FREE ESSAY ON EUGENE O'NEIL

EUGENE O'NEIL

Eugene O'neill
Through poverty and fame, "An artist or nothing"(Miller p6), was the motto of a man named
Eugene O'Neill, who wrote from his soul in an attempt to find salvation. In the year
1888, the Barrett House hotel in Time Square, New York saw the birth of a man who would
be called the greatest American playwright. His father James, was an actor, and was
famous across the United Sates for his role in the popular play Monte Cristo. Eugene's
mother was a beautiful woman named Ellen who was also gifted with a great artistic
talent. Through out his life, he would travel all over the world, marry three women, have
three children, and write some of the best American Drama that would ever be written.
"Much of his life would be devoted to writing plays of tragic power"(David p11), and "His
works reveal the unsatisfied searching of a soul for truth"(David p11). 
When Eugene was born, he was a great inconvenience to his parents, who already had one
child, and spent most of their time traveling around the country playing in different
cities. As a result of this, he was raised in the care of a Cornish nanny, keeping him
isolated from the rest of his family. He would continue to spend most of his youth away
from his family as he would be educated almost entirely in boarding schools. When he was
still a young boy, his parents enrolled him in St. Aloysius Academy for boys in Riverdale
New York. He was a good student and didn't really stand out as a youth. He passed through
De La Salle Institute and actually stayed at home for the first year of school there. He
attended Betts Academy which is no longer in existence today but at the time it was one
of the finer preparatory schools in the nation. While he was boarding there, his family
moved their home from New York City to New London Connecticut where O'Neil would spend
most of his life. His problems, arose when he entered into Princeton University in 1906.
He held strongly to the philosophy of "all play and no work"(Miller p4), and he was
eventually suspended. This was because he was caught by the yard master breaking power
cables and windows in the University train station. His suspension was to last only for
two weeks but he never returned to campus. Officially he was expelled from the school for
poor academic standing. 
Eugene moved into a New York apartment with his friend Frank Best after leaving
Princeton. He held a trivial job as secretary to the president of a small shipping
company. He spent his earnings and his father's allowance on wild living, he met James
Findlater who was to become his best friend and bases for the character Jimmy Tomorrow
from Iceman Cometh and was the same character in Tomorrow which was one of O'Neil's only
short stories. James would eventually introduce Eugene to Kathleen Jenkins, the daughter
of a wealthy New York business man. Her parents objected to any marriage taking place and
so did his. They would eventually elope though in the fall of 1909 when Eugene discovered
his father was sending him to Honduras to look for gold. Fourteen days after the wedding,
Eugene found himself in Mexico where he ended his journey south due to a tough battle
with Malaria. He would return to New York 
after his recovery, but still refused to live with his wife. He took up a job 
with his father's acting troop but that did not last long. 
Eugene and Kathleen soon had a son, Eugene Gladstoone Jr. and his father would only visit
him once through out his infancy. In order not to have anything to do with his son, he
took on a job as a seaman on a Norwegian liner that had regular trade routs all along the
coast of North and South America. After sailing for fifty seven days, Eugene jumped ship
in Buenos Aires. Here he spent time doing several different jobs "considered one of the
only high points in his early life"(Miller p5). He applied for jobs he was unqualified to
do so in a matter of weeks he was fired, and he had to go back to sea to find a living.
He spent the next several months in the south Atlantic and even made a few stops in South
Africa. He eventually quit this job to wonder in poverty up and down the coasts of
Argentina and Brazil. Finally returned to New York stowed on a British Liner. He still
would not live his wife and son so with a three dollar a month allowance he rented a
place on the docks called Jimmy the Priest's Waterfront Dive. He still did not work and
sank deeper into poverty. His father forced him to get a job so he signed on as a seaman
on a trans.-Atlantic luxury liner. Eugene hated the sea so much though that he returned
to Jimmy the Priest's only to attempt suicide by massive intake of veronal. He was saved
by his friend James Byth and he was now made to go travel with his father's vaudeville
company, but that did not last long due to Eugene's poor acting ability. 
Eugene's writing talent was discovered on accident when his father got him a job with the
New London Telegraph. He ran a poetry column and often filled it with his own work using
several different pen names. He would also at this time supply poems to the New York
Call. "The Masses," and Franklin P. Adam's "Conning Tower" were among his best poems
written during this time. Still only writing as a hobby, he found it was a good way to
fund his extravagant social life. Due to his lifestyle, his wife Kathleen became upset
and once when he was with a prostitute she barged in and demanded a divorce on grounds of
adultery. They were legally separated on October 11,1912. Shortly after this event, he
came down with tuberculosis and was in and out of several medical institutions. He
recovered in a matter of months and he went to live with his friend James Rippen. During
this time, Eugene began seriously writing plays and he began sending scripts to New York
with little success. "The Web" and "A Wife For A Life," were bought but never performed.
Shortly following his rejection he began writing "Bound East For Cardiff," considered one
of his masterpieces. He also applied to the Harvard drama department to study modern play
writing and with the encouragement of friend Clayton Hamilton, he decided he would attend
the class. 
This is the time when he came up with the motto "An artist or nothing"(Miller p6), which
would guide the coarse of the rest of his 
life. When finally, "Thirst," a book of one act plays was published, he was 
exited to finally be published. However, the book was an immediate failure and O'Neill
would prevent it ever from being released in his lifetime. When he finally attended
classes at Harvard, he was unimpressed with the works of other modern poets and therefor
was not very active. Spent another summer of failed romance and parties, and would
eventually move into his own place in Greenwich Village. While living in the village, he
frequented the Golden Swan Bar, and became an alcoholic. In fact, "the only tie he
stopped drinking was when he was writing"(Miller p7).
"Bound East for Cardiff," became Eugene's fist hit and when it was staged by the
Provincetown players it was an instant success. He stayed in Provincetown for a while and
wrote several other short plays. Moved back to the village and got involved with Louise
Bryant. He lived in a love triangle with her and her husband until 1918. When "Bound East
for Cardiff was finally performed in the village, Stephen Rathburn of the New York
Evening Sun praised O'Neil for his work. During W.W.I he was arrested in Provincetown for
vagrancy and suspicion of espionage. He was released immediately but he was continuously
tailed for several weeks due to suspicion. 
Eugene next failure was his attempt to join the navy, he was turned down because of his
earlier battles with tuberculosis. He also in this time lost what he had written of
"Hairy Ape," but his short story "Tomorrow," which was a miniaturized version of "The
Iceman Cometh," and was published in The Seven Arts Magazine. In late 1917, he met Agnes
Boulton who was to become his second wife. She was herself a writer of several short
stories and pulp fictions. Finally, his first long play was performed by the Provincetown
players and was his first play to be widely criticized. He now lived with Agnes Boulton
and was still living on his father's allowance. A few months later he married Agnes and
he began making money on Royalties from the Provincetown Players. He rented out a flat in
Provincetown and began writing "Chris," his brother James also lived with him. One year
later now living in New Jersey, his second son Shane was born. Also, in 1919 Eugene's
father James came to see Beyond the Horizon and left his son with this memorable
statement "What ate you trying to do send the audience home to commit suicide" (Miller
p10).
In 1920, he won his first Pulitzer Prize for "Beyond the Horizon," but, his joy was cut
short by his father's death that August. After his father died though, he wrote several
great success. "Gold," "Emperor Jones," "Diff'rent," and due to its failure he modified
"Chris" to make it "Anna Chrisite." He moves around several times from Provincetown to
New York, and while he was in New York reviving the short play "Hairy Ape," he met his
eldest son Eugene Jr. and begins funding his private school education. In 1922 his mother
finally dies shortly followed by his brother's death in 1924. While he was taking time
off in Bermuda, the Provincetown Players dissolved and Greenwich village companies take
over producing O'Neil's plays. In 1925 his daughter Ooma was born and he had returned to
his writing. Along with becoming aquatinted with his future third wife Carlotta Montorey,
he also received an honorary Literary Doctorate from Yale. In order to depart from his
family, in 1928, he left to go on a trip around Europe and the Orient. He refused to
return to the United States until Agnes consented a divorce. After one year, Agnes was
granted a divorce on the grounds of desertion. He shortly after married Carlotta and he
left France to return to New York. 
1937 brought on the beginning of W.W.II and a Nobel prize in Literature for Eugene
O'Neil, after this he sank into seclusion with his wife. Finally he emerged with his
great masterpieces in hand, in 1943, he had finally completed "The Iceman Cometh," and "A
Long Day's Journey Into the Night." The rest of his life was plagued by the suicide of
his beloved oldest son, his only daughter married Charlie Chaplain, and he disowned his
daughter and middle son. He and his wife were also in and out of several hospitals until
he died in 1950 and was laid to rest in Boston never to see the success of his two
greatest works. "The Iceman Cometh" is about a man Larry, who considers himself a
philosopher, but his over analysis is ultimately his undoing "I was born and I am
condemned to be one of those people who see all sides of a question. When you're damned
like that, the questions multiply for you until in the end it's all a big question and no
answer"(Raleigh p13). Larry moves from one dismal idea to the next until he loses site of
truth and ultimately of hope. "Truth, to hell with the truth! As the history of the world
proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It is irrelevant and as the lawyers say, it
is immaterial"(Raleigh p13). Larry's final conclusion is that he is not a philosopher
rather just a bum and one without hope. "By God there is no hope! I'll never be success
in the grandstand or anywhere else...I'll be a week fool looking with pity at both sides
of everything till the day I die"(O'Neil 726-727). Larry at last is desolate and broken
for he does not have hope or truth, he has lost all. Larry, is in actuality a confession
of O'Neil, "His works reveal the unsatisfied searching of a soul for truth"(David p11).
His other great success was "A Long Day's Journey into the Night." This work brings about
a look into the depression that was O'Neil's life. The setting for this was his very
childhood home in New London, "He revealed and analyzed the various tragedies of his
family: his mother's periodic dope addiction; his father's sense of frustration at having
been seduced from becoming a great Shakespearean actor by the financial lure of popular
Monte Cristo; his older brother's destructive and self-destructive traits which were
later lead him to drink himself to death...obsession with guilt and sense of tragedy. A
friend remarked "he had six senses, sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and tragedy."
The last was the most highly developed"(Raleigh p1). 
O'Neil was not using his writing to gain public recognition, rather, he was using it as
an outlet for his own life. He wrote about his personal tragedy and his personal lose he
just changed the names. "His chief aim was neither popular acclaim or success, nor even
literary immortality, but his own salvation. Through his writings he sought to ease his
inner pressures and storms, to justify himself to himself not to the world"(Shain p2).
His themes were strongly positioned on the state of mankind being one of loneliness and
alienation. He spoke of the natural struggles between the sexes and between family
members. As O'Neil set the benchmark, modern authors like Lorca are trying to imitate him
"O'Neil was a precursor, at least in the American theater, of themes that have come to
bulk large in twentieth century literature"(Shain p2). 
Bibliography
David, Sister Mary Agnes, SSJ, ed., Modern American Drama New 
York: The Macmillan Company 1965 
Miller, Jordan Y., Eugene O'Neill and the American Critic Hamden Connecticut: The Shoe
String Press. Inc. 1973 
O'Neil, Eugene, The Plays Of Eugene O'Neil New York: Random House Inc. 1974 
Raleigh, John Henry, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Iceman Cometh Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1968 
Shain, Charles E., "Eugene O'Neill - The Man" Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Brian Rodgers
, special collections Librarian, at Library at Connecticut College Internet Eugene
O'Neill "An Artist or Nothing" English-9 7 April, 1997