O'Neill's Feministic Consciousness In His Late Years

Eugene O'Neill is called "the father of American solemn drama". He has long been treated as a phallocentric playwright or a male chauvinist, and such an estimate has been deeply rooted in the critical field. For this, O'Neill and his plays have been criticized by the feministic critics.But now, it is worth noticing that the development of the critical theories is very fast, especially the feministic criticism, which is still in its progress with the development of the feminism. So, the author of this thesis considers that it is very necessary to use a developing viewpoint, or, in other words, to use a more objective and more just attitude to treat both O'Neill and his works.It is known to all that one of O'Neill's dramatic features is that he never fixes on any styles or schools. On the contrary, he always explores and innovates, and thus offers the possibilities to analyze his works from various aspects and angels.Another special point of O'Neill is that his creation is deeply affected by his personal experiences. His family, marriage and his life are the main influential elements of his dramatic creation. Especially in his late years, under the care of his third wife Carlotta, his creation comes into the period which is the most mature and profound one. In the mean time, many of his viewpoints are changed under such an influence. For example, he dedicates his Long Day's Journey into Night to Carlotta as his gratitude to her love and support, which is impossible in his earlier periods. In addition, for the sake of creating a good environment for his writing, he is separated from the outside, which covers his thought in late years with a more mysterious mask.Based on the above standpoints, the thesis holds an idea that in O'Neill's late creation and his works, his viewpoints toward the females has already changed. Or it can be said that, many feministic elements have been mixed in his plays. So, it is neither objective nor just to treat O'Neill and his female characters as the simple reflection of his phallocentric orientation.A Touch of the Poet is the starting play in his history Cycle A Story of the Possessor Self-Dispossessed which is proposed in his late years, and it is the only "completed" one in his mind. For the other manuscripts are burned by O'Neill, so, the author thinks that this play is very helpful and important to presume O'Neill's late creating mood.The thesis chooses the feministic self-consciousness theory in the feministic criticism, and Carl Jung's prototype theory and some related conceptions in Marxist criticism to analyze A Touch of the Poet. In view of O'Neill's personal experience, it is concluded that O'Neill does have a feministic complex in his writing, or, a positive feministic consciousness in the late period of his career and it is directly reflected in his plays, especially in A Touch of the Poet. O'Neill spends almost four years on it, and revises it several times. Long Day's Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh are also composed in this period. So it is believed there are quite a few similarities interwoven in these three works. This thesis starts from O'Neill's mother and his wives' affection for him, and then illustrates the formation of his feministic consciousness. Then the paper presents the author's discovery that as early as in the 1910s, O'Neill did pay attention to women problems and wrote some women-concerned plays. Therefore it is concluded that it is too absolute to take O'Neill as a male chauvinist.Next, because of the domestic study on Long Day's Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh is more frequent than the study on A Touch of the Poet, the women characters in these two late works are compared with some of O'Neill's previous heroines to examine their differences as well as his late-formed feministic consciousness.Then, by analyzing the Melodys in A Touch of the Poet to illustrate O'Neill's intended design of Con the male edition of Mary Tyrone in Journey, and Nora and Sara as the representatives of the awakening of the feministic consciousness as well. By illustrating O'Neill's feministic naming and his feministic implied stage arrangement, it can be concluded that while O'Neill's writing of A Touch of the Poet, he intends to put his feministic idea, especially the feministic self-consciousness idea into this work. The author hopes that, this attempt can provide a new approach to the O'Neill study, especially to his late plays.