Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms

Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms.
Begin: 05/24/07
End: 05/29/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten
Reason: Modern Drama
Genre: Fiction. Drama. American Literature.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1924.
Fog Index: 8.6/82% are harder.
Flesch Index: 67.4/78% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 7.5/76% are harder.
Complex Words: 7%/89% have more.
Number: Third.
Synopsis: Widower Ephraim Cabot brings home a new wife to his farm. His son, Eben buys the other two sons, Simeon and Peter, shares of the farm with money stolen from his father. Abbie, the new wife, and Eben begin an adulterous relationship and she has his baby. Abbie eventually kills the infant after a fight with Eben and then all their secrets come pouring out.
Thoughts:
So very good. Rich and intense. Dark, broody tragedy modeled on ancient greek tragedy but set in New England. It is seeped in biblical references. Very disturbing as well. The whole incestuous adulterous thing, and that’s not even getting into the whole oedipal issues that are strewn throughout this play.

“Hain’t the sun strong an’ hot? Ye kin feel it burnin’ into the earth-Nature=makin’ thin’s grow-bigger’n’bigger into somethin’ else-till ye’re jined with it-an’it’s your’n-but it owns ye,too-an’ makes ye grow bigger-like a tree-like them elums-Nature’ll beat ye, Eben. Ye might’s well own up t’ it fust’s last” (269) Abbie to Eben.

“God’s hard, not easy! God’s in the stones! Build my church on a rock-out o’ stones an’ I’ll be in them! That’s what He meant t’Peter!” (272)) Cabot.