Métamorphoses D`électre D`eugene O`Neill à Marguerite Yourcenar

San Jose State University
SJSU ScholarWorks
Master's 8eses Master's 8eses and Graduate Research
2012
Métamorphoses D'électre D'eugene O'Neill à
Marguerite Yourcenar
Celine Richard
San Jose State University
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Recommended Citation
Richard, Celine, "Métamorphoses D'électre D'eugene O'Neill à Marguerite Yourcenar" (2012). Master's eses. Paper 4166.

MÉTAMORPHOSES D’ÉLECTRE
D’EUGENE O’NEILL À MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of World Languages and Literatures
San José State University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
by
Céline Richard
May 2012

© 2012
Céline Richard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Designated Thesis Committee Approves the Thesis Titled
MÉTAMORPHOSES D’ÉLECTRE
D’EUGENE O’NEILL À MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
by
Céline Richard
APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF
WORLD LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY
May 2012
Dr. Danielle Trudeau - Department of World Languages and Literatures, SJSU
Dr. Jean-Luc Desalvo - Department of World Languages and Literatures, SJSU
Dr. Jean-Marie Apostolidès - Division of Literatures, Cultures,
and Languages, Stanford University

ABSTRACT
MÉTAMORPHOSES D’ÉLECTRE D’EUGENE O’NEILL À MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
by Céline Richard
Since Greek Antiquity, the Electra myth remains a constant source of inspiration.
Electra, in looking to avenge the unpunished murder of her father, becomes the symbol
of absent justice. During the first half of the twentieth century, five playwrights
reinterpreted the infamous crime in order to modernize and update this legendary
myth. Even though Marguerite Yourcenar’s apolitical play Électre ou la Chute des
Masques makes little reference to the events of her time, the playwright tears down
one by one the veil of appearances exposing the fears, malaise, and revolt of a younger
generation intent on holding their parents or elders accountable. Matricide along with
the symbolic death of the traditional maternal role becomes an urgent necessity which
is reflected in the generational conflict that characterizes France and Europe in the
1970s. Although Yourcenar does not stress the play’s feminist dimensions, she
nonetheless depicts Electra as a corrosive character who is determined to exact revenge
by all means necessary, epitomized by her fake pregnancy as a means of exposing the
truth. Yourcenar creates a new, metamorphosed Electra freed from the bonds of
marriage and submission and, above all, as free as Sartre’s Oreste, fully in charge of her
own destiny even if she risks turning her Electra into a tyrant herself.