Eugene O'neill's Views On Women Studies

Eugene O'Neil (1888-1953) was hailed as"the father of modern American drama", all his life is committed to the creation and study of drama, and left us more than 50 works with style disparate and theme difference. He has won the Pulitzer prize four times and also won the Nobel prize for literature at the year of 1936"since his works which reflected the concept of traditional tragedy and with charm, sincereness and deep passion".Female characters occupied a special position in the many brilliant characters which he shaped. Because of O'Neil created many anti-tradition, crazy, irrational, fierce and lascivious women in the dramas, many critics have a negative attitude for O'Neil's female viewpoint, and thinks that he has"misogyny". Louis Sheffer the biographer of O'Neil such criticized the women in O'Neil's dramas,"the most of the women he shaped either fierce and lascivious evil female or bring disasters bad women". These evaluations inevitably have some one-sided opinions. We can not define that he has"misogyny"just because of O'Neil shaped such as"fierce female"or"evil women"female characters. We should see these female characters reflected O'Neil's thought of feminism in a certain extent.This article analyzed the female character features through close reading the works and based on the understanding of the novels. Through probing the female characters in the drama to analysis the female viewpoint of O'Neil. This paper argues that, his attitude is both exposure and with sympathy and understanding for the females whom have a miserable situation, and suffering discrimination, even the women showed some bad behaviours in modern society life. O'Neil this kind of contradictory viewpoint of women comes from his own special growth family environment and personal experiences, and also caused by what the influence of he accepted the modern social thoughts.This paper is divided into four chapters. The main content of the first chapter is the analysis of female characters in O'Neil's early period dramas, to probing the female consciousness and female image features at O'Neil early time—"jailbait style"female through analize Lucy in <Beyond the Horizon> the O'Neil early period representative play.The second chapter-the female images in O'Neil middle period dramas analysis, it concrete analyzes the female characters in O'Neil middle period representative plays such as: <Desire Under the Elm>,<Strange Interlude> and <Mourning>, summarize the female images during that period: 1) the destroyer and deliverer, victims and perpetrator all in one; 2) Desire is the only motivation for behaviors. To reaserch the reason of their various unreasonable behaviors. The third chapter-female images in O'Neil late period plays, it analyzes the female characters in <Long Day's Journey In Night> and <A Moon for the Misbegotten>, and to probe into the tragedy roots and the reflected maternal temperament of the females. The chapter four- to probing the influence of O'Neil's personal growth experiences and the modern western philosophy thoughts to O'Neil's female viewpoint.The finnal conclusion of this paper is: because of O'Neil is a dramatist with dense autobiography colorific, he more or less blended his lives in the dramas writing. And also because of the developing of O'Neil's personal thought and the influence of modern western philosophy thoughts for O'Neil, his female consciousness is also deeping and developing constantly. Throughout the whole creation course of O'Neil, the women which he described has experienced the course of"awakening– resistance– failure - struggle for existence", shown helplessness and sadness of the women whom seeking selfhood but shall not in patriarchal society, it reflected that the female viewpoint of O'Neil is sympathy and understanding.