Eugene O'Neill by Frederic I. Carpenter (review)

468 MODERN DRAMA February already overburdened with the combined symbolism of Pontius Pilate and Punch. Drawing two images from The Anatomist, she also sees each innocent Adam as a "pink shivering boy" and each forceful Adam as a "rhinoceros." She sees The King of Nowhere and Dr. Angelus (two studies of mental de~ rangement) as respectively "a condemnation of man's spiritual aridity" and "a bitter judgment of man," and Daphne Laureola (a portrayal of a vulgar-genteel dipsomaniac) as "England in the aftermath of the war," "an emblem of civilization ," and "a symbol of an exhausted culture." It seems to me that these plays cannot bear such weighty significance. ANNE GREENE Northern Illinois University EUGENE O'NEILL, by Frederic I. Carpenter, Twayne Publishers, New York, 1964, 191 pp. Price $3.50. If any substantial portion of the Twayne United States Authors listing is as good as this one, the entire series must be regarded as a significant publishing achievement. Frederic Carpenter's approach to Eugene O'Neill's life and works is certainly among the best and most objective treatments of this enigmatic figure that have appeared since the playwright's death in 1953. Compressed within less than two hundred pages are a rationally conceived correlation between O'Neill's life and works, a careful analysis of the tragic pattern of the important plays, and a thoroughly intelligent discussion of the major dramas not only in chronology but in appropriate thematic groupings. All is climaxed by a brief summation of O'Neill's greatness and his limitations which demonstrate the final estimate of O'Neill's position as a major modern dramatist. Upon completion of Carpenter's book one has the feeling that he has at last encountered a straightforward discussion of this artist who has always been a challenge to genuine objectivity. O'Neill's critics so often grossly overestimate his accomplishments, or condemn them without reason, or, as in the case of the Gelb's monumental biography, tell all and ultimately achieve little. Carpenter has been able to look at O'Neill's lifetime achievement and to observe the developing pattern of a uniquely serious tragic writer without becoming emotional, hypercritical , or all-embracing and all-accepting. What flaw there is in his approach is Carpenter's tendency to see more good in the bad plays than one might readily accept, but this is redeemed by the fact that the worst of the genuine clunkers in the O'Neill canon are mercifully ignored. There is, also, a pattern of repetition of thought from section to section, somewhat as if the book were composed as separate and distinct essays, but it is possible to see this as an item of merit in reinforcing each major point. Carpenter's chapter "The Pattern of O'Neill's Tragedies" is built around his own earlier essay of 1945 which brought a personal letter from O'Neill expressing "greatest pleasure and satisfaction" in the critical interpretation, in spite of disagreement with "this and that." It is not difficult to understand O'Neill's satisfied reaction for, as he states in the letter, "you really hit what is below the surface." This is indeed the strength of the entire book. It is a uniformly thoughtful analysis that avoids the quick and superficial summation and plot reviews of so many others as it goes well below the violent, erratic, often frustrating surface of things to reveal a coherent development of an artistic idea. One might question Carpenter's acceptance of several of the plays as "tragedy." Is Brutus Jones, the "Emperor," truly a tragic figure? Or is Jim Harris of All 1967 BOOK REVIEWS 469 God's Chillun, living out a truly tragic experience? Are the lives of the Dion Anthony-Billy Brown figures of The Great God Brown the enactment of a double tragedy? Is the great Khan of Marco Millions also. a tragic protagonist? Perhaps. Carpenter's analysis is convincing, and despite superficial disagreement on the aptness of the use of the term, the plays fit the pattern that Carpenter establishes . That pattern may well be, in the modem sense, genuine tragedy. On the other hand, there is little argument with the...