A Study Of The Absurd Features In Eugene O'Neill's Plays

Eugene O'Neill is so far the only American playwright who has been awarded the Nobel Prize.He has been considered not only "the creator of modern American theatre",but also "the founder of serious American drama".He is the first important American dramatist to explore serious themes and experiment with different theatrical techniques.In the history of American drama,O'Neill is the only American playwright who has won four Pulitzer Prizes.In 1920,Beyond the Horizon was awarded his first Pulitzer Prize.The second and the third Pulitzers were given in 1922 for Anna Christie and in 1928 for Strange Interlude.Following his death on 27 November 1953,he was awarded the fourth Pulitzer Prize,this time for his great play, Long Day's Journey into Night,which was the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded posthumously.During much of his career,he experimentes restlessly with style and form,bringing to American audiences many world-famous tragedies with colorful and various artistic styles.What's more,the themes of his plays are quite serious and original,touching upon a wide range of subjects.Due to the great contribution he has made to the development of modern American drama,Eugene O'Neill has been ranked,along with Shakespeare and Shaw,as one of the greatest playwrights in the English-speaking theatre.So far many achievements have been made in the field of O'Neill study, especially in the exploration of the autobiographical characteristics of his works,the expressionistic style,the mystical Orientalism of his works and the influence of Freudian psychology as well as his inheritance of the tragic tradition from ancient Greek theatre.With the development of the feminist movement in the 1960s in the West,feminist approach began to enter into the realm of O'Neill criticism and has gradually become a focus of attention.However,with regard to the absurd features embedded in his works,there is hardly a definite overall assessment or any other adequate explanation,though some critics have occasionally mentioned his affinity with the absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett in dramatic creation,or pointed out some similarities between specific works of the two dramatists.In fact,as the greatest playwright in American theatre and one with most experimental spirit,Eugene O'Neill is already alive to the techniques which are to be employed by the playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd.This thesis aims to study and probe into the absurd features in some of O'Neill's plays,which will enrich the interpretation of his works for certain.The study of the absurd features in O'Neill's works will constitute a unique and an equally significant way to evaluate and appreciate his dramatic works.The thesis is mainly composed of three parts.Part One is the introduction,which first gives a general idea of Eugene O'Neill,including his contributation to modern American drama and the literature review of O'Neill study,and then offers the definition of "absurd" as well as a brief introduction to the Theatre of the Absurd.At the end of the part comes the attempt of the thesis:to study and probe into the absurd features of O'Neill's plays and enrich the interpretation of his works.Part Two offers a detailed analysis of the absurd features of Eugene O'Neill's plays,which is divided into four chapters.Chapter one points out that the absurdity of the content is one of the major characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd.Like absurdist playwrights,O'Neill also reveals in his dramatic works the absurdity of the world and the meaninglessness of human existence.This chapter consists of three sections.The first section discusses the meaninglessness of human existence in O'Neill's plays.The second section talks about the aburd relationship between man and the world.The last section deals with the absrud relationship among human beings.Chapter two probes into the anti-traditional dramatic devices employed by Eugene O'Neill.This chapter consists of three sections.The first section discusses the anti-hero characters employed in O'Neill's plays.As those in the Theatre of the Absurd,the characters in O'Neill's plays are almost all nonentities,who are deprived of their individualities,becoming symbolic figures to represent a particular social group or the mankind as a whole.The second section points out that plotless plot and cyclic structure are also features of O'Neill's plays,especially his late plays,which is very similar to the plays of the absurdist theatre in this aspect.The third section talks about the devaluation of language exemplified in O'Neill's plays.In an absurd word, language loses its traditional function of communication.Chapter three deals with the blurring of traditional dramatic genres exemplified in O'Neill's plays,the feature of which is also characteristic of the Theatre of the Absurd. O'Neill calls The Hairy Ape "A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life in Eight Scenes" and reveals that he has employed "a big kind of comedy" in The Iceman Cometh.This clearly shows that he has already begun to positively ponder upon the genre of his plays.Finally,the author expounds that there are really combination of tragic and comic elements in O'Neill's plays,the purpose of which is to use the comic to enhance the tragic.Chapter four is mainly concerned with the sources of O'Neill's absurd consciousness.The author first makes it clear that O'Neill has formed his own sense of absurdity in the process of his dramatic creation,then presents the sources of O'Neill's absurd consciousness.This chapter consists of three sections:philosophical source,religious source and social source.The first section reveals that O'Neill's philosophical thought is very complicated.But mainly he is deeply influenced by irrationalism,especially the two aspects of irrationalist thought represented by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.Schopenhauer's influence has made O'Neill hold a very pesimistic attitude toward the world and human life,which is very similar to the philosophy of the absurdist playwrights.Nietzsche's mind is comparatively radical and revolutionary,which encourages O'Neill to "dig at the roots of the sickness" of his country and take it upon himself to depict the absurdity of modern human existence.The second section is to present O'Neill's contradictory attitude toward religion,which also plays an important part in the formation of his absurd consciousness.The third section aims to expound that the social,economical and political situation based on which O'Neill creates so many plays is similar to that of the absurdist playwrights,which makes it possible for O'Neill to sense the absurdity of the world and reveal it in his works.Part Three is the conclusion of the thesis.Based on the analysis of the previous chapters,the author further expounds that there are really absurd features in O'Neill's plays,which clearly indicates that the dramatist is already well aware of the meaninglessness of human existence and the absurdity of the world.By attempting to employ some grand-new anti-traditional devices in his plays,O'Neill endeavors to truly reflect the absurdity of the mod(?)n Western world.And studying his works from an absurdist perspective is of great significance in understanding the true creative intention of the great dramatist.