Depletion of parental endearment in Eugene O’Neil’s

Desire under the Elms

Dr. M. Dharmaraj

Eugene O’Neil’s contribution to American drama is immense. Undoubtedly, he is a pioneer in American theatre. He is one of the widely acclaimed dramatists in American literature. He is instrumental in initiating a revolution in the American theatre and placing American drama on a firm footing. It is an indisputable fact that he is one the architects of American drama. As far as international dramatic scenario is concerned, O’Neil is instrumental for earning a respectable status to American drama. It is an incontrovertible fact that O’Neil amalgamated considerable theatrical talent with an infinite knowledge of the human soul. His plays have been stupendously popular and influential at home, both on the stage and the drawing room. His best tome has an intensity of passion and a sense of theatre action. His plays are translated, acted and read in most European countries. Strinberg and Ibsen, two European dramatists, have tremendously influenced O’Neil besides the psychologists Freud, Jung and Adler. O’Neil in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech admitted the influence of Strinberg on him “——first gave me the vision of what modern drama could be, and first inspired me with the urge to write for the theatre myself’.

He was awarded Pultizer Prize thrice for his creative talent in American drama. His eminence as a distinguished dramatist has spread far and wide when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1936. O’Neil improvised the craft of play-writing in America. He made it a calling rather than a trade, and he gave playwrights, a position of some importance in American cultural life. Winner of Nobel Prize and author of plays staged in nearly all the capitals of Europe, he became the first American dramatist of international standing.

Realism is the prominent theme prior to O’Neil’s entry into American drama. O’Neil trusts that realism cannot reflect the inner emotions of man. He employed expressionism as his cardinal tool and technique to explore the hidden conflicts of man. He is a tireless experimenter who experiments with a variety of dramatic forms and modes such as naturalistic, realistic, expressionistic symbolic ones. O’Neil also adopted other artifices such as monologue trilogies and split characters to make his plays intelligible and interesting. His concern is glaringly visible about “the sickness of society” which explicates inner conflicts of man. “The playwrights of today must dig at the roots of the sickness of today as he feels it. The death of the old God and the failure of science and materialism to give any satisfying new one for the surviving primitive religious instinct to find a meaning for life in and to comfort for its fears of death. It appears O’Neil’s vision of life is essentially tragic. The human predicament is the theme of his plays. He wrote tragedies of modern life. He proclaimed that he has studied man not in relation to man, but man in relation to God. Thus his leading themes are degeneration of contemporary society and the inner conflicts of modern man. It is often found that, in O’Neil’s plays, man is vanquished in his search for meaning. O’Neil who grew up in the theatre environment of America, developed deep dislike for it. Later he said, “As a boy I saw so much of the old, ranting artificial romantic stuff that I always had a sort of contempt for the theatre.”

Patriarchal and matriarchal affection is indispensable for any generation to rescue them from the clutches of degeneration. Parental endearment is conspicuously invisible in his play, Desire Under the Elms.

The cardinal characters in the play are Ephraim cabot, Abbie, his third wife and Eben who is the son of Ephraim’s second wife. Simon and Peter are the sons of Ephraim’s first wife. Ephraim is a man of industrious nature. It is evidenced in his efforts to transform a sterile and rocky field into a fertile farm. He anticipates the same kind of hard work from his sons. He is an oppressor whose dictatorial attitude is thrust on his sons. His rigid and harsh traits are hated by his sons. His patriarchal kinship towards his sons is glaringly invisible. He resembles an old Testament God who is harsh and lonely. Ephraim, a stony hearted man, does not care for the ambitions and desires of his sons. As a parent, it is his ethical duty to consider their aspirations. But he remains inconsiderate and exhibits a kind of lukewarm attitude towards his sons which is inconceivable. Needless to say, there is a lack of cordial relation between father and sons which is conspicuous. As a parent, he is supposed to be instrumental in shaping the bright future of his sons. Ephraim does not think about the fruitful future of his sons. His love for his offspring appears a strange phenomenon. Perhaps, he distrusts the philosophy that love grows out of love. This attitude of the father lays seeds of hatred among his sons. It is natural that they are compelled to abominate him. His greed for possession of their farm reflects his materialistic attitude. His strength resembles that of Samson where as his snobbishness reminds us of Satan. His greediness for the farm symbolizes the materialistic society, a society bereft of humanity, love and understanding. At the age of seventy five, he marries Abbie, his third wife, throwing the future of his children into a dustbin. His egotism and unconcerned nature towards his sons increase aversion and enmity towards their father. The depletion of parental endearment towards his sons is clearly evident.

Eben, his second son, is trusted to be a ray of hope in the family. Cordial relations are found missing between father and son since Eben is at loggerheads with his father, whose memory always chases him. An irresistible feeling lingers in his mind that a lot of injustice has been done to his mother. His father possessed the farm along with his mother who had been illtreated by his father. These factors intensely induce Eben to resort to revenge on his commanding father, Ephraim. A desire for revenge on his father possesses his mind. The dual intention of Eben is to own the land along with his father’s wife, Abbie. He strongly loathes his father and desires his father’s death. His father’s tyrannical behaviour does not provide any scope for the existence of cordial kinship between them.

Abbie is an evil designer. Abbie’s sole intention in marrying Ephraim is to possess his farm. Eben enlightens his stupid brothers that their father had married the third wife. They brood over the idea that the farm would be owned by their new-stepmother, Abbie. The three brothers not only abominate their father, but also wish he were dead. Such kind of inhuman kinship exists among them which proves that there is a depletion of parental endearment and attachment.

Abbie’s marriage with Ephraim has a wicked plot. She poisons the mind of Ephraim against Eben. She does not enjoy conjugal relations with her old husband. She seduces Eben to have a child so that she can possess the farm which provides her economic security. Unmindful of her relation to Eben, she wishes to conceive, which is not only unethical but also a blot on her position as wife. In order to avenge his father, Eben possesses Abbie. She delivers a son whose birthday is celebrated by Ephraim. All the guests are aware of the fact that Eben is the father and they mock at him.

Ephraim poisons the mind of his son, Eben, against his supposed mother which shows that a father is not a source of parental love which is denied by Ephrain to his son, Eben. Such sort of parental endearment towards his offspring is unheard of.

Initially, Abbie’s love for Eben is not deep-rooted but only superficial which is generated out of her greediness to possess the farm. Eben still suspects Abbie’s motive of love. But gradually her love turns out to be genuine for Eben. In order to prove her devotion and sincerity, she smothers her baby. There is a lack of parental love for the child which is expected of any mother. Abbie denies her parental endearment to her own baby. Eben, the real father of the infant, assists Abbie in the execution of the plot to kill the baby. If all parents emulate them, there will be gradual extinction of the human race.

Ephraim, an isolated man, seeks company for which he married Abbie, but ironically becomes isolated after her arrest.

Surprisingly, even the Sheriff is greedy and he wants to possess the farm.

“It’s a jim-dandy farm

no denying wished I owned it.”

However, the play has varied themes such as desire, possession, usurpation etc. But the controversy arises regarding the protagonist of the play. Fredric I Carpenter views that the spirit of nature is the real hero.

As far as the title of the play is concerned, it alludes to the two enormous elm trees which bend on both sides of the house: “They appear to protect and at the same time subdue. There is a sinister maternity in their aspect, a crushing jealous absorption. They have developed from their intimate contact with the life of man in the house an appalling humaneness. They brood oppressively over the house.”

O’Neil’s title is befitting for the play. But it is found in the play that there is a depletion of parental endearment among the kith and kin.

*

‘And like the baseless fabric of this vision the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself ye, all which inherit, shall dissolve and like this insubstantial pageant fade, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep’

-The Tempest, Shakeapeare.

Back