The American Dream and Eugene O'Neill

The present research attempts to scrutinize Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and Lengthy Day's Journey into Evening. Right here, the crucial overview is primarily based on "The American Dream" as a national myth; it is the myth of achievement or a fulfilled life for all Americans. The theoretical framework is primarily based on the suggestions of some critics such as Lewis, Carpenter, and Pradhan on "The American Dream".

This investigation follows a historical viewpoint and states that "The American Dream" has been with Americans from the starting of the history of America. And later shows that this specific dream has turned to be a myth for centuries.

For this study, initial, a complete analysis is carried out on the history of America as nicely as on the ideas such as "The American Dream" and "American myth". Then, the components of "The American Dream" are traced on The Iceman Cometh and Extended Day's Journey into Evening. Subsequent, these components are regarded as as inaccessible myth. Completely, it is shown that how O'Neill depicts "The American Dream" in his two plays.

When O'Neill started to create plays, in the American drama there was an unreasonable acceptance of materialism and conventional values, and the presentation of life and character was hackneyed. O'Neill's plays from the initially reveal greater and truer understanding of man and his life. Tilak Raghukul (1975) believes that:

From the starting O'Neill saw life as anything not to be neatly arranged in a analysis, but as terrifying, magnificent and typically very horrible, one thing akin to tornado, an earthquake or a devastating fire (p.20).

O'Neill considers the mythical characters that have come to America and have been seeking for their dreams and a fulfilled life. He writes about forty plays that most of them are about American loved ones. O'Neill began and ended his dramatic profession in realism. All his critical plays depict a tragic vision of America. Some dozen violent deaths and over two dozen nonviolent deaths, as properly as causes of insanity in his drama are an indication of the consistency of his tragic vision. H. Clark Barrelt (1947) says:

When America was close to victory in Planet War II, O'Neill told his countrymen I am going on the theory that the United States, as an alternative of getting the most profitable country in the Globe, is the greatest failure (p.152).

This quotation shows how considerably O'Neill was conscious of the failure of American values. In each The Iceman Cometh and Extended Day's Journey he represents the failure of American man. He shows the man who is searching for a fulfilled life but he can not uncover it in reality, so the reality becomes painful for him. Metaphorically, in each plays O'Neill reveals the lie of "The American Dream" and considers it as a way escaping from reality.