1. Eugene O’Neill(1888-1953)  Category: American Literature  Born: October 16, 1888 New York City, New York, United States  Died: November 27, 1953 Boston, Massachusetts

2. Unquestionably America’s greatest playwright. He Won the Pulitzer Prize four times The only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize. He is widely acclaimed “founder of the American drama”.

3. Main Works:  One-act melodramatic: Bound East for Cardiff  Play: Beyond the Horizon (won first P Prize)  The Straw  Anna Christie  The Emperor Jones  The Hairy Ape  All God’s Chillun Got Wings  Desire Under the Elms  The Great God Brown  Lazarus Laughed  Stranger Interlude (second prize)  The Iceman Cometh  Long Day’s Journey Into Night

4. His works characters a. Most of his works are tragedies, dealing with the basic issues of human existence and predicament 困境 : life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienation and communication, dream and reality, self and society, desire and frustration etc. b. His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives in different ways, but all meet disappointment and despair.

5. c. As a playwright, he himself was constantly wresting with these issues and struggling with the perplexity about the truth of life. d. His language: he frequently wrote the lines in dialect, or spelled words in ways which indicate a particular accent or manner of speech. Sometimes, make his plays difficult to read, but when they are spoken aloud, the sense becomes clear and the meaning is amplified by the accent.

6. Eugene O’ Nell’s dramatic experiments a. Tireless experimentalist in dramatic art, constantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his plays, especially during the 1920s when expressionism in full wing; b. Between 1920-1924 came his outstanding achievements in symbolic expressionism; expressionistic techniques used to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture 决裂, 破裂 between the two sides of an individual human being, the private and the public;

7.  c. Built on the success of expressionistic experimentations, O’Neill reached out to extend his mastery of the stage and worked up to the climax of his career;/ concerned himself with some non- realistic forms to contain his tragic vision in a number of his plays.

8. The Analysis of the Selected Reading  Answer the following questions:  1. What is Eben’s response to the murder of the infant?  2. Why does Abbie forgive Eben for informing against her?  3. How is Cabot affected by the murder?  4. What tragic elements are there in the play?

9. Plot, character  Try to read all the selected reading, find the plot in the play.  How many characters in the selected reading? What is the relationship among them?

10. Thought, diction  Could you think about the thought of the author?  What is his diction in the play?

11. Music, spectacle  What is the significance of the music in the play?  What is the significance of the spectacle (Scenery, lighting, constume, make-up and the movement of the actors)