Eugene O'Neill

Born:  New York City; October 16, 1888
Died:  Boston, Massachusetts; November 27, 1953

Entry by Herbert F. Janick

Eugene O'Neill was born in a Broadway hotel and died in a Boston hotel. In between he lived in places such as Greenwich Village, Provincetown, Georgia, Bermuda, and California. The most stable site in his restless life was the Monte Cristo cottage in New London, Connecticut. It was to this eight-room cottage on Pequot Avenue, named after his actor-father's most famous role, that he would return regularly during the summers of the first twenty-five years of his life. His "sea mother," as O'Neill affectionately referred to the ocean, exerted a calming influence on him. The identification of O'Neill with Connecticut is commemorated by the fact that his house has been designated as a National Landmark and is the headquarters of the Eugene O'Neill National Theater Center.

O'Neill's search for a spiritual home, symbolized by his many residences, is reflected in his life and writings. Until 1912 he was rebellious and self-destructive. An irresponsible wanderlust, drunkenness, divorce, and finally, physical breakdown with tuberculosis, characterized his troubled, aimless existence. His rebirth after a six-months stay in a Wallingford, Connecticut, sanitarium was dramatic. The production of his first play by the Provincetown Players in 1916 began a period of intense creative activity, culminating in 1936 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Starting in 1920, when his first full-length play was produced on Broadway, O'Neill wrote and produced nearly two dozen dramas including The Emperor Jones (1929), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) and Ah Wilderness (1933), his only comedy, set in the New London summer home. Then, for almost a decade until the mid-1940s, O'Neill wrote few plays, raising the suspicions that his talent had peaked and that his voice had been only one of the "Lost Generation of the 1920's." Yet, in his final years he produced his best work—four psychologically penetrating, heavily autobiographical plays, including The Iceman Cometh (1946) and Long Day's Journey Into Night (completed in 1941 but produced posthumously in 1956).

Like his life, O'Neill's reputation has suffered highs and lows. For years after his death he was considered to have been overrated and his works were ignored. Beginning in the mid-l950s, his plays were revived. He is now recognized as the first, great, native dramatist, whose major accomplishment was to articulate what he saw as the American tragedy—the inevitable defeat of individuals who base their dreams on material possessions. His gift was to illuminate the inner struggle of human beings against fate rather than to document their conflict with external forces. His personal turmoil gave him insight into this tragic theme.

For Further Reading

The literature on O'Neill and his art is vast. Frederic I. Carpenter, Eugene O'Neill (New York, 1964), is a compact, critical introduction to both. The definitive biography is Barbara Gelb, O'Neill (New York, 1973).

* Entry under revision.