Many playwrights drew from outside influences to compose their works. They would look the era they were living in, their personal lives, childhood experiences, and even ancient texts to acquire inspiration for their works and famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill, is no exception. Writing through two world wars, a great depression, and boom of the motion-picture industry, O’Neill certainly had much inspiration to choose from. Although not becoming nationally recognized until after his father’s death in 1920, O’Neill still managed to produce fifty completed works. Using influences from the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Eugene O’Neill demonstrated how he used the era he was living in to help compose his works.
The 1910s was an era of labor unions, World War I, the assembly line and much more. In 1912, the historic sinking of the Titanic took place. O’Neill was greatly influenced by this and thus wrote three plays dealing with shipwrecks; the most recognized of those three being, Thirst. Thirst was a self-published play that he wrote while resided in New London, CT in the fall of 1913. It is about three shipwreck survivors and their will to prove that one of the survivors is hiding water. In writing Thirst, O’Neill also drew from the inspiration of two great playwrights, August Strindberg and Maurice Maeterlinck. Strindberg was a Swedish playwright “combined psychology and Naturalism in a new kind of European drama that evolved into Expressionist drama”( Mortensen). Maeterlinck was a Flemish playwright who was known for his pieces of the Symbolist theatre. In the spring of 1917, O’Neill wrote Ile. In this play, O’Neill took more inspiration from the town he was currently residing in, Provincetown, MA, than from world events. After he...
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SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Mourning Becomes Electra.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
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“So our nights drag on. The dream of Tantulus and the dream of the story are woven into a texture of more indistinct images: the suffering of the day, composed of hunger, blows, cold, exhaustion, fear and promiscuity, turns at nighttime into shapeless nightmare of unheard of violence, which in free life would only occur during a fever...
Heinrichs, Tim. "American Life in the Twenties." Discussion 3, Topic 9. Washington, Bellevue. 18 Feb. 2009. American Life in the Twenties. Blackboard Vista, Bellevue Community College. 18 Feb. 2009 .
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Lindop, Edmund, and Margaret J. Goldstein. America In The 1920s. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group Inc., 2010. Print.
Night is dangerous to all people and even in a fort-like hall, warriors sleep with “each man’s kit kept at hand” (1244). However, the morning relieves all endangered men by unveiling all hidden dangers and monsters. “The hall towered, gold-shingled and gabled, and the guest slept in it until the black raven with raucous glee announced Heaven’s joy, and a hurry of brightness overran the shadows” (1799-1803). The morning renders everyone relieved that light returns and casts them into a safe net of luminescence. Day symbolizes safety and reassurance in the book, an important proponent of everyone’s desire to feel secure. Without shouting or making any noise, light awakens the lands, frightens evil, and protects the unsheltered. Darkness hides danger, thieves, and evil in its black cloaks of hidden malice.
Print. The. Traxel, David. The. 1898: The Birth of the American Century. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998.
When Shakespeare composed the tragedy Othello televisions were not. Along with no televisions, life in the late 1500s had many different qualities than it does today. This time period had no war on drugs and no high school shootings. Peer pressure was not an issue. The audiences of Othello in the 1500s did not face the circumstances that we, American high school students, face today. With these significant differences in daily life, come the attempts of movie creators to help prevent our modern day tragedies.
"The Progressive Era (1890 - 1920)." The Progressive Era (1890 - 1920). n.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr.
In 1918 when World War I ended, American society and culture changed immediately after. World War I resulted in the death of nine million soldiers and twenty one million wounded. Families were left mourning the loss of their relatives and people titled World War I as a “war to end all war.” With the nation going through such tragedy, change was bound to happen. During the 1920s there was a change in consumer culture, art, music and literature. So much changed happened during the 1920s that it’s referred to as the roaring twenties. Entertainment was on a rise and the way that Americans were used to living started to change. Along with that came immigration laws that changed American culture as well.
Amidst the exceedingly prosperous decade of the 1920’s, traditional American lifestyles and principles were interjected by the new superficial and materialistic beliefs closely associated with “The Roaring Twenties.” Undoubtedly, the 1920’s were a decade of change.
The 1920s were a pivotal period in American history because the nation established many of the structures that it required to promote a lifestyle that is enjoyed by many diverse people across the country today. In the United States, the 1920s were a distinct decade because a majority of its citizens enjoyed immense wealth, and this period marked an expansion in the country’s establishment of infrastructure and the people who lived during this time contributed significantly to music and the arts. For the first time in history, more Americans moved to the cities and the surrounding suburbs, which created a cultural shift to emphasis on the middle class working individual, rather than on the rural farmer. It is important to understand the implications of the 1920s on modern American culture, because this was an essential decade that had a significant influence on the American way of thinking in addition to the American way of life.
Wukovits, John F., ed. America's Decades: The 1920's. San Diego: Greehaven Press Inc., 2000. Print.
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