| In the 20th century,Eugene O’Neill was the founder of the American modern drama.His works were in a wide range of themes,which had profound philosophical implications.He has always been very concerned about the existence state of modern people,because people in western society were facing a lack of faith during the years of O’Neill’s life and composition.God was dead,which had led to the desolation of the human spirit and the loss of the soul.This encouraged O’Neill to desperately search for the deep meaning of the human existence that was able to assist people to rebuild their spiritual homeland.In this case,he tried to seek new ideas and enlightenments from the ideology and the culture that was beyond his native traditional culture.What made O’Neill generate his Chinese complex were the loss of individual spiritual belief,the oriental transformation of western thoughts in the 20th century and the contact with Chinese culture.The performance of his Chinese complex was presented on both realistic and aesthetic level.In the realistic world where he lived,he pursued the country,China,which was beyond his horizon for nearly a lifetime.He acquired knowledge related to China by all means and even visited to China himself.Moreover,he shaped China as an imaginary space where there were full of mystery and spiritual wisdom in his art world.Westerners could find a quiet and detached utopia from the world he shaped and described.In his contradictory spiritual world,the Chinese philosophy of Lao-tzu and Zhuangzi not only influenced his later composition,but also provided a new vision for his thinking about the meaning of life.O’Neill’s Chinese complex not only freed him from the shackles of his own spirit,but also filled his works with the philosophical wisdom and romantic imagination of’the east.It gave the great and immortal vitality to O’Neill’s works.This is an example of the mutual complementation of eastern and western civilizations,which shows that different civilizations can learn from each other and communicate with each other through mutual understanding and appreciation. |
