In:
Modern Drama, University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress), Vol. 34, No. 4 ( 1991-12-01), p. 494-498
Abstract:
One of the oddest moments in O'Neill, certainly for city dwellers, occurs in Part II, scene 2 of Desire Under the Elms, when the patriarchal Ephraim Cabot poignantly tries to explain himself to his wife Abbie, whose mind and desire are concentrated on her stepson Eben in the adjacent bedroom. Ephraim, who desperately desires a son worthy of the farm he has built up by his "sweat 'n blood," turns to Abbie in a vain effort to be understood, to explain his "hardness," his following God's will in building a flourishing farm out of rocky soil by sheer persistence and strength that rejected the "easy" way and built a stone wall of misunderstanding between him, his wives and sons. And all the time he "growd hard" and "kept gittin' lonesomer." To overcome his lonesomeness he took a wife, then another. Both died and neither "knowed" him nor understood his God-driven hardness and what the farm meant. Nor did his covetous, "soft" sons, who hated him. And in his bitterness, he set out that spring to heed the voice of God "cryin' in my wilderness, in my lonesomeness," to seek and find. The result was his marriage to Abbie to whom he "clove ... in my lonesomeness" and his joyous dream of a son who will grow up to be like him.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0026-7694
,
1712-5286
Language:
English
Publisher:
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
Publication Date:
1991
SSG:
9,3
SSG:
7,24
