A Study On Eugene O’Neill’s Experiments On Masks In The Great God Brown And Lazarus Laughed

In present studies, little attention has been paid to O’Neill’s use of masks. As aresult, there exist huge gaps in this area. Firstly, O’Neill’s notions on masks and hisexperiments on masks have neither been adequately nor systematically discussed.Secondly, relevant researches home and abroad lack a justified definition ofO’Neill’s mask plays, which would cause many difficulties to future studies. Thirdly,researches on O’Neill’s mask plays are mainly focusing on the discussion of theplots and the paradoxical contents, as well as the analysis of the autobiographicalrelations between the script and O’Neill’s life, neglecting the masks as minor roles.Drawn from the above situations, it is necessary to re-explore O’Neill’s experimentson masks.By re-exploring the masks used by O’Neill, this research aims at providing newinspirations and directions for contemporary theatre theories and practices, as well asbroadening the horizon for O’Neill studies. This dissertation focuses on two maskplays by O’Neill, The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed, unfolds its discussionon three levels and reaches the following conclusions: theatrically speaking,O’Neill’s masks inject the stage with ritualism and primitivism; literarily speaking,the masks help the playwright to elevate the tragedy of an individual, a family or asmall social group into the tragedy of the whole human race, and provide them withsupreme narrations; philosophically speaking, the masks are perfect combinations ofthe modern theatrical waves and the early Nietzschean thoughts, which makes themstage tools with great artistic tension. The values of O’Neill’s masks on these threelevels are largely inter-related, and their philosophical values can be regarded as aconcluding sublimation of the former two.The creativity and meaning of this dissertation lie in the following aspects.Firstly, since present studies on O’Neill’s use of mask are in themselves few andunsystematic, this research is basically new. Secondly, it provides new ways to readand interpret The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed, that is, to conduct multi-level analysis of the texts centering on the topic of masks. Thirdly, it is quitepractical because it can serve as a reference for contemporary theatre experiments.Fourthly, the panoramic re-evaluation of The Great God Brown and LazarusLaughed can shed light for future producers of these two plays, thus change theirembarrassing state of being left out in the cold by the stage.