On Eugene O'neill's Tragic Vision

On the basis of the textual analysis of Iiugene O'Neill's six famous plays, this dissertation explores the playwright's unique tragic vision of life: Man destroys himself either physically or spiritually in the battle against a powerful and pervasive "force behind". The force might be in the shape of materialistic society, greed and lust, memory of the past, or man himself, etc. This self-destructive struggle gives nobility to human beings. Focusing on the three kinds of conflict which appeared in the plays, the exploration goes on three levels: the level of society against man, man against man, and man against himself. On the first level, the irreconcilable conilict between man and society is discussed through The Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones. The first play discloses the alienation of an insignificant individual struggling in an indifferent materialistic society, while the second play displays the existential irony of a Negro fighting against the current as well as the past societies. On the second level, the unfixable conflict between man and man is investigated through Desire Under the Elms and Long Day's Journey into Night. In Desire, we see the intense controversy among the family members driven by abnormal desires for material wealth and physical pleasures, while in Long Day's Journey, we see the repeated cycles of blaming and forgiving in a modern middle bourgeoisie family haunted by the unpleasant past and the hopeless present. On the third level, the irresolvable conflict between man and himself is examined through Beyond the Horizon and The Iceman Cometh. In Horizon, the frailty in human nature is obvious in Robert who alienates himself both from ideal and reality, while in Iceman, the self-deceiving nature is exhibited through the pipe dreams of the derelicts in Hope's saloon. These three levels are not isolated from each other but bear close connections by two dominating themes: the invisible "force behind" human beings and man's unremitting fighting against such force. And they crucially represent the essence of O'Neill's tragic vision.