| Cao Yu is a preeminent Chinese dramatist, and he holds a "transitional, leading, and irreplaceable" position in the histories of Chinese Theatre and Chinese Culture. Eugene O'Neill is a world-renowned playwright and the first American dramatist who ever wins the Nobel Prize for dramatic art. His works represents the developing direction of American drama in the first half of the 20th century. The play Yuanye lets us notice the influence-and-reference relationship between the two dramatists.Yuanye is the third play by Cao Yu, and it has been greatly criticized simply because the author consulted the expressionistic skills in O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and creates a kind of "gloomy and scary" atmosphere. Compared with other works by Cao Yu, Yuanye is often regarded as a work of imitation, and a regression in Cao Yu's dramatic career. Yuanye has gone through many pros and cons and people begin to realize its value only after the coming of the New Period after the Cultural Revolution. Yuanye fully takes the advantages of expressionist play in externalizing the complex psychology of the characters, and vividly shows Qiu Hu's complex psychology which is full of love and hatred, good and evil, anguish and remorse, and is able to touch the reader and audience in their hearts. With its realistic characters, suspenseful plot, familiar content and thought-provoking subject matter, Yuanye wins the approval and applause of the audience. It has been revised into some local Chinese operas and even western opera. Whatever form it is, its performance is always welcomed and successful. For Yuanye, the criticism from the literary circle and the appreciating enthusiasm from the public form a sharp-cut contrast. The special experiences of Yuanye make it a controversial play. Some people criticized it, some people avoided talking about it, and some people praise it. Therefore, I think it is meaningful tocarry out a comparative analysis of Yuanye and The Emperor Jones, and to give Yuanye an objective evaluation of its position among all the works of Cao Yu.This thesis is going to juxtapose Yuanye and The Emperor Jones in China's and American social backgrounds respectively at the beginning of the 20th century, and with a historical and developing angle, it starts with the absent treatment received by Yuanye after its publication, reviews their writing processes and the glories and failures they have experienced, and at last proves with enough arguments that Yuanye is indeed inspired by The Emperor Jones. This thesis compares the two works, and demonstrates that Cao Yu absorbes O'Neill's daring experimental and innovative spirits while writing Yuanye and employs such expressionistic skills as sound effects, visual effects, symbols and stage lights. Though using the expressionistic skills in O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, Cao Yu makes some innovations in the application of each method. Besides, considering the appreciating psychology of our Chinese readers and audiences, he fuses some traditional and popular Chinese songs and some common sayings and vulgarism into the works, and also allows us to feel the harms of some traditional ideas and superstitious thoughts. Harmonizing the oriental and occidental theatrical elements, combining the traditional and the modern, and applying expressionistic skills in realistic dramatic creation, these are all Cao Yu's innovations. By comparing Yuanye and The Emperor Jones, the uncovering ability of expressionism in people's inner world and Cao Yu's brilliant innovative capability are demonstrated. Yuanye is not a crude imitation of The Emperor Jones, not a regression in Cao Yu's literary career, but a step forward towards the summit of Cao Yu's dramatic creation.
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