Eugene O’Neill, the renowned American dramatist was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936. Powerlessness, cultural estrangement, social isolation and normlessness are the major factors which account for the realistic representation of the problems of the individual in his plays. He claims that he has studied man, not in relation to man, but in relation to God. His plays are modern tragedies striking at the root of sickness inherent in the present-day world.
The plays of Eugene O’Neill: a critical study is a full-length study of O’Neill’s major plays as divided into three phases. The early Phase includes the naturalistic drama beyond the horizon, his first big success, which was followed by his expressionistic play the emperor jones—a tragedy that describes the rise and fall of the Negro ‘emperor’ of a West Indian island.
O’neill’s criticism of contemporary materialistic values was powerfully and poetically expressed in the great God Brown included in the middle Phase along with his other important plays like desire under the elms, strange interlude and mourning becomes Electra.
The later Phase studies the iceman cometh—a lengthy naturalistic tragedy and Long day’s journey into night—a semi-autobiographical family tragedy. It also studies a touch of the poet and a moon for the misbegotten—O'Neill's last play.
The book captures the struggle between self-destruction, self-deception and redemption as presented by O’Neill, in a lucid manner. It will be highly useful to the students and teachers of English literature, particularly English plays and American literature, and researchers in these fields.