Eugene O'Neill

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Eugene O'Neill Biography

• King Abdualaziz University
• English Department
• Drama Course
• Areej Almarzouki
• 0889571
• Mrs.Nesreen Alharbi
• 5\2\2012

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Eugene O'Neill Playwright 1888 - 1953
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I am far from being a pessimist ... On the
contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to
death at life!
Eugene O'Neill
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Contents
Who Is Eugene ONeill ? ----- 1 Early life
on the road ----- 3 Decides to write
----- 7 Wins first Pulitzer Prize
---- 11 The Three periods
---- 17 Of His Career Later life
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Eugene O'Neill was the first American dramatist
to regard the stage as a literary medium and the
only U.S. playwright to receive the Nobel Prize
for Literature.   From the very start to
the very end, Eugene ONeills life was full of
tragedy both in real life and on paper.  Many of
his plays, in fact, mirror the people and
hardships of his tormented life.

Who Is Eugene ONeill ?
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Early life on the road
Ella experienced a very difficult childbirth in
1888, at least partly because Eugene weighed
eleven pounds at birth. She received morphine for
post-partum pain, a standard treatment then.
Apparently, she became addicted very rapidly.
Eugene O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a
New York City hotel. He was the youngest of the
three children of James O'Neill, an outstanding
romantic actor, and Ella Quinlan O'Neill.


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He also began to spend time with his brother,
James, a heavy drinker, who "made sin easy for
him." Eugene's formal education ended when he was
19 years old with an unfinished year at
Princeton University in New Jersey. By this time
his three main interests were books, alcohol, and
women.
From the age of seven to fourteen, O'Neill was
educated at Catholic schools. When he rebelled
against any further Catholic education, his
parents sent him to Betts Academy in Connecticut.

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Decides to write
He divorced her only three years later. He then
spent two years working as a sailor and manual
laborer in South American ports. When he was 24
years old, O'Neill was diagnosed with
tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium. By the
time he was released from the hospital in June
1913, he had decided to become a dramatist.

When O'Neill was 21 years old , he married
Kathleen Jenkins before leaving for Honduras to
mine for gold. A month after his return ,his son
Eugene O'Neill, Jr. was born.
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He Began to write plays in 1913. In 1914, he
entered Harvard University to attend the course
in dramatic technique. But, he left after one
year and did not complete the course. He next
joined the Provincetown Players .
O'Neill was well known by 1918 when he was about
30 years old.
Also in 1918 O'Neill married Agnes Boulton. They
had a son, Shane, and a daughter, Oona.

Photo Album
ONeill disowned his daughter, Oona, after she
married Charlie Chaplin. She was barely 18 years
old when they wed and her new husband was 54, the
same age as her father.
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Wins first Pulitzer Prize
The original Broadway was opened on February 2,
1920 at the Morosco Theater, ran for 111
performances
In O'Neill's early writing he concentrated
heavily on the one-act form. His hard work led to
great success with the production of his
full-length Beyond the Horizon (1920), for which
he won his first Pulitzer Prize. The play is
similar to the one-act form in its structure, but
by adding a poetic and well-spoken character,
O'Neill was able to reach high dramatic moments.
Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon (Broadway
Theatre Archive) (1975)
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O'Neill's father, mother, and brother all died
within a four-year span during the 1920s. It
would take Eugene two decades to mourn his dead,
and one can truthfully say that everything he
wrote for the rest of his life was written to
help him understand and accept the deaths. His
marriage was also troubled.
Because he had fallen in love with Carlotta
Monterey. He divorced Agnes Boulton in 1929 and
soon married Carlotta.
Photo Album
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Even with these pressures, O'Neill was incredibly
productive. In the fifteen years following the
appearance of Beyond the Horizon, he wrote
twenty-one plays, some brilliant successes
including Anna Christie and Strange Interlude,
both Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as Long
Day's Journey Into Night.
Eugene O'Neill forbade the production and
publication of Long Day's Journey Into Night
during his lifetime. The main characters are
thinly veiled portraits of his father, James, his
mother, Ella, his brother, Jamie, and himself.
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The Hairy Ape (1944) 92 min - Drama
Another play from his work is  
The Hairy Ape (1921 )

Click here to read the PDF version
A ship's stoker becomes obsessed with a society
beauty who finds him repulsive.
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The Three Periods Of His Career
1- The Realist Period. The plays in this period
utilize his own experiences, especially those he
had as a seaman. 2- The Expressionism Period.
O'Neill presented plays that represented the
human condition through unconventional ways, more
symbolic than realistic. 3- The Returning to
The Realism O'Neill's final plays were
autobiographical, a type of catharsis, which
reenacted his dysfunctional family life.
His plays reflected changes in his life. Thus
his writing career can be said to represent three
distinct periods.

• The Realist Period.
• The Expressionism Period.
• The Returning to The Realism

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Later life
O'Neill had poor relationships with his children
Eugene Jr., who killed himself when he was 40
Shane, who became addicted to drugs and Oona,
who was ignored by her father after her marriage
to actor Charlie Chaplin. O'Neill even left Shane
and Oona out of his will.
Carlotta Monterey brought a sense of order to
O'Neill's life. His health worsened rapidly from
1937 on, but her care helped him remain
productive.
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After suffering from multiple health problems
over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a
severe Parkinson. When O'Neill knew that death
was near, he tore up six of his unfinished plays
rather than have someone else rewrite them.
ONeills final years were spent in grim
frustration. Unable to work, he longed for his
death and sat waiting for it in a Boston hotel,
seeing no one except his doctor, a nurse, and his
third wife, Carlotta Monterey. ONeill died in
1953 as broken and tragic a figure as any he had
created for the stage.
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None of us can help the things life has done to
us. Theyre done before you realize it, and once
theyre done they make you do other things until
at last everything comes between you and what
youd like to be, and youve lost your true self
forever.  ? Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey
Into Night
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(No Transcript)
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Work cited

• "Eugene O'Neill." Lucidcafé Interactive Café and
  Information Resource. Robin Chew, 15 Jan. 2012.
  Web. 24 Apr. 2012. lthttp//www2.lucidcafe.com/libr
  ary/95oct/egoneill.htmlgt.
• "Eugene O'Neill." Enotes. Enotes.com. Web. 24
  Apr. 2012. lthttp//www.enotes.com/authors/eugene-o
  neillgt.
• Hopwood, Jon C. "Eugene O'Neill." IMDb. IMDb.com.
  Web. 24 Apr. 2012. lthttp//www.imdb.com/name/nm064
  2156/biogt.
• "Eugene O'neill Biography." World Biography. Web.
  24 Apr. 2012. lthttp//www.notablebiographies.com/N
  i-Pe/O-Neill-Eugene.htmlgt.
• "Eugene O'Neill Dies of Pneumonia." The New York
  Times. The New York Times. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
  lthttp//www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday
  /bday/1016.htmlgt.

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Work cited

• Black, Stephen A. "Mrs. O'Neill's Illness." The
  New York Times. Yale University Press. Web. 23
  Apr. 2012. lthttp//www.nytheatre-wire.com/sb06093t
  .htmgt.
• "Charlie Chaplin's Wives." Edna Purviance. Linda
  Wada, 3 Mar. 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.
  lthttp//www.ednapurviance.org/chaplininfo/chaplinw
  ives.htmlgt.
• "Eugene O'Neill." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
  Foundation. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.
• lthttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_O'Neillgt.
• "Author Biography." Drama for Students. Vol. 4.
  Gale Cengage, . eNotes.com. Web. 23 Apr. 2012,
  lthttp//www.enotes.com/hairy-ape/gt

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The End
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Picture Slides

• Here are the pictures which are directed to them
  from the previous slides

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O'Neills Father (James ONeill)
A Successful Touring Actor from the 1880s until
World War I
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O'Neills Mother (Ella Quinlan O'Neill)
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O'Neills second wife Agnes
A successful pulp novelist in the 1910s.
Next
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O'Neills second wife Agnes
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O'Neills Photo Album With his second wife Agnes
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Long Day's Journey (1962) 174 min - Drama
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1957)
Dearest I give you the original script of this
play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A
sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem,
for a day celebrating happiness. But you will
understand. I mean it as a tribute to your love
and tenderness which gave me the faith in love
that enabled me to face my dead at last and write
this play -- write it with deep pity and
understanding and forgiveness for all the four
haunted Tyrones. These twelve years, Beloved One,
have been a Journey into Light -- into love...
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Oona Chaplin with her husband Charlie Chaplin
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O'Neills Photo Album With his third wife
Carlotta
Next
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O'Neills Photo Album With his third wife
Carlotta
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Anna Christie (1930) 89 min - Drama Romance
Strange Interlude (1932) 109 min - Drama
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Parkinson
O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like
tremor in his hands which made it impossible for
him to write during the last 10 years of his
life he had tried using dictation but found
himself unable to compose in that way.
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