Eugene O’Neill was an early 20th century American author who met with fame and appreciation throughout the world.
His literary production was characterized by dramaturgical innovations based on the tension and unease of human feelings, differing considerably from American dramas of the time. The latter had till then been the result of chance and were rightly considered to be of less psychological depth than the European ones. Born in New York in 1888, the son of a well-known Irish actor, O’ Neill experienced the travelling life of stage actors. Despite this nomadic existence, he completed his normal schooling under a strong Catholic influence. Drawn by adventure, his independent character led him in 1909, just over twenty, to join an exploratory expedition to Honduras. Life at sea then followed, travelling as a seaman to South Africa, England and throughout the United States. He became a stage actor like his father and later worked as reporter for a newspaper in Connecticut. When in 1913 he caught a serious disease, tuberculosis, which was also aggravated by alcoholism, he had to be hospitalized in a sanatorium, as his health was getting worse. These were the years that practically forced Eugene to lead the life of a recluse when compared to his former travels. To overcome this spell of physical idleness, which closely anticipated the beginning of his career as a playwright, he began reading and meditating on the meaning of existence.

In fact, when his health improved in 1916, he settled down in Provincetown, taking some works along with him, the so-called “seven plays of the sea”. The adventurous life led from port to port is their main theme, as can be noticed in The Moon of the Caribbees and Bound East for Cardiff (both written in 1916), and The long voyage home (1917). They were an immediate success with critics and the public to the point that, in 1920, with the play in three acts Beyond the Horizon, Eugene O’Neill won the Pulitzer Prize, which placed him among the leading figures in American literature. From that moment his fame spread also to Europe and in 1936 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died in Boston in 1953. The Emperor Jones (1920), one of his most important theatrical works, relates the adventures of a coloured man, who escapes from a North American prison and proclaims himself the emperor of a small island inhabited by blacks. In time he becomes a ruthless oppressor. His subjects, tired of such harassment, rebel, face him openly and put him to flight. Jones’ monologue, while he is hunted by the tyrannized multitude thirsting for revenge, has made this play in eight scenes, famous. Despite his hunger and thirst, the emperor hopes to reach a ship, once he crosses the forest, so as to move to lands that are less hostile towards him. However, during his desperate escape through the undergrowth, Jones is taken over by a high fever and hallucinations and reviews the main moments of his life: the face of the man he had murdered years back, his prison mates and a series of circumstances that had always characterized the blacks. He suddenly awakes from this state of confusion and finds himself alone, naked on the bare earth, the prey of his pursuers who reach and kill him. His increasing fame and the esteem of most critics made Eugene O’Neill the greatest American playwright of the 20th century, before the advent of Arthur Miller. He was also the author of works like Mourning becomes Electra (1931), filled with pathos and dark atmospheres, in which the characters virtually re-experience problems that were part of Greek tragedy. In this play he successfully merged ancient myths with the heroic features of his contemporary America. O’Neill replaced classical Fate with the fate of modern man, founded on the unconscious and on self-awareness, thanks to the success met by a new science, psychoanalysis. The trilogy Mourning becomes Electra recalls the vicissitudes of Agamemnon, Clytaemnestra and Aegistus and of Orestes and Electra, the Atride family. But the setting is modern and the story unfolds in an American town during the years of the civil war. In the first play called Homecoming, general Ezra Ammon returns home to his family at the end of the war. His wife Christine welcomes him with open arms, but she had been unfaithful to him with captain Brant, the man their daughter Lavinia too was in love with. At this stage the young girl discovers her mother’s affair with the beloved captain. Christine feels lost and, wildly in love with her lover, decides to poison her husband. At death’s door Ezra discloses to his daughter Lavinia the appalling crime his wife has committed. The second play, The Hunted, presents Lavinia’s brother Orin’s return from the war. Terrified that her son could believe his sister’s words, Christine tries every means to convince him that Lavinia has gone mad. But she fails in her intent and Lavinia shows Orin their mother’s blame. At this stage Orin kills captain Brant to avenge his father, while his mother prefers to commit suicide. The trilogy’s final play, The Haunted, presents the scene one year after the death of Brant and Christine, the lovers. Brother and sister are on their way back from a journey to the southern seas. At heart Lavinia would like to cut off completely from Orin, but she fears that remorse could lead her brother to reveal their revenge to the authorities. She then completely isolates him from the woman who loves him and from all and sundry. Unable to live with his feeling of self-rejection for having killed Brant, thus bringing about the death of his mother, Orin commits suicide. Lavinia, instead, is stronger and, considering that mourning becomes her, she decides to spend the rest of her life in her parental home, the scene of such atrocities and family deception.

Translated by interpres sas