Thursday, 29 June: tragicomedy; love as laughter or tears: O'Neill, A Moon for the Misbegotten

web-highlight (finals, esp. on Moon): Jaime McBride

INTRODUCTION Throughout the tragedies we read, sometimes more than one character can be seen as the tragic hero.  In a final written in 2004 a student claimed that Jamie and Josie could both be seen as the tragic hero of the play.

While the tragic hero of A Moon for the Misbegotten seems to be Jamie, since it is the play O’Neill wrote about his brother, Josie could also be the tragic hero.  Jamie has just suffered the loss of his mother, which caused him to fall off of the wagon and plunge head first into alcohol.  He is carrying a dark secret with him that plagues him and gives him nightmares.  He is ashamed of himself and his past actions and hopes to find true love with Josie.  That is what he desires the most because he has not known true love.  His guilt and shame culminate in the final act when he confesses his sins to Josie.  He then falls asleep in Josie’s arms, similar to a “pieta” image.  While he is sleeping, the moonlight gives him the appearance of being dead.  Jamie’s confession and figurative death have allowed him to raise again as a new man, a man who has finally faced his past and overcome it, although it is implied that he will never escape the draw of the bottle.  He has had his one night of true love and it can never be repeated.  Jamie has finally reached his dream, so he has nothing left to keep him alive.

Josie is the only woman on a farm she must remain on to take care of her father because all of her brothers have left.  She is a large woman and is insecure about her appearance, but she is in love with Jamie.  After her father tells her that Jamie plans to sell their farm to Harder, she is heartbroken because she feels that Jamie has forsaken her.  She decides to take revenge on Jamie, but she soon learns the truth—Jamie never intended to sell their farm to Harder, her father was only using her as a pawn to snare Jamie for his money.  She is finally able to show Jamie the love she has for him and comforts Jamie through his pain and guilt.  After Jamie awakens, she knows that the night of mutual love will never be repeated, and while she is glad to have had the one night, she is sad that she will never be able to share her love with Jamie again.  Josie will never leave the farm that holds her back from everything and that she will never marry or know love again.

In each of these tragedies—Medea, A Raisin in the Sun, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten—there is ambiguity as to the identity of the tragic hero.  This seems to be prevalent in modern tragedy because as the form of tragedy evolves, so must the tragic hero.  Uncertainty about the identity of the tragic hero makes the tragedy richer.  It offers more possibilities for interpretation of the play and makes the tragedy more complex as it seeps from character to character, and into the reader. [BH]

CONCLUSION In these sections of the paper it is shown that more than one character can be viewed as the tragic hero of a play. I found other students work helpful to me on parts of plays that I was confused about. Having the chance and tools to preview past work of other students benefited me with my own work.