Through Hardships To The Stars

As a philosophical trend of thought,anarchism is petty-bourgeois social and political thought emerging in modern capitalist society.It is also a radical social revolution movement which reflects certain utopian ideals of people.There are many branches and genres in Anarchism.It was founded by William Godwin,and later developed into various forms including Max Stirner's Individualist Anarchism,the interpretation of which has shown an impact in the United States.Eugene O'Neill,as the foremost American dramatist,the winner of Pulitzer prize and Nobel laureate in Literature,plays an important role in the history of drama with his unique autobiographical works.His talent for writing dramas sprang from a life marked by challenges.It is particularly worth mentioning that O'Neill acquired the view of Philosophical Anarchism that he had never changed in his life after making friends with philosophical anarchist Benjamin Tucker,who founded the American anarchist journal.This idea had a huge impact on O'Neill's personal life.One of its basic principles-ignorance of all social machines almost runs through all of O'Neill's works.This thesis interprets Eugene O'Neill's drama from the perspective of philosophical anarchism based on researches on O'Neill at home and abroad,and then tries to make a more macro grasp of O'Neill's drama creation ideas.Besides,through the in-depth study of O'Neill's philosophical anarchism,combined with his personal experience,this thesis tries to analyze how this idea is reflected in its drama themes and protagonists,thus injecting new vitality into researches on O'Neill's thought.Based on O'Neill's drama works and two authoritative biographies from the United States,O'Neill:Son and Playwright and Eugene O'Neill:A Life in Four Acts,through text analysis and biographical research,this thesis elaborates O'Neill's anarchism of philosophy implied in his drama-writing thoughts and explores the subjective and objective reasons for O'Neill's interest in the thought and its evolution into his world outlook.This thesis will be divided into six parts.The introduction part mainly introduces the relation between O'Neill and the Philosophical Anarchism,reviews the current researches of O'Neill's thoughs and works,makes a brief overview of O'Neill 's life and drama creation,and makes a systematic interpretation of O'Neill's philosophical anarchism,and no other researches have ever focus on that.The research purpose,direction and characteristics of this thesis will also be introduced in this part.Chapter one will discuss the relationship between O'Neill's works andphilosophical anarchism.This chapter first elaborates the concepts and theoretical ideas of philosophical anarchism,and points out the close connection between the "Ego" in O'Neill's drama and the anarchism in Max Stirner's The Ego and His Own.Combined with the "Ego" in the autobiographical works of O'Neill,this chapter points out the image of the “Ego” in his drama,and make further analysis of O'Neill's political state view.Chapter two mainly discusses the reflection of Stirner's views and German philosopher Nietzsche's view on anarchism in the works of O'Neill,so as to analyze O'Neill's criticism and acceptance of this idea.In addition,this chapter also explains the reconciliation of O'Neill's Taoism and philosophical anarchism and his surpassing of Ibsen's and Strindberg's dramatic thoughts after accepting philosophical anarchism.Chapter three discusses O'Neill's unique artistic concept under the influence of anarchism,which is mainly reflected in the application of his mask theory and his unique form of drama creation.Chapter four,based on O'Neill 's personal life and the social conditions in the United States at that time,systematically analyzes the sources of his ideas and the condition of the forming of his philosophical anarchism thoughts from a holistic perspective.The conclusion part summarizes that philosophical anarchism could be found throughout his drama creation,and objectively evaluates the status of his works with philosophical anarchism in the history of American drama.