- Collection:
- Atlanta University and Clark Atlanta University Theses and Dissertations
- Title:
- Failed marital relationships in the plays of Eugene O'Neill, 2005
- Creator:
- Banisalamah, Ahmed M.
- Date of Original:
- 2005-12-01
- Subject:
- Degrees, Academic
Dissertations, Academic - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- theses
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- This study examines the marital relationships in the plays of Eugene O'Neill and discusses how these relationships fail due to women's challenge to the patriarchal system. It shows how the conventions of society negatively impact marriages, creating barriers between spouses based on the belief in men's superiority to women. The main conventions discussed are the prohibition of marriage between men and women of different socio-economic statuses and the demand for male domination over female. This research explains how O'Neill's view of women is colored by the beliefs of the patriarchal society of his time and, thus, his portrayal of his male and female characters is unrealistic and biased. This we can see when we examine the marital relationship in his plays. When we look at O'Neill's plays, we see that the success of the marital relationship is conditioned by women's submission to men. O'Neill portrays women who rebel against their husbands as destroyers of their families. Thus, he does not lay blame for the failure of marriages on both women and men; rather, he blames women only. However, when we analyze female characters in O'Neill's plays, we get a picture that contradicts his dark portrayal of them.
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2005_banisalamah_ahmed_m
- Rights Holder:
- Clark Atlanta University
- Holding Institution:
- Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
- Rights:
-
