| Autobiographical writing is one of the prominent features in Eugene O’Neill’s works.From the perspective of autobiographical writing,this thesis analyzes Robert in Beyond the Horizon,Dion and Brown in The Great God Brown,and Tyrone’s families in Long Day’s Journey into Night,discussing O’Neill’s autobiographical expressions and his writing techniques of self-portrait in different periods.In the early stage of his writing,O’Neill highlights Robert’s image as a poet,by comparison,reflecting the author’s idealistic pursuit,with a relatively simple technique and theme;in the middle stage,O’Neill depicts two images,Dion and Brown,representing O’Neill’s high demand for the spiritual world and low tolerance for the material world.Therefore,the themes are deepened with his bold use of masks.In his late stage,O’Neill returns to social criticism from drama innovation,revealing family scandals with naturalistic narration,and pushing his artistic achievements to a climax.Based on analysis of his representative works,this thesis draws the following conclusions: O’Neill portrays himself in every period with different techniques.His realistic writing at the beginning gradually shifted to expressionism.In the last stage,O’Neill returned to naturalistic narrative to expose his family tragedy,proving his perfection in playwriting.Discussion from the perspective of autobiographical writing helps summarize the influence of O’Neill’s life on his writing techniques and artistic achievements and provide new ideas for research on O’Neill’s plays. |
