Eugene O'Neill's “Ah, Wilderness!” As a Challenge

Abstract

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill is foremost American dramatist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936. Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that differs from a typical O’Neill’s plays in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn of the century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy. The first Broadway production of the play, as well as the subsequent touring production, were both successful.  Since then, it's become a mainstay of community repertoire. This paper endeavors to prove that Eugene O'Neil challenged himself in writing a comic play unlike his other plays of dark and harrowing life such as Desire Under the Elms (1924).Ah, Wilderness!

(1933), a light farce-comedy, dubbed by the Left as “an ocean of whipped cream,” positively, wittily, sentimentally, and sympathetically depicts an American middleclass family at the beginning of the twentieth century. The paper starts with an introduction to the subject, then the discussion that shows the analysis of the selected play by following the character-analysis approach, and finally, to be ended with a conclusion that sums up the finding of the discussion.