The Similar Tragic Characters And The Different Propsects For The Endings

Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams are the two greatest playwrights of America in the 20th century. O'Neill, acclaimed as the father of American drama, has been focused on in the literary world for a long time. In recent years, the attention to Williams and his works has soared. However, few works have been found now to compare the two playwrights, only with some rough statements that O'Neill has affected Williams while the latter learned from the former. Besides, fewer people have made a research on the comparison of their works.This thesis aims to compare the characters of their masterpieces—Long Day's Journey into Night and the Glass Menagerie in the parallel study method. In the first part, after comparison, it can be found that the character arrangement is corresponding between each other. They are complex characters and play multiple roles, in which their common tragic feature can be felt. In the second part, by clarifying the different meanings of midnight and smile in the text endings and penetrating into the differences in the set-up of several character plots, the two dramas' different prospects can be presupposed. That is the Tyrones'hopelessness and the prospective hope of Amanda and her daughter. The third part explores the causes for the similar tragic characters and the different prospects for the endings. First, the causes for the similarity can be explained by exploring the similar autobiographical subject, the two dramatists'miserable childhood memories, life experiences, and similar tragic views. Second, by studying the differences of O'Neill's sublime tragic view and Williams' poetic tragic view, the paper is intended to justify the reason why the two dramas have different endings.