Pradeep Kumar Chaswal
Deepak Chaswal
Element of Affirmation v/s Negation in the Tragic Universe of The Iceman Cometh
Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break. (Larkin 614)
It was the beginning of the Second World War and Eugene O’Neill was busy with writing one of his most philosophic plays- The Iceman Cometh. The general atmosphere of disenchantment, dismay, misery, loneliness, self pity, boredom and frustration got merged with O’Neill’s old age and his own artistic tension. As a result O’Neill presented another deeply philosophic, symbolic and artistic play under the title The Iceman Cometh. None of O’Neill’s plays can be defined as ordinary play with a linear or stereotype theme. In the tradition of existential plays The Iceman Cometh explores the deep recesses of human mind and existence. In it O’Neill has dissected the human mind, human feelings and human nature one by one.
In almost all his plays O’Neill has trespassed the limits and boundaries of a playwright and entered the regions of a great philosophic thought. In October 1946 during an interview with Karl Schriftgriesser O’Neill said, “It will take man a million years to grow up and to obtain a soul.” (Halfmann 144) In The Iceman Cometh one can observe the event of a playwright’s turning into a philosopher par excellence. He knows the reality about the American Civilization and its great dream(s). In 1946 O’ Neill’s picture was on the cover of Time. And when he was interviewed by the nationalist press, he was expected to speak like a patriot but, as it was in the blood and soul of O’Neill, he refused to make any compromise for the sake of momentary fame and profits, and he spoke out without any hesitation:
I’m going on the theory that the United States, instead of being the most successful country in the world is the greatest failure…because…it hasn’t acquired any real roots. Its main idea is that everlasting game of trying to possess your soul by the possession of something outside it too. (Bentley 118)
The Iceman cometh is a modern tragedy par excellence. It is not a tragedy of Princes or Kings but that of Bums and Drunks. Brooks Atkinson interpreted the presentation of the play as “a performance that rests more than four hours is a sin that rests between Mr. O’Neill and his maker”. (89) The play revolves round a number of grave questions as-
- Is redemption possible for the modern man?
- Why dreams are necessary to face life?
- How anyone can destroy the object or person he or she likes the most?
- What is truth?
- What is the ultimate end of modern man’s life?
The focus of the play is on the pipe dreams and their necessity. The physical action of the play takes place in the saloon of Harry Hope where the derelicts are having drinks one after the other to escape the reality of life. These Bums are detached from the outside world. They do not have the guts to face the real world around them. As Larry says:
…To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk and sober. (O’Neill 15-16)
The play is an extended discussion, through various contrasts on the level of character, theme, dialogue, stage setting, motifs, symbols etc, on the utility and futility of pipe dreams in human life. The Bums have only two means to escape the brute and naked reality of the world – first are the drinks and second are the pipe dreams. As we are told, “The rules of the house are that drinks may be served at all hours.” (O’Neill 21) Every now and then we have references of drunken characters or their yearnings for drinks. For them remembering the past is painful and thinking about future is a torture.
The location of the action is a typical one. O’Neill is wise enough to introduce a saloon as the be all and end all of the physical action of the play. The most difficult aspect of the location is – how to interpret it. On the one hand it is a kind of heaven for all the bums who have snapped their link with the society on the other hand Rocky explains the place as: “Dis dump is like de morge wid all dese bums passed out.” (O’Neill18) The saloon has itself a dream-like quality. In the beginning the location appears to be an unrealistic and absurd one but with the action of the play it becomes the most realistic place on earth with which even the audience or readers can correlate themselves.
Larry and Hickey are the characters who are the two different points around which the whole play revolves. Both of them represent the personality of the author as well. Larry is a man with philosophic bent of mind. He is comparatively happy and self assured in the Act I of the play. He has no false hopes and pipe dreams with him. He tells, “…Mine are all dead and buried behind me what’s before me is the comforting fact that death is a fine long sleep, and I’m damned tired, and it cannot come too soon to me.” (O’Neill 16) He knows about the reality behind the worldly ambitious and exposes them saying, “So I said to the world, God bless all here, and may the best men win and die of gluttony! And I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance.” (O’Neill 16) He is the only person in the group who has achieved the intellectual maturity. All the Bums are chicken hearted people. As Willie Oban’s insecurity is exposed when he cries out in sleep:
It’s a lie! (Miserably) Papa! Papa!
Larry: Poor devil. (Then angry with himself.) But to hell with pity! It does no good. I’m through with it!” (O’Neill 19)
Larry can best be seen as a philosopher who knows all the reality and myth of human existence. He is a kind of man who has a better understanding of the past, present and future. He can see both sides of a coin. The character of Hickey is just opposite to the character of Larry. Due to this contrast in these two characters the play makes its progress. While Larry is known for his philosophic comments and observations, Hickey is known for his jokes. If Larry always deals with grave matters, Hickey represents the lighter and non serious aspect of life. A general image of Hickey is that of a kind hearted and jolly man. He is a matter of curiosity, discussion and gaiety among the Bums. As Rocky tells, “Yeah, some kidder! Remember how he woiks up dat gag about his wife, when he’s cockeyed, cryin’ over her picture and den springin’ it on yuh all of a sudden dat he left her in hay wid de iceman? (He laughs)” (O’Neill 18) But the tragedy starts when Hickey reverses his role from that of an entertainer to that of a Messiah. All of a sudden he converts himself into a preacher and starts an unending process of pain and misery for the Bums. Hickey, the salesman, has become a reformist and his aim is to bring peace to the Bums.
Hickey has a magical personality that can arrest and impress anyone he meets. He is a Messiah, a man with some sort of supernatural power within him. As we are told by Larry, “Be God, You can’t say Hickey hasn’t the miraculous touch to raise the dead, when he can start the Boer war raging again!” (O’Neill 154) Hickey possesses the qualities of a good orator too. According to Barrett H. Clark, “There is something in Hickey’s eloquence that forces each sorry wreck to sober up long enough to make himself presentable, and start forth to do today what has for years been put off till tomorrow.” (155) But in a few hours Hickey turns out to be a representative of death and destruction when he starts his mission to make them familiar with their real self. The Bums turn out to be wild animals that can tear each other to pieces. All of them were in a deep sleep under the influence of their pipe dreams. As Larry points out: “Yes, it turned out it wasn’t a birthday feast but a wake!” (O’Neill 136) Mcgloin cried out, “… I’d rather sleep in the gutter than pass another night under the same roof with that loon, Hickey . . . .” (O’Neill 160) Even Harry Hope whose birthday party Hickey is attending feels the punch of Hickey’s strong negative influence. When Rocky tells him that it is a fine day, Hope answers, “….Don’t look fine to me. Looks if it’d pour down cats and dogs any minutes.” (O’Neill 167) Hugo expresses his concern for Harry Hope by saying, “You look funny you look dead.” (O’Neill 174)
Hickey’s role is much more than that of an annual visitor to a birthday party or that of a salesman. He is representative of that negative aspect of human personality which remains constantly at odds with the present situation of man. Hickey can also be called a puzzle, a riddle or an enigma. As regards Hickey, O’Neill says, “He [Hickey] is the most imaginary character in the play.” (Bryer 258) Hickey tells the gathering:
But here’s the point to get. I swear I’d never act like I have if I was not absolutely sure it will be worth it to you in the end, after u’re rid of the damned guilt that makes you lie to yourselves u’ve something, u’ve not and the remorse that nags at you and makes you hide behind lousy pipe dream – about tomorrow. U’ll be in a today where there is no yesterday or tomorrow to worry you…. This peace is real! It’s a fact! I know! Because I’ve got it! Here! Now! Right in front of you! You see the difference in me! (O’Neill 131)
He tells Larry that this formula is sure to work because he knows it by his own experience. He gives the Bum a shock by telling that his wife is dead. Larry is so awestricken that he comments that Hickey “brought the touch of death on him.” (O’Neill 133) But Hickey behaves in a strange manner by commenting, “…. I don’t feel any grief.” (O’Neill 134)
O’Neill has tried to explore the very basic and fundamental questions of human existence in The Iceman Cometh. According to the traditional views religion gives solace to a tortured soul but just opposite to this view religion is reduced to a thing of mockery for the Derelicts. As Larry chides them, “Don’t mock the faith! Have you no respect for religion, you unregenerate wop?...” (O’Neill 15) Hickey is introduced as Messiah but instead of bringing peace he brings death. Larry rightly tells the Derelicts, “Didn’t I tell you he’d brought death with him?” (O’Neill 146) He is a symbol of mirth but at the same time his jokes have grave truths hidden behind them. Hickey has a joke that is very popular with the Bums – the joke of ‘Iceman’. The joke is highly symbolic in its nature. Hickey tells that he has left his wife with the ‘Iceman’. But when Hickey reveals the secret of his wife’s death everyone is shocked and stunned. When Larry asks how she died, Hickey replies, “It was a bullet through the head that killed Evelyn.” (O’Neill 146) Larry cries out with pain, “You drove your poor wife to suicide?...” (O’Neill176) But the bigger surprise is yet to come as Hickey answers, “…. No, I’m sorry to have to tell you my poor wife was killed.” (O’Neill 176) There is a long silence. Everyone is awestricken. At this moment Hickey reveals his own crime layer by layer. Eric Bentley opines, “The Iceman is his (O’Neill’s) version of Crime and Punishment.” (127) He confessed that he repeatedly cheated her and even then she forgave him. He states, “She was a sucker for a pipe dream.” (O’Neill 199) Evelyn had herself said, “Then nothing matters, Teddy, because nothing but death could stop my loving you.” (O’Neill 205) And ultimately Hickey decided to kill her, as he could not “forgive her for forgiving me [Hickey].” (O’Neill 205) Hickey concludes his argument with the sentence, “There’s a limit to the guilt you can feel and the forgiveness and pity you can take!” (O’Neill 205) This revelation is like a cold touch of death for the Bums. Hope feels tortured and bursts out, “Give us a rest, for the love of Christ! Who the hell cares? We want to pass out in peace!” (O’Neill 206) This scene of the play reminds of Robert Browning’s poems My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover, Shakespeare’s Othello and famous Greek play Oedipus Rex. In the first poem the Duke kills the innocent Duchess and in the second poem the insane lover strangulates his beloved who has left the world for her love; Othello murders innocent Desdemona. But in case of Hickey the matter is more complex. Duke’s passing orders of Duchess’ execution are the result of his false pride. The insane lover kills Porphyria due to his feelings of possession. Othello’s murder of Desdemona is the result of his jealousy. But in Hickey’s case it is the result of transformation of his love into guilt. As Hickey confesses, “I even caught myself hating her for making me hate myself too much.” (O’Neill 205) The Iceman Cometh excels even the great Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. In Oedipus Rex, tragedy occurs because of the unconscious moral sin committed by Oedipus. But Hickey commits the moral sin knowingly, that is, the act of murdering Evelyn.
In O’Neill’s world the past dominates the present and the life turns to be a riddle. As Normand Berlin says, “Forces continue to work ‘behind life’ to control men’s lives, the past controls the present and future, frustration remains the condition of man, there is darkness behind the door, life seems a dirty trick . . . .” (106) In Act II of The Iceman Cometh he discloses Evelyn’s death but there is no element of sorrow, pain or suffering in Hickey’s voice rather he argues:
There’s no reason – you see, I don’t feel any grief. I’ve got to feel glad, for her sake. Because she’s at peace. She’s rid of me at last. Hell, I don’t have to tell you – you all know what I was like. You can imagine what she went through, married to a no good character and drunk like I was. And there was no way out of it for her because she loved me. But now she is at peace like she always longed to be. So why should I feel sad? She wouldn’t want me to feel sad. Why, all that Evelyn ever wanted out of life was to make me happy. (O’Neill 134)
The play has Hickey’s character as its epicentre. He wants to cure the Bums as a religious agent but in fact he is himself a murderer. His philosophy of negating the pipe dreams is based on his own personal experience of killing his wife. As a result he converts all the Derelicts in mad men. They cannot face each other and even their own selves. The have developed immense hate for Hickey as Larry comments, “That’s it! Murder each other, you damned loons, with Hickey’s blessings!” (O’Neill 146) Hickey converts all of them into mindless creatures. He takes from them their power of thinking. The following lines can aptly be compared with T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and the conversation between Cordelia and King Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear:
ROCKY: What are yuh grinning at?
PEARL: (Her face hard – scornfully) Nuttin’.
MARGIE: Nuttin’.
ROCKY: It better be nuttin’! Don’t let Hickey put no ideas in your nuts if you wanta stay healthy! (O’Neill 88)
J.H. Raleigh makes the ultimate comment that strikes the keynote:
The play provides no answer to anything, but states insoluble problems. It says, through most of the characters that, man cannot face reality or commitment, but through Larry, that he cannot escape from them either; finally however, through Hickey it says that man probably cannot tell what reality is; he therefore cannot tell either what he should be-or thought he was-committed to. Thus the classic adage to ‘Know Thyself’ is clearly impossible in this world, although there are several different ways of realizing its impossibilities. (133)
Hickey’s dialogues at the end of Act I and Act II are highly symbolic and ironical. At the end of Act I he says, “…all I want is to see you happy.” (O’Neill 84) And at the end of Act II he comments, “It’s time you began to feel happy.” (O’Neill 178) These dialogues are highly symbolic. Act I introduces Hickey and Act II is the practical expansion of Hickey’s plans. He converts the saloon into a morgue. As Hickey says, “What’s the matter, everybody? What is this, a funeral? Come on and drink up! A little action!” (O’Neill 79)
The Iceman Cometh represents life-in-dream and dream-in-life. The play is a social document that looks deep in the social history of the age. O’Neill was so deeply involved with the soil and society of America that The Iceman Cometh appears even more authentic social document than Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. O’Neill knew: “The point is that life in itself is nothing. It is the dream that keeps us fighting, willing—living!” (Bowen 139) In The Iceman Cometh O’Neill has delved deep not only into the problem of human existence but also the relevance of dreams in human life.
References
Atkinson, Brooks. “The Heart and Wonder of a Poet.” Eugene O’Neill: Three Plays.
Ed. Normand Berlin. London: Macmillan, 1989.
Bentley, Eric. “Trying to Like O’Neill.” Eugene O’Neill: Three Plays. Ed. Normand Berlin. London: Macmillan, 1989.
Berlin, Normand. “Staring Directly at Man’s Existence,” Eugene O’Neill: Three Plays. London: Macmillan, 1989.
Bowen. Croswell. The Curse of the Misbegotten, A Tale of the House of O’Neill. New York: McGraw Hill, 1959.
Bryer, Jackson R. Ed. "The Theatre We Worked For,” The Letters of Eugene O'Neill to Kenneth Macgowan. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1982.
Clark, Barrett H. Eugene O’Neill’s The Man and His Plays. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1947.
Halfmann, Ulrich. Eugene O’Neill: Comments on the Drama and Theater. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1987.
Larkin, Philip. “Next Please.” The Pocket Book of Modern Verse. Ed. Oscar Williams. New York: Washington Square Press, 1967.
O’Neill, Eugene. The Iceman Cometh. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1976.
Raleigh, J. H. “Mankind.” Eugene O’Neill: Three Plays. Ed. Normand Berlin. London: Macmillan, 1989.