A Reconsideration Of Nina's Tragedy In Strange Interlude

Strange Interlude is one of the great tragedies written by the renowned American dramatist Eugene O'Neill. The story, taking the material American 1920s as its background, the care and concern for the modern people's life and existence as its theme, gives readers a full display of Nina's tragic life. Nina's tragedy is not simply caused by the oppression of Puritanism or the restraint of patriarchal thought in the traditional culture, but basically caused by the fast development of modern society. While modernization truly brings great material prosperity and new ways of existence, yet, human's frustration, perplexity and even loss of humanity in the expansion of material desire come out as another obvious and increasingly severe fact. The 1920s' American society actually is a problem society when modernity contradicts and challenges tradition. On the one hand, the traditional moral standard still lingers when everyone is expected to battle for success. On the other hand, the booming of American industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories, its corporate impersonality and its large-scale aggressiveness, hardly allows any room for the traditional moral standard; the flooding of scientism and materialism invites more and stronger desire in man's mind, changing and challenging their way of life and value of life.This thesis takes modernity as a perspective to reconsider Nina's tragic life. The thesis holds that modernity, as the result of the development of human civilization, truly brings great material wealth and conveniences; nevertheless, it is also the dominant cause to nearly all the modern problems. Basically, modernity is meant to inaugurate a new age of human freedom and self-determination, as contrasted with previous eras marked by political, clerical, and intellectual tutelage. From its dawning in the Renaissance, then the Enlightenment era until the modern 20th century, modernity has manifested these typical characteristics and values:reason, optimism, materialism. masculinity, universality, objectivity and so on. Thus, the word modernity, different from modernization and modernism, refers to the philosophical and metaphysical idea behind modernization and modernism, a spiritual and ideological power. When new era requires new idea especially when old traditional standards still cling, conflicts and contradiction arise. In the drama Strange Interlude, Nina, a common female in the modern time, just lives in these conflicts and contradictions. On the one hand, she is imprisoned by the strict rules of Puritanism and restrained by the strengthened patriarchal thought; on the other hand, she is often frustrated by her cold, cruel world. The dissatisfaction with this situation and the longing for her ideal life impel Nina to resist against the traditional ideas. She even abandons her belief in God the Father and tries to seek for her ideal considerate God the Mother. Nina desires to get independence, belief, perfect love and self-realization. But the real modern world is no longer like what she expects. There is only avidity for material gain, hardly sensibility to art and culture. In such a society it is hard even impossible for the individual Nina to rebel and realize her ideal. She can only feel lonely, confused, frustrated and even lost. She loses her belief and gets no sense of belongingness when all her dreams shattered. In despair, Nina chooses to return to the tradition and God the Father to wait for her death peacefully. Nina's tragedy reflects modern people's problems, the conflict between their dream and reality, their impotence before the cold, cruel and fragmented world.The perspective of modernity provides us a clear clue to analyze Nina's tragedy in Strange Interlude. Modernity helps us to see and better understand O'Neill's deep concern about the fast developing modern society. The spiritual crisis of modern men in O'Neill's eyes offers us enlightenment and inspiration to introspect both our society and ourselves, and further develop a right way of existence and a higher order of attitude toward the meaning of life. This may be the most significant point for doing this research.