In the following essay, Frenz and Mueller argue that Hamlet and Mourning Becomes Electra "show similarities in plot wherever there are plot differences between Hamlet and the Oresteia" and that a comparison of the plays of Shakespeare and O'Neill "help to define the fundamentally different concept of action that separates O'Neill's trilogy from the Oresteia."

There has been general critical agreement thatMowra-ing Becomes Electra was modeled on the Oresteia, and the publication of O'Neill's work diary has strengthened this assumption. On closer investigation, however, the similarities between the two plays are superficial, and more fundamental parallels may be found in O'Neill's trilogy and Shakespeare' s Hamlet. The latter play shares its basic plot with Mourning Becomes Electra, and it can be shown that in other ways, too, O'Neill owes more to Shakespeare and less to Aeschylus and to a genuine experience of Greek drama. One may...