EugeneONeill分析.ppt

Eugene-O’NeillEugene-O’Neill分析分析Portrait of Eugene O’NeillCover of The Hairy ApeI. Lifev1. Birthplace: New York Cityv 2. Family: his father, an actorv 3. Education: a Catholic boarding school, Betts Academy, Princetonv 4. Working Experiences: Prospector, sailorII. Literary Achievementsv1920: Beyond the Horizon 《天边外》v 1920: The Emperor Jones 《琼斯王》v 1920: Anna Christie《安娜·克里斯蒂》v1921: The Hairy Ape 《毛猿》v 1924: Desire Under the Elms 《榆树下的欲望》v 1925: The Great God Brown 《大神布朗》v 1928: The Strange Interlude 《奇异的插曲》Literary Achievementsv1931: Mourning Becomes Electra 《悲悼》v 1934: Days Without End 《无穷的岁月》v 1939: The Iceman Cometh 《送冰人来了》v1940: Long Day’s Journey into Night《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》III. Commentv O’Neill was no doubt the greatest American dramatist of the first half of the 20th century.vHe was the first playwright to explore serious themes in the theater and to carry out his continual, vigorous, courageous experiments with theatrical conventions.v His plays have been translated and staged all over the world.v Three Pulitzer Prizes(1920, 1922, 1928) and the Noble Prize in 1936 show his achievement and influence at home and abroad.commentv As the nation’s first important playwright with forty nine published plays, he did a great deal to establish the modes of the modern theatre in the country.v With him American drama developed into a form of literature and in him American drama came of age.Commentv As America’s foremost playwright, O’Neill successfully introduced the European theatrical trends of realism, naturalism and expressionism to the American stage as devices to express his comprehensive interest in life and humanity.v He often ignored normal play divisions of scenes and acts, paid little attention to the expected length of plays, made his characters wear masks, split one character between two actors, reintroduced ghosts, chorus, monologue, and direct addresses to audience.commentv He employed sets, lighting, and sounds to enhance emotion rather than to represent a real place.v He made great contributions to establishing the modes of the modern American drama.v He represented the new trend on the stage by introducing a modern and timely content.v He grounded his works in personal experience.vHis works reflect the life of his country and his time.Comment vHe was able to do this, not merely because he had a talent for theatre but because he was good at using the modern themes and styles developed abroad, and making them serve his own purpose.vHe was able to succeed also because he had a bursting desire to put on stage what he felt and knew.commentvHis success in the realistic and expressionistic drama has turned others from the traditions of romantic comedy and melodrama which had for so long bound the American stage, and opened the way for new literary experiments.v All his life O’Neill remained individual and nonpolitical.v He stood aloft among his contemporary playwrights.IV. Expressionism表现主义v a general term for a mode of literary or visual art which in extreme reaction against realism or naturalism, presents a world violently distorted under the pressure of intense personal moods, ideas, and emotions: image and language thus express feeling and imagination rather than represent external reality.v In literature, a common concern of expressionism is with the eruption of irrational and chaotic forces from beneath the surface of a mechanized modern world.ExpressionismvSome of its explosive energies issued into Dada, Vorticism, and other avant-garde movements of the 1920s.v In the English-speaking world, expressionist dramatic techniques were adopted in some of the plays of Eugene O’Neill and Sean O’Casey, and in the ‘Circe” episode of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses(1922); in poetry, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) may be considered expressionist in its fragmentary rendering of post-war isolation.Expressionismv In a further sense, the term is sometimes applied to the belief that literary works are essentially expressions of their authors’ moods and thoughts; this has been the dominant assumption about literature since the rise of Romanticism.V. The Hairy ApeStoryvYank, the protagonist, is a leading stoker on a transatlantic liner.v Strong and brutish, he has won respect from his fellow men, the kind of “grudging respect of fear.”v Completely adapted to his environment, Yank is satisfied with the life he leads, and is proud of himself. StoryvBut when Mildred Douglas, daughter of the ship’s owner, displays her horror and terror of him and calls him a “filthy beast” on her visit to the stokehole, Yank feels insulted, and denied a position in the world.v He goes out to prove his position by insulting aristocratic strollers in New York and is then put to prison.v He cannot make himself understood by his fellow prisoners, and is later rejected by the I. W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World), a labor organization.Storyv Frustrated, Yank goes to the zoo to see the ape at night.vHe sets free the beast, offers to shake hands with it but is killed.Scene 1. The firemen, sit in the forecastle of the ship drinking and carrying on with each other…The miserable life: They are charged with shoveling coal into the engine of the ship. Insulted by Mildred…Angered by Mildred, he went to the street with Long…Imprisoned…Visiting the local I.W.W…Scene 8, Yank attempts to befriend the ape, with the purpose of Searching Belonging.themevModern man loses his sense of belonging under technological progress.v Humanity is in a predicament（困境） by creating a world he does not belong to.Features of Yank v1. Violent v2. Strong esteemv3. Self-abased and self-abandonedv4. Confused about his identityv5. Self-mockingVI. Topics for Discussionv1. Interpret the confrontation between Mildred and the men in the stokehole. Why is Yank so enraged at her?v 2. What does Yank mean by “belong”？ Where, or to what, does he belong?v 3. What, according to O’Neill, brings about the tragic end? What is your opinion?结束结束。