Love´s fatal echo: revisiting Dido and Phaedra in Mourning becomes Electra

The classical narrative motif of suicide for love follows a four-stage process: intense affection, loss, despair, and ultimately, death. This paper examines the treatment of this motif in Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, offering a broader perspective on its literary lineage, from Euripides’ Hippolytus to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as The Aeneid by Virgil, Metamorphoses by Ovid, and Seneca’s Phaedra. While scholars frequently highlight O’Neill’s indebtedness to Aeschylus’s Oresteia in the development of his trilogy, this study contends that his portrayal of love-driven suicide aligns more closely with other classical narratives, particularly those of Phaedra and Dido.