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Theatrical Experience in search of God ; Pessimism and Promise: Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett Seung- En, Song MPhil in English Literature The University of Edinburgh 2012 Song 1 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has been composed by myself only. Except for ideas and passages properly acknowledged in the text, this writing is all my own work. The work has not been previously submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signed, Seung-En, Song The University of Edinburgh Song 2 Acknowledgements Writing this thesis was a pilgrimage experience, leading me from darkness to light. It would not have been possible to complete this journey without the support of many people: my supervisor, Dr. Olga Taxidou, my academic advisor, M Van De Zande, Professor Choi, Dr. Lee, YunMi, Robert, Anna, and many other my friends in S. Korea. I am greatly indebted to them. Plus, I appreciate the help of all the saints, priests and parishioners at St. Patrick‟s RC Church and St. Albert‟s Catholic Chaplaincy; my thanks also go to Sr. Felicia, John and the Sisters of Mercy. Most of all, I, with much love, express my heartfelt gratitude to my family and my invaluable best friends: Linda and Andrew. Lastly, I dedicate this thesis to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Song 3 Table of Contents Abbreviations 5 Introduction 6 Part I. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) 1. Social Tragedy: The Hairy Ape (1922), and Dynamo (1929) 8 2. Theatrical Experiment; from realism to expressionism Beyond the Horizon (1918) and The Fountain (1923) 34 3. Aesthetic Tragedy; O‟Neill and Nietzsche: Redemption through Art Lazarus Laughed (1925-6) 43 4. Personal Tragedy: Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1941) 61 Part II. Samuel Beckett(1906-1989): Waiting for Godot (1948-9) 5. Beckett and History 75 6. Beckett and Philosophy 81 7. Beckett‟s Language: Loquacity, Unintelligibility, Simplicity, and Silence 99 8. Beckett on a pilgrimage into the unknown 119 9. Tragicomedy 142 Conclusion 171 Works Cited 176 Song 4 Abbreviations B. T. The Birth of Tragedy L. J. N. Long Day’s Journey Into Night W. G. Waiting for Godot Song 5 Introduction “Que Voulez-Vous?” : what do you expect? (Waiting for Godot56) “What is it I‟m looking for? I know it‟s something I lost.” (Long Day’s Journey into Night 107) These similar questions are addressed by Samuel Beckett and Eugene O‟Neill in their dramas. Interestingly, Beckett‟s “Que Voulez-Vous?” and O‟Neill‟s “What am I looking for?” resonate with Christ‟s question to his two followers: “What do you want?” (John1:38) This simple but crucial question strikes at the heart of humanity, hankering for something that they have lost and not yet found; this something may be God. Modernist theatre relies on the Nietzschean concept of „the death of God‟. This point is seen to relate to the work of Eugene O‟Neill and Samuel Beckett. Both O‟Neill and Beckett were brought up in pious Irish families. Nonetheless, their reaction to their Irish roots was mixed with blasphemy, and nostalgia for the loss of their Christian heritage. My thesis in this respect addresses the following question: how do O‟Neill and Beckett represent on stage their spiritual frustration and longing for God? To examine this question, I explore representative drama by O‟Neill and Beckett, focusing upon tragedy, nihilistic philosophy, and Christianity. Drawing on these sources, this thesis aims to analyse a theatrical aesthetic that, despite initial appearances, exhibits a strong metaphysical and theological dimension. This thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first part, I examine O‟Neill‟s Beyond the Horizon, The Fountain, Lazarus Laughed, The Hairy Ape, Song 6 Dynamo, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. In the second part, I focus on Beckett‟s Waiting for Godot. The conclusion reads these two distinct playwrights in conjunction by formulating comparative observation. In this regard, I try to connect their work with different perspectives, taking account of literary, philosophical and theological approaches. This interdisciplinary reading can neither completely eliminate repetitions nor overcome the fragmentary nature of each approach. Nevertheless, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which the works of O‟Neill and Beckett conceive of Christianity in both its positive and negative characterization. Song 7 Part I. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) 1. Social Tragedy: The Hairy Ape and Dynamo Ostensibly both of O‟Neill‟s plays, The Hairy Ape and Dynamo depict a relationship between humanity and machinery. In a deeper sense, however, they address a more fundamental question: what does it mean to be fully human in the „death of God‟? Through this connection, this paper will examine these two plays, which exhibit O‟Neill‟s social and religious concerns. The Hairy Ape is a story of a fireman called Yank. He works in the stokehole, shovelling coal into a furnace as a part of the process of making steel for a ship‟s engine. Yank‟s physical strength makes him confident in his work. However, when Mildred, a daughter of the president of the company, humiliates Yank with an insulting remark “the filthy beast,” Yank is shocked, and starts questioning his identity. After leaving the steel company, Yank wanders around Manhattan in search of a place where he might feel as though he belongs. After painful rejections in various places, Yank visits the zoo, where he finds a kindred being, a gorilla in a cage. Assuming that the ape can be his friend, Yank opens the cage. However, he is attacked by the gorilla and he dies in the cage. This play delivers Karl Marx‟s ideas of class division, and the alienation of labour. As Marx assumes, the world in the drama is divided into two compartments: one for the ruling upper class and the other for the exploited working class. This drama particularly focuses on what is happening in the latter, a stokehole which: “is crowded with men, shouting, cursing, laughing, singing … the bewildered, furious, baffled defiance of a beast in a cage.” (Hairy Ape 5) As if it is a land of barbarians, Song 8 ruled by a natural law of survival, this naturalistic description of the stokehole displays at the heart of culture the pre-human wildness, which is irrational, violent and uncontrollable. Interestingly, the burning furnace creates a terrifyingly unrealistic impression as much as a naturalistic one. It describes the place where: a line of men, stripped to the waist, is before the furnace door … They use the shovels to throw open the furnace doors. Then from these fiery round holes in the black a flood of terrific light and heat pours full upon the men who are outlined in silhouette in the crouching, inhuman attitudes of chained gorillas. (Hairy Ape 28) Here, O‟Neill employs expressionistic stagecraft like the “flood of terrific light and heat.” The overflowing fiery light and heat fill the stage with resplendent colour. In addition to this spectacular visual effect, the dreadful strangeness of the atmosphere is amplified with a beating sound: There is a tumult of noise – the brazen clang of the furnace doors as they are flung open or slammed shut, the grating, teeth-gritting grind of steel against steel, of crunching coal, This clash of sounds stuns one’s ears with its rending dissonance. But there is order in it, rhythm, a mechanical regulated recurrence, a tempo. And rising above all, making the air hum with the quiver of liberated energy, the roar of leaping flames in the furnace, the monotonous throbbing beat of the engines. (Ibid.) Just as a dithyrambic chorus in Attic theatre brings out an outburst of daemonic energy, “the throbbing beat of the engines” calls for murderous violence and irrational destructiveness. The great whirlwind of supernatural sound is sweeping the characters away uncontrollably into a madness of excitement. This hellish climate of the underworld elicits “a sense of impersonality, vacuity, and grotesque savagery,” as if it is a “surrealistic nightmare” in the words of Valgemae Mardi. (231) The expressionistic portrait of the foundry not only serves to highlight a primitive savage in the midst of an industrial world, but also reveals O‟Neill‟s subjective impression and feeling of horror towards it. In the play, the central character, Yank is a Song 9 proletarian coal worker, and his co-workers Paddy and Long compare their working place with “hell”: LONG: This is „ell. We lives in „ell, Comrades - and right enough we‟ll die in it…All men is born free and ekal … They dragged us down till ship, sweatin‟, burnin‟ up eatin‟ coal-dust! … the damned capitalist clarss! (11) PADDY: Yank-black, smoke from the funnels smudging the sea, smudging the decks-the bloody engines pounding and throbbing and shaking … choking our lungs wid coal dust-breaking our backs and hearts in the hell of the stokehole- feeding the bloody furnace-feeding our lives along wid the coal.