Iris L. Gilbert  

EUGENE O’NEILL

TRUTH AND INSIGHT THROUGH THE POWER OF A PEN

There are many aspects of tragedy that make it widely if tacitly recognized as the greatest genre in western literary history.  One aspect of tragedy’s greatness is its ability to inspire a search for truth.  This search, for many people, is often painful but necessary for one’s emotional and psychological well-being.   Because of the distressing journey, there are times when one chooses not to pursue the truth.  But for those who believe that catharsis is essential, the pursuit can be well worth the endeavor.  Such was the case for Eugene O’Neill, the most successful American playwright of his time (Raab 331).  O’Neill embarked on an agonizing journey that enabled him to finally arrive at a place called peace (or as much as possible for such a tortured soul).  This peace came via the play, Long Day’s Journey into Night, which was clearly O’Neill’s masterpiece.  LDJ was a “play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood…that enabled [him] to face [his] dead at last…”  Through this cathartic process, O’Neill finally laid to rest ghosts that had haunted him since childhood.  LDJ was written “with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones”; which brings us to another aspect of tragedy’s greatness – insight into human condition(s). 

            There is a break or gap between greatness and loss which exposes or permits insight into human condition; that produces fear and/or pity and produces insight into the depth of a character.  LDJ, an autobiographical play of one day in ‘O’Neill’s very dysfunctional life, produced insight into a family that was filled with “love and hatred, aggression and compassion, reproach and apology, self-contempt and self-pride, hope and despair” (Raab 334).  By the end of this play, one is filled with pity for a family who failed to break a cycle of self-destructing behavior.  One is filled with sympathy for a family who genuinely loved one another but was unable to communicate with one another.  One is filled with compassion for a family who pointed fingers at one another rather than accepting responsibility for their own actions.  The feeling of pity is brought about because of insight into this family’s very private condition and insight into three of the four main characters.  Through those three characters (James, Mary, and Edmund), one gains at least a minute amount of understanding as to who these people are and what ‘makes them tick’.  In LDJ, we fail to get insight into the character of James, Jr., but we are able to do so in A Moon for the Misbegotten. 

 In A Moon for the Misbegotten, Tyrone, who was actually James, Jr., O’Neill’s oldest brother, struggled with alcoholism just about all of his life (both in the play and real life).  As did the above three characters, Tyrone, also had ghosts that haunted him.  He struggled between the anger he felt over his mother’s death and her ‘leaving him’; and the guilt of his life that he had chosen as a result of the ghosts of his past.  Tyrone needed love and forgiveness that only a mother can give.  Through the self-sacrificing love of a virgin named Josie, Tyrone received the forgiveness and redemption which ultimately allowed his ghosts to be laid to rest.  Because we gain insight into the character, we are able to have compassion for the man.  This compassion for the man leads to understanding of both (character and man).  According to O’Neill, “only pity can make life endurable, for pity implies understanding”.   

When we are able to let go of the past – the hurt and betrayal and of what was - we can at times, create in our minds, a place of what could have been or even what should have been.  Such was O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!  This is a comedy about a family who like in LDJ and A Moon for the Misbegotten, has an alcoholic character.  But what makes this character different than the characters in the aforementioned plays is how the family reacts and interacts with this alcoholic character.  Ah, Wilderness! was about a family O’Neill yearned for but was only able to have through the power of his pen.  In this play, one sees how the simple act of communication can change the whole dynamics of a human condition(s).  Ah, Wilderness! consists of some defects or ugliness but it is painless or non-destructive.  Since O’Neill was unable to have the family he desired, he created one!  This too, created an insight into human condition in that one sees the writer’s personal desire to have more and gain more in his imagination, than what he received in real life. 

Aristotle stated, “To learn gives the liveliest pleasure”.  The greatness of tragedy teaches us the need to seek truth (among other things) which then produces pity and/or fear, thus giving us insight into human condition(s).  Truth is an educator that broadens our understanding.  What could be more pleasurable than learning the truth while also gaining insight into why humans are the way they are?  O’Neill educated us in this realm in that he took us to a place of truth and understanding through emotions that everyone can relate to; thereby giving us pleasure in our new found comprehension. 

Time Log:  07/03/06 (3:30 a.m.- 5:10 a.m.; 12:00 noon – 1:10 p.m.)

WORKS CITED

Raab, Josef.  “Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”  The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.  2004.