The Victory Of Dionysus And Its Inevitability

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is considered as one of the three greatest American dramatists in the history of American theatre. During his lifetime, he has completed more than fifty dramas. He is regarded as the Father of American drama for his great contribution to the maturity of American theatre. This thesis provides comprehensive interpretation of the characters in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms in the light of Nietzsche's theory in The Birth of Tragedy, namely the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits. Through interpreting and analyzing them respectively, this thesis explores the influence of Apollonian and Dionysian spirits in Eugene O'Neill's characterization in this play. It comes to the conclusion that the victory of the Dionysian spirits is significant and inevitable in O'Neill's tragedy. There are five chapters in this thesis, besides the introduction and conclusion part.Introduction covers a survey of Eugene O'Neill's critical scholarship, and the scope and focus of the present study.Chapter One, "Apollo and Dionysus in Desire Under the Elms", generally specifies the protagonists into three kinds according to the features of these opposite Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, including Ephraim Cabot, the lonesome Apollo on the farm, Abbie Putnam, the daughter of Dionysus, as well as Eben Cabot, the awakened Dionysus. Chapter Two, "The Conflicts of Dionysian and Apollonian Spirits", describes the conflicts of the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, the internal and the external ones, and then the reasons for the conflicts of the two spirits will be explained. In the internal conflict, first, each of the three characters has dual personalities: Ephraim Cabot expresses both his persistence and weakness; Abbie Putnam is struggling for both her desire for the possession and love; and Eben Cabot is always in his dilemma between love and hatred in the entire play. In the following analysis of this part, the reasons for the conflicts will be analyzed respectively. Then the external conflicts of the characters will be explained specifically. The conflicts of the father, mother and son will be analyzed first with the help of Apollonian and Dionysian spirits. Then it is followed by the conflicts of the lost mother and the weak son, which cover their internal changes from Apollonian to Dionysian power.Chapter Three, "Victory of Dionysus", presents the victory of Dionysian spirit over Apollonian in the end of the play, which has its significance in the characterization in O'Neill's tragedy. This part begins with the characters' tragic fate in this play, which implies the Dionysian spirit's success. Then it focuses on the inevitability of the victory of Dionysian spirit in O'Neill's works. In the end of this part, it is natural to get the significance of the victory of Dionysian spirit in the creation of his tragedy.The conclusion chapter summarizes the present study, states the meaning of this thesis and highlights the importance of this research.