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Love and Erotic Sentiments: a Study of Eugene O'neill's “Desire Under The

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Love and Erotic Sentiments: a Study of Eugene O'neill's “Desire Under The International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL) ISSN 2249-6912 Vol. 3, Issue 2, Jun 2013, 41-52 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. LOVE AND EROTIC SENTIMENTS: A STUDY OF EUGENE O’NEILL’S “DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS” GUNJAN KAPIL Research Scholar, Maharishi Markandeshwar University, Ambala, Haryana, India ABSTRACT Eugene O‟Neill is recognized to be the most renowned of the group of dramatists who created the serious American drama. His plays have been admired and influential at home, equally on the stage and in book form; they stand the test of reading, as good plays must. His foremost subject matter was man‟s uncertainty, man‟s bedevilment from within and from without. The present research study explores some of the aspects of existence which causes this uncertainty and disorientation in life. The romantic illusions become the cause of destruction on the part of the characters who follow them blindly. Among all the trivial desires, passions and obsessions, love establishes its dominance and importance. The spiritual union and amalgamation of the lovers strengthens their vision of love. Thus, the present research study focuses on the relevance and predominance of positive thoughts and sentiments in the life of men through the expedition of desires, grief, vengeance, lust and repentance. KEYWORDS: Desire, Love, Passion, Grief, Amalgamation. INTRODUCTION Eugene Gladstone O‟Neill is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists of America, the creator of serious American drama, one to whom goes the credit of securing international recognition and fame for the American drama. Eugene O‟Neill is not only the initiator of the serious American drama, but he is also ranked with the greatest European dramatists of the 20th century. Eugene O‟Neill has left behind him five unquestioned masterworks; Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night. And there are many more which stand high in any long list of plays of our time: Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, All God’s Chillun Got Wings, and A Touch of the Poet. Though drama is objective of all the arts, Eugene has made his own experiences the basis of his plays. The third of the realistic plays was Desire Under the Elms, which O‟Neill said he wrote “at Ridgefield, Connecticut, in the winter and spring of 1924” (qtd. in Bogard 199) and finished in June. The thematic issues of the play have been discussed in Steve F. Bloom‟s book entitled Student Companion to Eugene O’Neill as: Desire under the elms raises questions of moral relativism. Whereas Cabot‟s references to God and scripture assume a traditional Judeo-Christian value system, the behaviour of Eben and Abbie challenges that system. The December- may marriage of Cabot and Abbie seems to be unnatural, which is emphasized when Abbie and Eben are immediately “naturally” attracted to each other, more so than are Abbie and Cabbot, as indicated in the stage directions and dialogue. (qtd. in Bloom 94) 42 Gunjan Kapil Commenting on the play, Clifford Leech writes, “This is the first of O‟Neill‟s play to which one returns with a sense of making fresh discoveries” (qtd. in Tilak 13). A New York psychiatrist, Dr. Philip Weissman, who has made a psychoanalytical study of O'Neill's plays, recently concluded that “Desire” was O'Neill's “unconscious autobiography”, and a number of O'Neill's close friends were aware, during its writing and production, that the play's conflicts echoed O'Neill's own emotional problems with his parents and brother. Though there are several themes which run throughout the play but the element of love and eroticism has been explored in the present research study. According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary eroticism is “the fact of expressing or describing sexual feelings” (514). So far as O‟Neill‟s art of describing the sexual desires is concerned, he has achieved the magnificence in this sphere. Clifford Leech also describes the essential subject matter of the play and denies it to accept as a problem play only. He explores in it the desire for the companionable affection which Abbie and Eben find in each other. As he asserts, “Their desire for possession-of land, of home, of body-go along with a profounder, barely recognised, desire for companionable warmth-which for a time Abbie and Eben find in each other, which Ephraim has known only with his farm animals” (Leech 55). Doris Alexander also asserts that, “Most of O‟Neill‟s really pleasant characters are his conventional, unthinking bourgeois, for at least they are capable of affection for others, and have some sort of social ethic in personal relationships, however ruthless they may be in pursuit of their highest value-money” (qtd. in Cargill 407). It would be quite helpful to introduce the terms love and eroticism as Mike Featherstone discusses in his book Love and Eroticism for the support of the present study. He says that, “Eroticism is this infinite variety of forms based upon constant invention, elaboration, taming and regulation of the sexual impulse. Sexuality, then, makes eroticism possible, but eroticism transcends reproduction through its capacity to elaborate sexual experience and invent a separate realm of associated pleasures” (Featherstone 1). The ebb and flow of the element of love and erotic sentiments has been discussed in the play. Some characters in the play seem to have realized the sentiment of love while others contrive to get love. But the case is different with the protagonist, Eben, thinks it to be futile until Abbie, the heroine of the play, goes to the extent of finishing their child, to prove her love for Eben. At the very beginning of the play the sense of love and appreciation is witnessed, when Eben, the hero of the play, exclaims about the surrounding and the atmosphere as well, “God! Purty!” (4; pa. 1, sc. 1). Further, while conversing with his younger brother Peter, Simeon reveals his sense of love for his dead wife, Jenn. During the discourse Simeon reveals the beauty of his wife and expresses how lonely he feels in her absence. As Simeon says abruptly that, “I rec‟lect- now an‟ agin. Makes it lonesome. She‟d hair long‟s a hoss‟s tail-an‟ yaller like gold!” (4; pa. 1, sc. 1). After the discourse with his step brothers, Eben gets frustrated and decides to leave the place for some time. His elder brothers Simeon and Peter presume that he would go to see the prostitute, Minnie. Simeon makes him acquaint with the fact that it is a lust that is growing in him. As their discourse reveals: PETER [jeeringly]. The Scarlet Woman! SIMEON. Lust that‟s what‟s growin‟ in ye! EBEN. Waal- she‟s purty! (10; pa. 1, sc. 2) And when Eben returns from the village, he fetches the news of their father who got married for the third time. The same time Eben rejects the assumption of his brothers who think of Eben to be fallen in love. Eben apparently says that he does not consume his feelings in such kind of sentiment and thus shows his absolute indifference towards love. But he makes them aware that Minnie belongs to him now and thus shows a sense of possession over her. As the Mexican poet, Octavio Paz, reminds that “human beings have woven around this act a wide range of practices, institutions, rites and representations” (qtd. in Featherstone 1). Love and Erotic Sentiments: A Study of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire under the Elms” 43 SIMEON [dryly]. In love, air yew? EBEN [with lofty scorn]. Love! I don‟t take no stock in sech slop! PETER [winking at SIMEON]. Mebbe Eben‟s aimin‟ t‟ marry, too. SIMEON. Min‟d make a true faithful he‟pmeet- fur the army! [They snicker.] EBEN. What do I care fur her- ‟ceptin‟ she‟s round an‟ wa‟m? The p‟int is she was his‟n- an‟ now she belongs to me! [He goes to the door- then turns- rebelliously.] An‟ Min hain‟t sech a bad un. They‟s worse‟n Min in the world, I‟ll bet ye! Wait‟ll we see this cow the Old Mam‟s hitched t‟! She‟ll beat Min, I got a notion! [He starts to go out.] (14; pa. 1, sc. 3) Mike Featherstone, in his book entitled Love & Eroticism, uses the illustration of the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner, Octavio Paz, who says that, “When we speak of love and eroticism we cannot but be aware of their association with the absent third term, sexuality” (qtd. in Featherstone 1). The poet goes on to argue that “sexuality is clearly the primordial source with eroticism and love the derivative forms” (qtd. in Featherstone 1). So the element of sexuality cannot be detached from these terms as well. Further it is observed that the new wife of Ephraim Cabot, Abbie, desires for a home of her own. But Abbie‟s this desire of having her own home is extinguished by the advent of Eben who turns her desire of having a home into a passion for him. As the play proceeds Abbie tries to make Eben understand that she cannot pretend playing the role of mother with him as he is adult now. But this kind of relation between them provides Abbie a chance to raise proximity with Eben. As is described in Featherstone‟s book entitled Love & Eroticism, “the socioerotic realm as indispensable for social life, as it provides modes of social inclusion, the rites and rituals which provide solidarity and closeness which bind people together” (Featherstone 9).
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