Long Day’s Journey Into A Flash Of Years

O’Neill’s leading position in the development of American theater is indisputable.His dramatic aesthetics of time contributes a lot to the success of his plays.The integrative exploration of O’Neill’s personal life-philosophy through that of his time aesthetics is naturally a fresh approach.Duration is the kernel of Bergson’s thought.In contrast to spatialized time,duration to Bergson is the real living time,within which there are no precise boundaries among one another,yet it is of qualitative changes,impossible to measure or foresee.The fluid fundamental self formed within duration is the true self.Meanwhile,the unceasingly changing and creating duration is where all vital impetus comes from.With the help of Bergson’s theories of duration,O’Neill’s profound pondering on humanity can be better interpreted and some illumination to the study of O’Neill and his plays will also be offered.By exploring the potency of “the time of consciousness,” the formation of selfhood and the struggle against “fate” in O’Neill’s dramas in three chapters with the respectively corresponding Bergsonian theories—the concepts of duration as time,duration as free will and duration as creative vital impetus,we can see that,in Chapter Two,the potency of measurable clock time gets remarkably weakened in duration,which is the real time to the characters and within which,“illusions” are the true “truth” to them;in Chapter Three,being lost in the spatialized superficial self makes the characters suffer a lot,and only when the souls of their deep-seated self are bared,are they truly free;in Chapter Four,coinciding with Bergson’s view,in O’Neill’s dramas,the essence of life is duration,with the indomitable spirit being the impetus of the current of life and the matter-like succumbing to fate being the descending and congelation of the flow.The flowing of duration is what O’Neill found in his quest of the truth of life.So through the unique perspective of the time of soul,we can see that in the growth of his life-philosophy,duration plays a crucial role and is the matrix of the motion of the soul,the formation of the self and the true meaning of life.The tragic endings were not to convey despair or passiveness,but to light the tough and free will.Bergson and O’Neill expressed similar views of time-space and life with different presentation in different arenas.If we can adopt the best of both,the advantage of duration will be better taken to perversely push through the descending and congealing matter.Penetrating the broken and wretched souls hiding in the seemingly prosperity and appealing for the eternity of humanity,O’Neill’s plays are of the stirring and timeless significance.