| Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) inaugurated modern American drama by making enormous contributions to its development and prosperity, and was honored as "Father of Modern American Drama." O'Neill, having dedicated all his life and energy to play writing and studies, four times won the Pulitzer Prize and in 1936 was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the top honor of all literature prizes. The Swiss critic Heinrich Straumann comments on him like this: "There may be arguments about who is the greatest living American poet, or novelist, or essayist, but the position of O'Neill as the leading American dramatist has never been seriously questioned. This is an almost unique occurrence in modern criticism."Although O'Neill's position has never been challenged in American and the world theater, he is not popular with some critics owing to his attitudes toward women. Some of them even accuse him of having a very serious "misogynistic" complex, and being contaminated by Nietzsche and Strindberg. Even his biographer, Louise Sheaffer also thinks that "O'Neill created in the majority of his leading female characters either bitches and other agents of misfortune or impossible noble souls."Albeit one-sided and biased, these statements have been tarnishing O'Neill's shinning brilliance in literature. As a matter of fact, these unfair critiques of him arise from the superficial images of the suffering women, blind to the momentum that propels the female characters to take actions. O'Neill's lack of maternal love in his boyhood, his two divorces and three marriages, and fruitless love affairs with several other women, increased his agony, strengthened his tragic sense, deepened his understanding of women, and made him keenly realize women's bitter life and hard situations.O'Neill was a master playwright, sympathetic, humanistic, and zealous for life. He had strong ardor for realistic production and intense social responsibilities. His visions were androgynous: not only are there men in his plays, but also women. He thought highly of human virtues, abominated all evils and immoral behaviors. All this spurred him to give a realistic portrayal of women's agony, in particular that of those in marriage: his women characters have the specificities of the traditional women, humble and docile, understanding and nurturing, gentle and kind-hearted. However, their life is always bitter, filled with misfortune and anguish.Long has women's agony been concerned about by scholars, who, from many academic fields, especially from sociology, have been unanimously questing for the roots of women's sufferings and ways of their emancipation, and eventually brought forward various feminist theories. Since the 1970s, on the basis of western feminist studies, there have gradually emerged gender theory and other relevant theories. Gender refers to male or female traits constructed on men and women respectively by the gendered society, their stereotyped sexual roles, relevant different functions in social culture, and opportunity disparity. Gender stresses sexual roles and traits, claiming that the differentiated outlooks and behavioral differences are molded by social culture, and may undergo changes. Gender theory does not intend to produce the opposition between man and woman, rather to advocate the removal of the old and wrong notions on the sexes, and to attach importance to the development of "human beings." Gender theory stresses the role of socio-cultural construction of gender-typing, gender's diversity and changeability, and further advocates multivariant ways of thinking, pays close attention to women's living conditions, and hopes to improve the social justice and the relationships of the two sexes.The various agonies suffered by O'Neill's characters can all be traced back to the relationships of the two sexes. The critical and re-constructional spirits of gender theory and its practicality show the openness and vitality of this burgeoning, interdisciplinary humanistic social science. It is believed that gender theory will prove a powerful tool in unscrambling the roots of the female characters' sufferings in O'Neill's plays, and groping for ways of their liberation.O'Neill realistically depicted the female characters' agonies and sufferings, and showed great sympathy, understanding and support for them, in hope that people should pay close attention to the sexual inequality, and the multiple familial and social problems caused by sexual inequality. To avoid these tragedies from happening, we have to change the traditional relationships of the two sexes, and to rebuild a new one, thus achieving the harmonious co-existence of the two sexes in the real sense. From the day of its birth, feminism has been striving for this purpose and successively undergone three surges within a short period of decades. The practices of feminist movements show that the effective way to build a mutually beneficial relationship of the two sexes characterized by harmony is to respect and give a full play to the respective specificities of the two sexes. This is also the ideal approach to sexual equality advocated by the third wave feminism, namely, post feminism.O'Neill's play-writing practice negates the approaches to women's emancipation proposed by the first two waves of feminism. The awkward love-hatred relationship of the two sexes can by no means be dissolved through sexual egalitarianism or separatism from the male, because in O'Neill's plays, most of the male are unorthodox, far from the traditional male image with the features of masculinity, chivalry, bravery, violence and authority. On the contrary, they have been deprived of these "masculine" traits by O'Neill, and become a group of pitiable invalids, impotent, idle, unreliable, and irresponsible. The gendered patriarchal society has deprived women of the ability to live an independent life, and forced them to turn to men or marriage to men for their happiness and security. However, the male characters' "impotency" and their irresponsibility have cruelly destroyed these women's dreams.Obviously, O'Neill deliberately chose these weak and irresponsible male as his male protagonists in his plays, as a matter of fact, intending to suggest that the dilemma confronted with by women nowadays is mostly ascribed to the contradiction between women's lack of independent abilities and men's undependability imposed upon them respectively by the gendered society. Thereupon the desperate women begin to rebel, trying to escape from the abyss to find their happy and independent life. Of course, the reasons must be very complicated for women's sufferings in the real life. O'Neill, through depiction of the female characters' tragedies, was sounding the alarm for women's issues: It is a matter of urgency to quest for women's way out. This problem must be duly solved; otherwise it will undermine and threaten the very basis of our human society and civilization. The dissertation is composed of six parts: Introduction, four chapters and Conclusion. The Introduction points out the composition thoughts about this dissertation, its general outline and the theme. Chapter One reflects on the influence upon O'Neill and his view on women exerted by some women he was once intimate with in his life. Chapter Two illustrates female dependency in O'Neill's plays; and Chapter Three male impotency, weakness and irresponsibility, which deviate from the masculine traits demanded by the patriarchal society, and contradict female dependency. Chapter Four discusses these female characters' rebellion. The last part, Conclusion, prospects for possible ways of women's emancipation on the basis of summarizing the whole dissertation; at the same time, women's emancipation is the hope and goal for those who are concerned about women's miserable living situations and women's issues.In order to get rid of the dilemma, women should not depend on men all the time. They should stand up to look for their lost true self, strive to win their rights to independent life as women, regain their dignity and identity as independent beings. They have to smash men's authority and shackle, and while maintaining their own independence, rebuild a new relationship with men and realize the peaceful and harmonious co-existence with them. At the same time, men should not take women as "the second sex" or appendixes as they did in the past. They should consider women as independent individuals equal to them, respect their freedom and choices. Men and women should respect their own sex specificities, divide the work and collaborate afresh in the public and private affairs, try to be immune to the blight of the traditional sexual culture, wipe out sexism instead of male and female specificities, and thereupon achieve the real harmony between the two sexes and to propel the human society forward in the real sense.Isn't this the ideal state of the two sexes that O'Neill was hoping for? Of course, it is. And thus we can say that O'Neill was not a misogynist with strong antagonism against women. Instead, he was a playwright, concerned about women's issues and women's living situations, with conscientious humanity and social responsibility for the entire human race. He spared no pains to reproduce the suffering females' bitterness and agony in the male-centric culture, to warn the conscientious public that sexual inequality is the very origin of numerous pains and sufferings in our life. In order to get rid of these agonies, and eventually to win human emancipation in the real sense, all the people should unite and strive to create a society characterized by harmony of the two sexes.
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