Eugene O'Neill: A Long Day's Journey Into Death

Abstract

It is hard to pin-point what O'Neill's exact hope in life was. We get the feeling in studying his life that he could never be satisfied with anything. But O'Neill's one hope and wish in life was to "belong" to something meaningful, something that would replace his family and his religion which were insufficient for his guidance. . . . Why was it so difficult for O'Neill to "belong?" . . . And now a second question must be asked: how did O'Neill, and the characters in his plays, overcome the frustrations of not being able to "belong?" What were their means of escape. . . . Only the final escape held the ultimate solution to the problem of belonging, and that escape was death. The O'Neillian character's desire for death sets up a third important theme in O'Neill: "the maintenance of an equilibrum between life-sickness and death-fear." The purpose and aim of this thesis is to explain this equilibrium and to show the conflict it presented in O'Neill's plays. [From introductory section]