The Teller Of Souls In The Theatre

So far, the study of O'Neill's works has been fruitful. The autobiographical elements in his works, the style of expressionism, the affinity of his works with the mysterious oriental religions, Nietzsche's tragic ideas and Freudianism, his inheritance of Greek tragedies, all these mentioned above have come into the concern of the critics. The purpose of this thesis is to probe into O'Neill's works in the light of narrative theory and make a research of the shifts of narrative strategies in his plays.Narratology is aimed at the rules, which govern narrative text, narrative analysis and narrating. The narrativity of literature has consequently become the basic objective of narratology. All literary works bear narrativity: fiction, drama, film and so on. In term of narrativity these genres are different in their ways and methods in narrating. Grounded on this, this thesis is designed to map the shifts of narrative strategies in O'Neill's works.Both fiction and drama are characterized by narrativity. Because of generic differences, their respective narrative methods are quite different. The narrativity of fiction is mainly realized by recounting, whilst in drama the narrativity is principally actualized in the forms of dialogues and acting. This thesis validates the extended application of narratology in the research of drama. Further it makes a study of the narrative characteristics and strategies in O'Neill early, middle and late plays respectively.This thesis consists of seven parts. The introduction is mainly centered on the survey of O'Neill's works.Chapter One is focused on the bridging between narratology and dramaturgy. It tests the validity of the expanded application of narratology to drama analysis. It crystallizes some confusing concepts of "epic drama" and its tendency in O'Neill's works.Chapter Two is concentrated on the O'Neill's early works and their narrative strategies and characteristics, the one-actor in particular. In O'Neill's early plays, his stories are not thought provoking and show obvious traces of plotting. His sea plays in this period are more ideological than theatrical. The tragic senses are more observed than felt. In the plays the playwright keeps himself from the characters and their lives at an aesthetic distance with an objective viewpoint.Chapter Three focuses on his middle plays. It has mapped how the playwright manipulates narrative strategies to demonstrate the inner lives of characters on the stage. In his middle plays, he turns to the longer forms to explore the deeper meaning of life. This phase is characterized by bold experimental spirit and diversified styles. The playwrights experiments with various skills, ancient or modern, theatrical or nontheatrical, to explore the psychic being of characters on the stage. In these plays the playwright keeps himself further from his characters.Chapter Four is attributed to the autobiographical work in his later career. It has analyzed the relationship among the real author, the implied author and characters. It has also analyzed the unreliable narratives in the play. In his later works, especially in his autobiographical work, O'Neill discards all kinds of pretense and presents himself and his family on the stage. He focuses on the person of insignificant social status. The plot and dramatic conflicts are weakened.Chapter Five analyzes the affinity of O'Neill's later works with the theatre of absurd from the aspects of themes and narrative strategies. In his later works, the playwright also dramatizes the absurdity of life and explores the value of existence. The last part is conclusion. O'Neill manipulates the narrative strategies to approach his characters and their worlds at different aesthetic distances. In his early plays and middle plays he observes them at some aesthetic distance with an objective point of view from the outside. In his late plays he discards the pretense as a playwright and walks into the worlds of the characters. In consequence his points of view are shifted from the exterior to the interior. The past becomes more dominating in the plays. The present is the past. The plots become more insignificant and marginalized. The characters become more entrapped in the stalement. The narratives become more unreliable. O'Neill walks further to the problems of the value of existence and the absurdity of modern life.