Abandonment and Quest of Faith in Eugene O’Neill’s Plays

Abstract

Dynamo (1929) and Days Without End (1934) have been quite unpopular and controversial in relation to the issue of faith. Eugene O’Neill wrote these two plays to be part of a trilogy which deals with the abandonment of old-God and the subsequent search for substitute God. However, these two plays faced box-office disasters: Dynamo ran for only fifty performances; Days Without End, fifty-seven. O’Neill thinks it is necessary to depict a human figure in distress over the loss of faith and the subsequent search for a substitute God figure, remarking his idea in a letter: “It is really the first trilogy that will dig at the roots of the sickness of today as I feel it” (Bogard and Bryer [eds] 1988). Thus, it is worthwhile examining how the playwright presents the protagonists’ loss of faith in these two plays which brings about a sort of spiritual void generating not only their anguish but the need for new faith. Therefore, this paper focuses on the examination of the scenes in the two plays where the protagonists’ deprivation of their original faith and their quest for its substitute are depicted. In order to explore this issue, in Section 1, this paper deals with the process of the abandonment of faith by the protagonists in Dynamo and Days Without End: in Section 1.1, this paper examines the process in which Reuben in Dynamo abandons his faith in God; and in Section 1.2, the process whereby John Loving in Days Without End abandons his religious faith. Moreover, in Section 2, this paper illustrates the quest for new faith: in Section 2.1, this paper examines the scenes in which Reuben seeks for the substitute god figure in the dynamo; in Section 2.2, the scenes which reveal the internal struggle of John and masked Loving, resulting in the protagonist’s return to the Christian faith.