
and pohtical powers that be. Insofor as the tragic vision is concerned, it is
interpreted niainly at the level of human suffering, full of pathos engendered
by false ego and false pnde The aged protagonist, Willy Loman all his hfe
worshipped the "Big" and has pursued the same eternally, hoping to "make it
big", a dream which does not jell with Uie actual reality he is a prisoner of.
Coming straight to the point, Willy Loman is a tragic failure, a victim of the
industrial juggernaut with its finetuned mechanism. This mammoth machine
does not only market tangible products but also ideas, viewpoints which
further whet its appetite for more gargantuan proportions of insatiable
growth inducing greater scope, size, maguitude- all to engorge itself further.
Willy, of course, believes in the peddled illusion of success. His suffering is

201
the fall-out of hijnartia as he is completely braiiiwashed by the system, yet
can not effectively deal with it.

As in the case of earlier plays, a brief look at the p l ^ follows. Willy

Loman, the protagonist is a salesman past sixty. Towering angular buildings
(skyscrapers) surround his house. Linda, his wife is deeply caring, loving
and admiring. He has two sons, Biff and Happy (Harold). Willy returns from
Florida after a saiesrun, tired. He tells Linda,"! suddenlly could not drive any
more. The car kept going off on to the shoulders y' know."
Linda, concerned, consoles him saying that it might be due to the
faulty steering mechanism. But in actual fact, she knows that her
husband is exhausted not only physically but decrepitly too Willy reahses
that his body demands rest. His mind is active but body is passive. Old
age, the sense of failure and unsuccessful "rainbow dreams" have
cumulatively landed him in such a pitiable state that he has lost grip on
reahty and hfe. Deep down, he knows he is dispensable, a heavy lingering
awareness. He nostalgically retreats into the past, seeking psychological
comfort- actually a type of escape.

His eldest son. Biff, 34 years old is still unemployed. Willy is deeply
dis^pointed in Biff, but he deludes himself that Biff has the personahty to
succeed. A tension lurks between the two, the father unable to imderstand.
But Biff has also not lived up to Willy's expectations. Willy dwells on how
people in the past used to follow him. But now, he states, he is being
contradicted. In actuahty, the elusive American dream of materiahstic
success has s^ped his soul. He recalls the connectedness of rural hving-the
^ a r i a n society which is just without the cut-throat competition. This desire
shows his inability to compete and succeed in the highly
competitive,industrial society. He as an individual, did not grow but the outer
202
world ass\imed gigantic proportions. Hence he became useless, outdated,
obsolete and decrepit. His dieamy and imaginative world is all still,
unproductive and regressive in the eyes of Howard- his present employer.
His two sons, quite old, are still caught in the vicious web of his microcosm -
his personalised world which proves dl illusive, delusive, false, stagnant as
opposed to the macrocosm- the dynamic world.

His yoimger son, H^py, is concerned about his father's state of mind.
Actually both Biff and Happy are not psychologically potent enough to help
lum. Both of them are Don Juans always talking of girls. They add to Willy's
miseries. His own failure and his sons' failure weigh heavily on his mind. As
a father he failed in moulding them properly to face the competitive world
boldly.

Ai one pomt Biff with rising agitation, tells Happy,

"I have had twenty or tliirty different kinds o^ job since I left
house before the wai, and it always turns out the same".^^

The son again states:

"I'm thrity-foux years old, I ought a be making future. That's

when I come running home. And how, I get here, and I dont know what to
do with myself" p. 16-17 He further says, " I' am mixed up very bad." p. 17

He laments his failure and feels powerless to extricate himself from the
morass.

Biff is unable to see his future and has lost his sense of direction.
Happy also has not much hope except for waiting for his manager to die.
Both of them need their own apartment, a car, and plenty of women, but they
do not think of doing anything on their own. Biff plans to buy a ranch, raise
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 cattle and use his muscle. But all lliis is empty desire. Happy is frustrated.
The whole burden falls on Willy. He has been selling not the things but
"himself' all these years without giving time to his sons. Willy has been an
uninspiring paradigm for his sons. For H^py, it is his boss. He says about
his boss th^ "when he walks into the store, the waves part before him. That's
fifty thousand dollars a year coming through the revolving doors, and I got
more in my pinky finger than he's got in his head" p. 18 So, the play hinges
and operates on the delusions of three characters Willy, Biff and Happy.

Willy tries to involve his sons in household affairs. It is the fear of

insecurity that scares him and therefore he tries to extract strength and
confidence from his sons. He advises them E^out girls. He tells Biff to mind
his schooling first. He takes pride in talking about the physical personahty of
Biff. He instead should have advised them about some more pragmatic and
useful matters.

Willy Loman creates a false aura aroimd himself and tells Biff that
some day he will own his business. He doesn't tike leaving home anymore.
He wants to be among his own people. The idea of being liked' haunts him.
H^py is oflen proud of his father when he talks of big things. Willy portrays
himself as bigger than Charile, a very rich neighbour. He boasts of meeting
powerful people. He dwells on better days ahead.

Willy has a very close fiiend-Charhe who is very practical and

successful. In the core of his mind, Willy is jealous of him. Charile educates
his son Bernard quite pragmatically. Willy discourages Bernard, when the
latter tries to tell the former about Biffs position in school. Willy underrates
Bernard but overrates his sons. His boasting before his sons has negative

204
effect, not a positive one. They develop a false notion ^ o u t their father and
about themselves.

He often hes to Linda, but there are certain moments when he

confesses that people laugh at him. At times, he indulges in self-pity and
doubts his own capabihties. People call him Svakiis* but Linda negates it by
caUing him the handsomest man in the world. She also teUs him that he is
idolized by his sons and that way he is the luckiest person. In a way, she
sometimes goes out of her way to help him retain his iUusdons-cum-
delusions.

WiUy is proud of his big brother Ben, a very successful and rich man.
He is attracted by the idea of success but he does not realize that for real
success in hfe, one has to struggle through the 'Jimgle'. He actually does not
find a way to have access to it. But there are moments when he cries: "The
woods are burning. I can't drive a car." p.32 Charhe tries to tell him the truth,
but Willy does not accept his advice. He boasts before a man who knows him
thoroughly. He overlooks Biff's stealing, dismissing it as adventurousness.

Inspite of Willy's sinking from aU sides, his wife Linda still cares.
Linda teUs Biff, "If you don't have feelijigs for him, then you can't have any
feelings for me." She adds "I know he is not easy to get along with- nobody
knows that better than me." p.43

Biff quite gradually develops a notion that his father is a 'fake'. He says
he has "no character." p.44 All but Linda accuse him and reduce him to a
tragic figure. Linda asks Biff to pay attention to Willy. The playwright
castigates American society through Linda- a world wherein the common
man is languishing and starving in the land of plenty.
2or
 Willy is suicidal, making many attempts almost fully, but holding
back at thefinalmoment. The failure on the economic level in the family has
broken Linda too. She is worried day in and day out over the payment of
bills. No one shares her worries, not even Willy, who remains lost in day
dreams. She is the one who acts as a bridge between Willy and sons.

The second act begins with a silver-lining in sight. Willy plans to buy
seeds and grow some vegetables and raise a few chickens. He hopes to marry
Biff and Happy and build a guest house for them. But, again, as luck would
have it, he shps back into the world of self-piPy and inferiority. He becomes
nervously conscious of the incompleteness of his personahty. As a result, he
cannot bear the sight of Linda with her torn stockings.

Howard, Willy's present employer, disappoints him for not holding out
any promise of a job. He is a shattered individual as he is about to be
rendered disfunctional in society terms. He fails to understand that he hves
in a market oriented culture where man has no value if he is incs5)able and
inefficient and is just not able to earn anything.

Willy Loman desires to learn the secret of successfiromCharley, Ben,

and even Bernard. He is obsessed with the idea of success and failure. At one
point, he returns home with seeds to sow in the garden. At this crucial
moment, when all hopes have been dashed to the ground, he thinks of the
insurance pohcies, his funeral, and his eldest son Biff. He has a false notion
that his funeral will be massive. His pipe-dream is shattered. He moves out
and smashes his car and dies.

206
 Ai the graveyard, the scene is deserted. His funeral is attended by very
few persons hke Charley, Biff, Happy and Linda. The funeral is in no way
large and massive. Incidentally, the last payment of the house is paid on that
day (of Willy's funeral) but he is not there to live in it.

Willy, following the business principles of maximum profit, coll^ses

to the maddening world of competition. The effectiveness of this play as a
tragedy stems from its central conflict between self and the other, i.e.
between individual and society .Being totally in the lap of adversity, he
reminisces his past happiei days. The hallucinations that haunt him have their
visitations upon him not chronologically, but psycho-dynamically. The
pressure of his catastrophic failures is so heavy upon his mind that the
imminent volcanic eruption is ready to j»ropel him to commit suicide; as
Miller says, he was concerned that if he could make him remember enough,
he would kill himself.

Miller says that he thinks the tragic feelings are evoked in us when
we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life if need
be to secure one thing- his sense of personal dignity. Moreover, in today's
democratic world, a common man is as important as some high personage. It
is this "sense of personal dignity" that raises a common man to the stature of
a tragic hero. There are different views about Willy being a tragic hero.
Different critics oppose that Willy is merely a "Common Man", "a low man",
"a victim of the society" or "a poor,flashingself-deceiving man". Such views
are based upon the Aristotehan concept of the rank of the t r ^ c hero
in a society. For Aristotle, a tragic hero has a high rank in the society, he is
either a king or a prince. But kings and princes don't exist today. Today there
are common people, "low-men", strugghng to preserve their image in the
modem commercialized world. Hence, for Miller, it is the degree of the
207
struggle even the suiTeiing involved in that, and not the rank in the society
that raises one to the stature of a tragic hero. He says: "The play was always
heroic to me, and in later years the academy's charge that Willy lacked the
"stature" for the tragic hero seemed incredible to me. I had not understood
that these matters are measured by Greco-Ehzabethan paragr^hs which hold
no mention of insurance payments, front porches, refrigerator fan belts ,
steering kunckles, chevrolets, and visions seen not through the portals of
Delphi but in the blueflameof the hot-water heater."^

Justifying a common man as a hero of modem tragedy in the

contemporary society of twentieth century, Tomas E, Sanders has the
following comment to make; "Modern tragedy dismissing the mythical hero
and utilizing the common man, turned to new "truths", those supphed by
psychology, social aweffeness, class conflict, and so on...."^

Willy Loman, as his name suggests, is a *low-man" of the society.

Though he is a low man, he cannot be ignored simply because he is a low
man. Whatever his status in the society, " he is a human being and terrible
thing is h^pening to him. So attention must be paid. He is not to be allowed
to fall in his grave like a dog", p.44 The "terrible thing" that is h^pening
to Willy- the c^tain of ship is the failure of his crew in the modem
mechanized world. The fault is partly in himself and partly of society.
It is this interplay of the social and the personal elements which elevates
Willy to the status of a tri^c hero. The identification of the aged Americans
was so close that Miller had to write, "I received visits from men over sixty
from as far away as California who had come across the country to have me
write the stories of iheii hves, because the story of WiUy Loman was
exactly like theirs."^ So Miller may rightly be called a spokesman of
the sickness of his contemporary society.
208
 The factors which enable Willy to be a tragic hero are his stubborn
refusal to compromise and his unwillingness to "settle for half. It is
important to observe that tragic flaw is not neccessarily a weakness (as in
Aristotle). The flaw in Willy is the inherent willingness to remain strong in
the face of the challenge to his dignity, to his image of his rightful status.
WiUy is fighting at two levels to retain or regain his "dignity" and "his rightful
status" in the society. One, as a man or a salesman, two, as a father. As a
man, he has strong aspirations to rise above "the average" and "come out at
number one" ahead of Charhe and Bernard. But his theory of 'personal
attractiveness' and 'training his sons' fails and instead of guiding he misguides
his sons and they both prove a failure. The tragic truth that evokes our pity
of the man is his acute awareness of his own short comings and failures in
the opening scene. But he stubbornly follows his dreams and drifts further
away from his goal.

Apart form suffering as a small man m a big world, Willy also suffers
as a guilt-ridden father. In the heart of his hearts, he knows that he has given
Biff wrong education. Another thing that is always pecking at his heart is the
problem of restoring his lost image in the eyes of his son. How much of a
big man WiUy is, is revealed to Biff in the Aston Hotel, where he finds a
naked woman in Willy's room. WiUy also reacts sharply to Bernard when the
latter sums up Biffs failure in just one question: "What happened in Boston,
WiUy? p.74 This question too is a threat to his dignity and the only answer he
finds to questions he faces as a father is m committing suicide and making
for the loss with the msurance money. The suicide does not render him
cowardly, but exalts him to the stature of a tragic hero because this he does
in order to retain his "dignity", his "rightful status". W^illy's suicide may also
be seen m the context of Japanese concept of hara kiri. In hara kiri ,
209
one does away with oneself in full consciousness because one feels one has
fallen short of a higher perceived value. The value may be social, cultural
pertaimng to the enshrined codes; the value may be famihal. In fact, the
concept of self-immolation is widely disseminated cross-cultural idea, the
Romans did away with themselves in the event of failure e.g. Brutus
stabbed himself, Antony and Ventidius killed themselves with their own
swords. Drona Acharya, in Mahabharat gave up his life yogjcally when he
heard that his son hau died in the Mahabharat battle. Oedipus blinded
himself when he came to know about his incestuous marriage with his
mother. Willy' self-knowledge about his total failure on all fronts made him
commit suicide.

In his clash with the society, Willy emerges as a tragic hero. He is not
merely a victim of the society. Though the business world is callous, cold,
but as a matter-of-fact, it is not entirely the business world that is responsible
for Willy's failures. The fault hes with his ownself too, he is no less culpable,
reprehensible. Moreover, tlie whole business world is not alike. If Howard is
a stone-hearted, unemotional person, Charile is plain, honest and kind. He
has sympathy and concern for Willy whom he knows through and through.
He offers him a job, but Willy the so-called big man declines to accept that
even though he has to resort to sophisticated begging. All this he does again,
to retain his image of being Ijig' that he always cherishes though foolishly.

A tragic hero's problem is that he can not simply walk away from the
facts of hfe. Bernard suggests Willy, "But sometimes, WiUy, it is better for a
man just to walk away",p.75 But Willy does not. He sticks to a committed
course of action. If he could "walk away", he would not be a tragic hero.
Oedipus could never leave his enquiry midway. He just can not sit back and
accept that he is 'a dime a dozen' this is a threat to his image.
210
He desperately asserts: "V am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman
...."p. 105Like all Millefs heroes, Willy sacrifies everything-even his
life for the right to be recognized as an individual on this earth.

Miller says that Willy has certain values. And he is aware of

the failure of these values. He is struggling to have a grip on the
forces of modem hfe- the grip that an ordinary man has lost. His
death does not imply that he is defeated. That rather is an effort
towards that grip. This exalts him rather than behtthng him. Willy's
search for self-fulfilment, his persistent unwillingness to "settle for half'
and finally, his courage to die to reaffirm his self-identity, are the
essential ingredients that uplift this "Low-Man" to the stature of a great tragic
hero, worthy of other heroic kings and princes of classical tragedy. Willy is
not a passive "low-man" but an active "low man" who refuses to remain
passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity and
hisrightfiilstatus. He 'wills' to lead his life to a voluntary self destruction for
a need greater than hunger or sex or thirst, a need to leave a thimib-print
somewhere in the world and in the process dies a heroic death while
ensuring the insurance money for his house. "Like the traditinal hero,
Loman begins his long season of agony. In his descent, however,
there is a famihar tragic paradox; for as he moves towards inevitable
destruction, he acquires that knowledge, the sense of reconcihation, which
allows him to conceive a redemption plan for his house. "^ says Jackson.

However, despite the redemption of Willy Loman as discussed

before, there is need to study and analyse his tragedy as interpreted
by various psychologists and philosophers like Erich Fromm, C.G. Jung
and Sri Aurobindo.

211
 Erich FTonun especially underlines his view of Willy's ego, the
attribution to oneself of fictitious traits. Miller uses the following
phrases to reveal Willy's fictitious character, 'his mercurial nature', 'his
massive dreams' and 'the turbulent longings within him.' Because of all
this, he loses touch with reahty . Consequently, he becomes a victim
of society and a victimizer of himself and family. These false
attributes do a lot in compensating for the lacks and deficiencies.
Sometimes this tendency of developing lictitious self or fi^ontal self
creates a false facade (inflated image) of having latent or unrealized
potentials- but to achieve these, hard work is very essential. In the
absence of such hard-work or commitment to one's growth and
development, a fictitious attribution comes to seem more real to
oneself than actuahty. This fictitious self of Willy Loman becomes a
part of his personahty. To speak in precise clinical psychological terms
Willy Loman is sufferingfiromwhat is called neurosis. In neurossis,one has a
view of oneself which is not being endorsed or verified by others. In fact, the
verification that one gets from others is totally at variance with one's self-
view. So progressively, one gets cut off from the meaningful human fellow-
ship and withdraws himself into fear, unease, anxiety and obsessions. The
view imderlined above is captured in the following poem:

It thrives on fictitious, lutile self-image,

desperately trying to reflect itself,
in the slough of murkiness,
grimaces greet the self-seeing,
from viscous slime.

Unable to maintain the front office,

mocked by multiple mirrors,
212
 it slips into obsessive fears,
grey unease,
anxiety imremitting.

Neurosis is vanity,
its root is conceit. ***

According to the Jungian temiinology as quoted by Guerin and

others, Willy develops a 'persona' that is too artificial or rigid. He
never changes . He could have saved himself fi^om the false persona-
the social mask if he had tried to achieve psychological maturity. And
for this maturity to achieve , "The individual must have a flexible,
viable persona that can be brought into harmonious relationship with
other compcjients of his or her psychic make-up."*"

Jimg Further says , "... that a persona that is too artificial or

rigid, results in such symptoms of neurotic disturbance as irritabihty
and melancholy."*' Not only Willy is the victim of such rigid
persona but his other family members hke Biff, Happy and Linda also
suffer from the same. They adso never change to become flexible or
dynamic in life. They know family is miseiably a failure but they
never take corrective measures. Sri Aurobindo highhghts the
problematic facade of fictitious self thus:

"... Our self-view is vitiated by a constant impact and

intrusion of outerself- life-self, our vital being... for om vital being is
not concerned with self-knowledge but with self affirmation, desire.

*** NEUROSIS - an unpublished poem by Som P. Ranchan.

213
ego. It is, therefore, constantly acting on mind to biuld for it a mental
structure of apparent self that will serve those purposes; our mind is
persuaded to preseiU to us and to others a partly fictitious
representative figure of ourselves which supports our self-affirmation,
justifies our desires and actions, nourishes our ego. n42

In the Ught of the above critical cum philosophical comment, Willy's

fedse ego stands vindicated. He is never after self-knowledge but is
always for the aftirmation of his own ment^ formulations. Actually, he
is in the lower vital' wherein one remains stuck up in falsehood,
simulation and insincere to himself and others. This type of personahty
infects others e.g. Biff and H^py never grow as perfect personahties.
Willy is also in the 'mental vital' wherein he develops a formulation
that it is personality and contacts that make a person successftil in hfe.
Such a false formulation he never breaks and fails.

In such a situation, one runs the risk of inhabiting a world of

one's own delusions. WiUy becomes is the victim of such an inflated
image. He remains in tl\e grip of illusions till the last day of lus life. Nobody
fi-om liis family even his fiiend CharHe could know the reason of his hving
in the shadow of illusions. Chanian Aliuja thinks diat, "... in creating his last
illusion , he has, in a way affirmed the game of iUusion-making that man's
hfe essentially is; it is possible also to interpret audience-bewilderment as an
equivalent of the tragic mystique. "^'

He loses touch with ground reahties, not only outside the family
but witliin liis family also. He should know that his sons are going astray and
they have not found a regular job. Keeping his dignity intact, he wants to
become financially rich. His process of life is relational, but not a
calculating one. The relational principle for him is very difficult to

214
execute in the metropolitan city society as Willy desires of it or
fantasizes about it. In such a society, there is no concern for his
emotional values. In such a marketing society, there is a concern only
for commercial values. Willy being a misfit and a complete failure is
rendered a lost man', a nervous old man with no confidence . On many
occasions he is seen talking to himself. Instead of action, he talks.
Why does a person talk to himself, is explained by Dr. Suresh Rattan,
a modem gerontologjst; "Even as adults, Y s need to talk to ourselves
fi^om time to time to regain confidence, to overcome nervousness, and
to regain faith hi ourselves and our surroundings. Private speech has
pubhc role."** Willy, as a hero of the tragedy will be remembered by
the ^ e s to come; not as a grand, towering personality like Oedipus,
Lear or Timon but as everyman's hero. He represents faith or intuition
of everyone. He has immortalised the common man of twentieth
century caught in jaws of juggernaut.

Biff Loman ma> also be considered a tragic hero in Death of a

Salesman. He becomes the victim of Willy's massive dreams and
wrong ideals. Willy has imparted him an education unsuited to his
temprament. But we see that there is a different response to the similar
education given to both the sons Biff and H^py. Whereas H^py
matures into a biismess minded town man, Biff tosses between what
he temperamentally is and what he is shaped into. He is a simple man
who wants to hve in the open, work on a farm and use his muscles.
Willy, without ever trying to sense his son's tastes or the bent of
mind, wants him to be a businessman. But Biff always finds himself
unsuited to the Hfe and values of a businessman. There is always a
conflict between what he tempramentally is and what he is trained in.
It is this conflict that (unlike Happy) raises him to a tragic figure.
215
Right from Biffs' childhood, Willy injects into him the feeling that he
is different hero, another Hercules or Adonis. It is this image that
makes him unfit for anything. Willy has always a formulation that a
man with personal attractiveness must succeed in world. To WiUy,
Bernard is an "anaemic" p.25 while his own sons are "Adonises." p.25
He beheves that "the man who makes an appearance in the business
world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets
ahead." p.25 This encourages Biff to take his studies hghtly and finally
he ends up with flunkmg maths. This happens because nobody hstens
to Bernard when he comes with the information, that the maths teacher
Mr. Bimbaimi is going to fail Biff He is rather mocked at and called
an "anaemic pest", p.25 Willy is sure that Biff would graduate because
three universities are giving him scholarship for being an outstanding
player. But this illusion ruins Biffs career. Linda tries to tell Willy
that Bernard is right but Willy says "There's nothing the matter with
him, you want him to be a worm like Bernard? He's got spirit,
personify..." p.31 Biffs wrong training is complete when he echoes
Willys remarks about Bernard. He says about Bernard. "He 's Jiked but
he's not well liked." p.25

Apart from making his sons feel big, Willy gives an inflated
image of himself to his sons. Biff and Hi^ppy have a feeling that
their father is a big and influential man who has friends like the
Mayor of Providence. Willy names big people very casually and tells
his sons," I can park my car in any street in New England, and the
cops protect it like their own".p.24 These are big hes but innocent
Biff develops a hero-worshipping attitude towards his father. His
illusion about his father breaks in the Boston hotel where he goes to
see his father after he has flunked math. He goes with a hope that
216 < •
his father is a big man and the professor will give him the needed
grade points if Willy asked him. But after the Boston incident of finding
his father with a naked woman, his whole faith is shattered. He teUs
Willy that the teacher won't obhge liim. It is from here that Biffs
tragedy begins. The image of his father is destroyed in his mind.
Willy who was an ideal hero in Biffs eyes is reduced to "ahar" or
'a fake', p.95 Willy was the anchor for Biff in the vast ocean of the
modem commercial world. The anchor is gone and Biff is left alone
with nothingness around.

The wrong education and the loss of faith in this education are
always in clash with Biffs essential temperament. He tries his luck in
all kinds of jobs in different states but is unable to make the mark
even at the age of thirty-four. He doesn't directly blame his father but
says to H^py: I'm mixed up very bad" p. 17 He has found that he is
unfit for town job which for him is "ajueasily manner of existence."
p. 16 He, actu^y, is man with love for nature. To him "there is
nothing more inspiring or beautiful than the sight of a mare or new-
colt". p. 16 He is a free soul who feels choked in the restraints of the
world. He says : "... We don't belong in this nutshell of a city ! We
should be mixing cement on some open plain, or - or carpenters. A
carpenter is allowed to whistle.''p.48 But we see that Biff fails to settle
even in the farm life and he comes back home from Texas. This is
because Biffs natural self has not grown into maturity and is just unable to
break the umbihcal tjiord. To explain Biffs unsettling and coming
back home, a humanistic psychologist Rollo May has the following to
say: "... the confhct is between every human being's need to struggle
toward enlarged self-awareness, maturity, freedom and responsibility;
and his tendency to remain a child and cling to protection of parents
217
or parental substitutes.*' Unlike Charlie, Willy has beheved in training
his sons. If he had not imposed his training on Ms son, Biff might
have naturally grown just as Bernard does and might have made a
success. It is evident that Biff grows into a lopsided personality
because his father actively interfered with his natural growth but his
mother remained a passive spectator.

The effect of the education remains even at the age of thirty

four. Biff is still as iraiocent as he was in the childhood. He expects
Bill Ohver to remember him and what he said to Biff many years ago
putting his arm on his shoulder and asked Biff if he emerged anything,
come to him. But the reali^tion comes to him when Ohver doesn't
even recognize him. He has reahzed that his whole life has been highly
ridiculous. For fifteen \'ears, it has been just a dream. This is the tragic
realization that Biff has. It is here that he reahzed the meaninglessness
of his hfe. He is awakened to the facts, the cold ones. It is this
reahzation that he imparts to WiUy in the confrontation scene that he is
a dime a dozen and so is he. He tells Willy that he gave him a wrong
training and he could never get anywhere because he had blown into him so
full of hot air, he could never stand taking orders form anybody. He
teUs Willy what he temperamentally is. He is trying to become what he
doesn't want to be. He is behaving hke a contemptuous begging fool
when all he wants out there, waiting for him the minute he says he
knows who he is! What Biff really wants to have is the work and the
food and the time to sit and smoke. This is the outburst of an
agonized Biff who has been raised at the altar of wrong ideals. The
tragedy hes in the clash between essential temperament and wrong
constructs. The word 'constructs' is being used in the concpetual sense of
Georgeh A. KeUy, a leading psychologist. According to him, these constructs
218
are of three broad categories: pre-emptive constructs, (restrictive in nature),
constellatory costructs, and propositional constructs. Willy injects the pre-
emptive constructs m Biff- that the personahty and the contacts are all
important in life to become successful.His father blew such hot air into him
that he became the inflated balloon which kept jumping and could never
settle. The adulation he got from school as a great footballer also made him
erect the pre-emptive constructs. AH this restricted and inhibited the
development of his personality. He never developed the constellatory
constructs. He could have gained the required experience/wisdom from his
class-fellows like Bernard and teachers. He could have also learnt wsdom
from the different jobs he undertook. He never gained enough experience to
go into the propositional constructs. He wanted farm job but a proved a
failure there also. He only proposed but never disposed. Biffs fixated
formulations about himself and others may be explained in George A. Kelly's
own words:

'The relations estabhshed by a construct or a construction system over

its subordinate elements is deterministic. In this sense, the tendency to
subordinate constitutes determinism. The natural events themselves do not
subordinate our constructions of them, we can look at them in any way we
like.... The structure we erect is what rules us."** It is more tragic when a
common man has big dreams, dreams which are unsuited to his
essential make-up. In order to become big, he loses his essential
natural self. The fault hes partly with the man's choice and paiUy with
the mechanical world in which such dreanis are eas>' to nurtiure, but
difficult to reahze. Biff rightly observes nbout Willy in the Requiem:
Tie had the wrong dreams; All, all, wrong."p. 110

219
 Biif may also be looked upon as the seed that Willy plants, but
he plants it in a wrong soil. With the result. Biff matures into a
thutless tree. The fault is not with the seed but with the environment,
^^^th the planter. And Willy, seeing his efforts wasted, wonders:
"Nothing planted!"

Biff may also be looked upon as a typical all-American, athletic

young man. He seems to be like a young man in America who is
wasted in the competitive conmiercial environment of America and is
not jSnding his place. The fault is not with the man entirely. It is the
society which in most cases is largely responsible for the failure of
younger generation. They fall victim to the dreams that it offers. But
Biff even though an .American youth, is not merely the meek victim of
the society. He rises to the stature of a hsio because of the conflict
in his mind- the conflict between the essential temperament and the
wrong training or enviroment. In this regard Biff is as much a tragic
hero as Willy is because he too, like Willy, proves a failure in the
business world because of the sociological and psychological factors.

Indian family dynamics are basically and necessarily relational

whereas American family dynamics is one of sharing and fulfilment of
needs. As gro^vn-ups, Biff and Happy are not properly integrated
within the family. They take recourse to thieving and womanising as
an escape fi^om responsibihty. Both of them subscribe to a "hit and
miss" sexuahty and seek "quickies in the wagon", lacking true
involvement in Hfe.. Their women are merely adjunct to get drunk on
rather than intoxicating themselves on life's true achievments.

220
 .^^meiican culture in particular and Western culture in general demands
that boys should attain antonomy in high school in the relative sense- in the
sense that they should do small jobs to earn pocket money and also to defray
other expenses involved in their own past times, parties and other self-
fulfilling pursuits. Biff and H85)py violate this central code of American
culture. Against the American culture, Biff has prolonged his adolescence
Linda and Willy are also at fault from the cultural perspective in giving him
shelter in between his twenty odd jobs. To enc^sulate clinically, Biffs
problem is that he is a passive puer who idolizes mother but negates father.
He can hold provisional jobs only.

Biffs earher glory gave Willy pride and a sense of worth

though the balloon could not balloon for long. WiUy still sees it soar
in his reverie. As myth has it, Biff is like Adonis who heard not the
call of Aphrodite (meaningful relationship with others) and finally
perished in the fire of \hQ self. Both the sons of Willy are not much
different from each other except that Biff feels concerned about the
family whereas H^py in indifferent towards it. The two are like two
crazy restless beings running into instabihty. They are unable to find a
niche in the world. Biff has the restless anger in him whereas H^jpy has
the restless lust in him.

Linda- Willy's wife is his great anchor. She, being an emotional

pivot in the tragedy of Willy Loman, continually does the emotional-
balancing act. She is always concerned and caring. She, despite the
serious disintegrating problems in the family, keeps the family Wagon
going. When Willy tells her that people laugh at him, he does not
have a good personahty- she dispels his inferiority complex and says
that he is the handsomest person in the world. She suffers and suffers
221
n lot She is a great pfun bearer. She mends her stocidngs and works
hke a drudge, but never protests. Her emotional grit backed by the
lenacitv oi love is Avhat keeps the emotional roller-coaster from
vO apsmg ^hc \irges Bit! and Happy to be considerate towtirds Willv.

She counts ins hlc-linie hcird labour not only tor the hunily but
lor the tinn iilso. She strongly protests and reacts when BilT
downgrades Willy but upgrades Charhe as far their success m hfe is
concerned. Lmda's reaction is:

"Then make Charlie you father, Biff. ....Willy Loman made a lot
of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest
character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing
IS happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be
allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog."p.44

Willy does deserve all the sympathy not from his wife only but
from ail those who are likely to be the victims of the capitahst
society. Miller made Willy a representative victim. With the advent of
industriahsm in America, capitahsm with all its materialism began to
show Its fangs. Human aspect was altogether ignored. How callous,
stohd, unfeeling and selfish the American society had become, Miller
has made Linda- the victim's wife act like chorus and say the following
words:

....When he (Willy) brought them business, when he was young

they were glad to see him. But now his old friends, the old buyers
that loved him so and always found some order to hand him in a
pinch - they're all dead, retired. He used to be able to make six, seven
calls a day in Boston. Now he takes his valises out of car and puts
them hack and lakes them out again and he's exhausted. Instead of
 walking he talks now. He drives seven hundred miles, md when he
gets there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him. And
what goes through a man's mind driving seven himdred miles home
without having etirned a cent ? Why shouldn't he talk to himself ? Why
? ... And you tell me he has no character ? The man who never
worked a day but for your benefit ? When does he get the medal for
that ?p.44-45

Miller through his wife criticises the American marketing system

which has dehumanised the human values.

DespUe all these goodies and sympathies, she is also responsible

for the tragedy of the Loman family. The poor education of Biff and
Happy is ascribale to her also. Being a motlier- the central pivot of
the family, she should have taken all pains to educate her sons. Willy
remained a Salesman on road and spent maximum time out. The way
she pleaded the case of Willy, she cannot be taken as a simplton. She
remained blind to the faults of Willy, Biff and H^py. She lacks the
reality principle. Her soft and the least inquisitive attitude rather helped
the things fall apart. Mother has a great role in the education of her
children, then how come her sons are rather like deflated balloons!
According to Toni Wolfe- a codfijer of Jungian'anima', the anima in a
woman has four roles to play. These four roles are bipolar i.e. either positive
or negative. The positive ones chase away the tragic situations or
constructions where as the negative bring in such situations. The first anima
role concerns itself with 'mother'. In this role, Linda did well- that she reared
her sons quite affectionately. The second role relates to 'hetaera'- herein a
woman gives companionship to man in the hour of need- as did Medea when
Jason was in crisis, she gave magic help to hini- a positive role. But Linda
did nothing of the sort in the Hfe of her sons. Except the menial jobs at home
and the Up sympathy she gave to Willy, she did notliing extraordinary to
extricate Willy from the morass he was deeply caught in. The tliird role
223
pertains to 'amazon* where in a woman needs to behave independently, if the
situation so demands. Linda remained a passive spectator- all subordinate to
her husband. The woods were burning but the 'amazon' in her remained in
deep slumber. The fourth role expected of a woman belongs to 'medium'. A
woman should become a medium for man to reach higher heights. She must
become a prompter, a mirror. Nothuig of the sort is there in Linda. She
should have helped her sons to attain good education. She fails miserably in
almost all roles of the 'anima' in her personality. She is unable to integrate
the four anima roles in anim^d form.

Arthur Miller rightly became the spokesman of the twentieth

century and meant his play to be a tragedy. Miller's tragic vision is
that the tragic feeling is evoked when one is in the presence of a
character who is ready to lay down his hfe, if need be, to secure one
thing one's sense of personal dignity. He actually rejects the Greek
tragedy and calls it out-of-date "fit only for the very highly placed,
the kings or the kingly." Moreover, if Aristotle is to remain the God's
i^amp on tragedy, no contemporary work of art can be categorized as
a tragedy. He is right to make the common man like Willy Loman a
fit tragic hero into the scheme of modem tragedy. The tragic feeling is
aroused in us not by the stature of a hero but in his willingness to
lay down his hfe for the sake of his due dignity. He (the common
man) must strive to attain his rightfiil place in society. The feeling of
terror and fear can be aroused in his fi^t against the modem society
or environment also. According Joseph Campbell, "... the magnitude of
an art of tragedy more potent (for us) than the Greek finds
realization: the realistic, intimate, and variously interesting tragedy of
democracy, where the god is beheld cmcified in the catastrophes not
of the great houses only but of every common home, every scouraged
224
and lacerated face. "*'^ The high personages or the great houses were
fit as tragic heroes / themes in Greek or Ehzabethan times, but not
now. Hence, Miller's tragic vision as embedded in Deaih of a
Salesman is more relevant to the modem times. His tragic vision made
the Americans see the root-cause of the tragedy befalling the Wilhes of
America. As a result, the c^tahsm and materiaham in America was
defanged in due course. The Democratic Sociahsm provided privileges/
social protection to its senior citizens like Willy who otherwise were left high
and dry, without any social security, pension or other age-old benefits. Such
a change for the betterment of human lot became universalized later on.

By now, it should be amply clear that Death of a Salesman is one of

topically tragic dimensions and proportions, which yet has a universahty in
the modem world as well as the world emerging with the beginning of the
miUermium: 2000. It lays bare the ravages of techo-matehalism upon
the soul of man, now divorced firom primeval roots. Miller's tragic
vision examines such a soul-less state, quite effectively indicting
materialism. Both Miller and O'Neill indict materiahsm, but Miller's is
more glaring and possesses greater depth. Yet this chapter is hnked to
tragedy down the ages as it is impregnated with universahty. So , tragedy
is what uplifts man, no matter how bleak an artist's vision may differ
firom another. To sum up, tragedy exalts man and gives hfe the world
meaning by examining the dark forces which man hves with and which
impinge upon him. As such, the modem tragedy in its intense vision or
perspective, will always have relevance for the complex creature that
man is.

225
 Footnotes

^Thomas E. Porter, "Puritan Ego and Freudian Unconscious:

"Mourning Becomes Electa", Afyih and Modern Drama, (Ludhiana: Kalyani
Publishers, 1971), p.26.

^C.P. Sinha, "Introduction" Eugene O'Neill's Tragic rw/o«(New

Delhi: New Statesman Publishing Company, 1981), p. 16.

Herbert J. MuUer, quoted by John Gassner," The Possibihties

and Perils of Modem Tragedy," Tukne Drama ^w>w,3(June, 1957), p.7.

•*Dr. Egbert S. Oliver, ed., "Eugene O'^&Jl", American Literature

1870-1965An Anthobgy{\961\ rpl.. New Delhi: E^irasia Publishing
House, 1977), p. 170. '

*Eugene O'Neill, quoted by Edd Winfield, "Eugene O'Neill's

Quest", Drama Review, 4(March, 1960 ), pp.99-100.

*S.W. Dawson, 'Drama, Theatre and Reality", Drama and The

Dramatic: The critical Idiom, ed. Jolm D. Junip(1970; rpt.. Great Britain:
Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1977), p.23.

''Huga Von Hofinannsthal, " Eugene O'Neill" (TDR Document),

trans. Barret H. Clark, Drama Review, 5(Sept., 1960X171.

L)oris M. Alexander, "Psychological Fate" in Mourning Becomes

Ekctra, PMIA, 68(Dec., 1953), p. 932.

^Jean Gould, "Eugene O'Neill" Modem American PJay-

wrighis(Bomhdiy: Popular Prakashan, 1969), p 68.

^^Eugene 0*Neill, Mourning Becomes Ekctra, intro. & notes by

Mary Thomas David (Bombay: B.I. Publication, 1980), p.72.

Note:- Subsequent references to this play A/ottrmng Becomes

Electra are given in the text of this ch^ter by writing MBE p.No.

"Horst Frenz and Martin Mueller, **More Shakespeare and Less

Aeschylus" Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. American
Literature, 38(March, 1966),88.
226
 "Frenz and MuUer, p. 100.

^^\^thu^ Miller, "On Social Plays;'Theatre Essays of Arthur

Milkr. ed. Robert A. Martin (1953; rpt.. New York: Viking, 1978), p.63.

"R.S. Singli, "O'Neill: The Aniercian Playwright" O'Neill the

Playwright (Delhi: Doaba House, 1971), p. 131.

^*Doris Falk, Eugene O'Neill and the Tragic Tension (Riitgers:

University Press, 1958) p. 129.
16
Alexander, p.929.

^^Signiund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory ofSexuality,\\\.

The Transformation of Puberty" trans. Janies Starchey,(1905; Std. ed.VII,
London; The Hogarth Press, 1953),p.208.

^^Sophocles, Oedipus at Tyrannus, 11. 981-983.

*^Rollo May, h4an 's Search for Himself(Htw York: Norton,

1953), p. 193.

^Mexander, p.927.

^^Parks, p.99.

"Alexander, p.929.

^^ Wilfred L. Guerin and others, A Handbook of Critical

Approaches to Literature{\992; rpt.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
p. 147.

"Alexander, p.929.

Camber Gascogne, " Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)" Twentieth

Centwy Drama{\962; rpt. London; Hutchinson University Library, 1979),
p.ll5 '

227
 ^'^Quoted by Stark Youiig in ''Eugene O'Neill's NewPlay
(MourningBecomesElectraT Tmntielh Century Vie^vs: O'NeillQ^. John
Gassner (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice Hail Inc., 1964), p.86.

^'George Steiner, Death of Tragedy {\%\\ ipt. London. Faber

andFaber, 1974), p.238.

^R.S. Singh, p. 5.

''Ibid.s, p.6.

^William Shakespeare, King Lear ed. Ralph E.G. Houghton

(1957; rpt. Delhi: Oxford Press, 1977), p. 165.

•*^R.S. Singh, p.6,

^^John Gassner, "Tragic Perspectives; A sequence of Queries"

Drama Review, 2(May, 1958), p. 14.

*^renz and Mueller, p. 100.

^Sri Aurobindo, The H/e DiMne, Book I and II, Vol. 18, Pait-I of
BCL (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashrain Trust Press, 1982), p.532.

^^Artliur Miller, Deal}i of a Salesman, (1949; ipt., London.

Penguin Books, 1976), p. 16.

Arthur NfiUer, Arthw Mller 's Collected Fiays-mih an

Introduction, (1957; Indian rpt.. New Delhi: Allied pubhshers, 1973), p.31.

37
Thomas E. Sanders, The Discovery of Drama {\\hnois: Scott,
Foresman and Company, 1968), p.247.
-JO

.Arthur Miller, Arthur Miller's collectedplays-wiih. Introduction,

p.28.
^^Esther Merle Jackson, Death of a Salesman: Tragic Myth C.L.A.
Journal, 7, No. I (September, 1963),65.

"•^Wilfred L.Guerm and others, p. 182.

''Ibid
228
 '*^Sri Aurobindo, The Life Dhine, Book I &II Vol. 18, part-I of
B.C.L.(PondicherTy; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust Press, 1982), pp.532-33.

"'Chainaii Aliuja, The Mystique of Tragedy (New Dellii; Prestige

Books, 1997), pp.79-80.

"*^Dr. Suiesh I.S. Rattan, "\\Tiy We Talk to Ourselves" Modern

Practical Psychology, ed. Kliushwant Mubark Smgli, 2(Februar3/, 2000), 21.

'*^RolloMayp.l93.

^"George A. Kelly, The Psychology of Personal Consti-ucts, Vol.

I(New York: Norton, 1955), p.20.

''^Toseph Campbell, The Hero With a ThousandFaces(l949; rpt.,

London; Fontana Press, 1993), p.27.

229