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Masks symbolize the Mannon family’s tendency to keep secrets and betray one another. All of the central figures in Mourning Becomes Electra are described as having a “mask-like” disposition, a description that implicitly links the drama’s 19th-century American setting to the Oresteia, the ancient Greek trilogy that O’Neill based his own three plays on. Masks were an essential part of Greek theater: performers would use mask to signal emotional states or to transition between characters. Therefore, by identifying the Mannon family through their shared “mask-like” appearance, O’Neill provides a clear allusion to his source material (just as Ezra Mannon’s home, adorned with Greek columns, recalls the ancient Greek architecture that playwright Aeschylus would have imagined for the Oresteia). It is worth observing, however, that while performers in antiquity used masks to distinguish between characters, O’Neill uses masks to suggest the similarities between the various members of the Mannon family—even when, or perhaps especially when, they claim to detest each other. And similarly, whereas masks signaled emotion in Greek drama, in Mourning Becomes Electra, the Mannons’ “mask-like” faces speak to their secrecy and stony resolve.
Masks Quotes in Mourning Becomes Electra
The Mourning Becomes Electra quotes below all refer to the symbol of Masks. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Homecoming: Act 1
Quotes
It is shortly before sunset and the soft light of the declining sun shines directly on the front of the house, shimmering in a luminous mist on the white portico and the gray stone wall behind, intensifying the whiteness of the columns, the somber grayness of the wall, the green of the open shutters, the green of the lawn and shrubbery, the black and green of the pine tree. The white columns cast black bars of shadow on the gray wall behind them. The windows of the lower floor reflect the sun's rays in a resentful glare. The temple portico is like an incongruous white mask fixed on the house to hide its somber gray ugliness.
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The Hunted: Act 2
Quotes
Portraits of ancestors hang on the walls. At the rear of the fireplace, on the right, is one of a grim visaged minister of the witch burning era. Between fireplace and front is another of Ezra Mannon's grandfather, in the uniform of an officer in Washington's army. Directly over the fireplace is the portrait of Ezra's father, Abe Mannon, done when he was sixty. Except for the difference in ages, his face looks exactly like Ezra's in the painting in the study.
Of the three portraits on the other walls, two are of women—Abe Mannon’s wife and the wife of Washington's officer. The third has the appearance of a prosperous ship owner of colonial days. All the faces in the portraits have the same mask quality of those of the living characters in the play.
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Masks Symbol Timeline in Mourning Becomes Electra
The timeline below shows where the symbol Masks appears in Mourning Becomes Electra. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Homecoming: Act 1
...critical, arguing that there’s something “secret lookin’” about Christine’s unusual beauty—“‘s if it was a mask she’d put on. That’s the Mannon look.” Amos recalls the Mannon family’s greatest scandal: Ezra’s...
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...the drive. He is handsome and striking, with the same sense of wearing a “life-like mask” that all the Mannons seem to possess.
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Homecoming: Act 2
...portrait of Ezra adorns the study. Like Christine, Lavinia, and Brant, Ezra wears that same mask-like expression. In distress, Vinnie enters. She holds her hand up to the picture, as if...
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...leaves, and Christine starts to think through her options, her face becoming like “an evil mask.”
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The Hunted: Act 5
...to the story, reluctantly agrees. Lavinia turns out to the audience, “her face stern and mask-like.”
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