The Tragedy of Desire Under the Elms

榆树下的欲望,悲剧色彩。

The Tragedy of Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms, a famous tragedy play, is written by Eugene O'Neill. The play mainly presents the story among Cabot, Abbie and Eben, and it shows some emotional conflicts: coldness and weakness, desire for property and desire for love, love and hate, which grips audiences deeply and reveals the contradiction of human nature and the darkness in the society. Therefore, it is praised as the first great American tragedy play.

The 70-year-old father, Cabot, is a heartless image of a Puritan at that time. He has his own farm with huge property. Besides, he has three sons, two are his first wife’s and one is his second wife’s. But he thinks highly of material possessions that are more valuable than anything else, which causes all his children hate him. Of course, Cabot lets his sons work painstakingly on the farm for him without giving any inherit. The little son, Eben, hates his father very much, because he thinks his father takes away the property of his mother. In order to own the farm by himself, Eben cozens his two brothers into leaving with some stolen money from their father. Nevertheless, Cabot marries a young and beautiful woman who just pretends to his property. After Abbie comes to the farm, she often sets her cap at Eben for getting property. Gradually, she develops a passionate love for Eben, and then, the step mother and the step son make incestuous love. Afterwards, their son is born, Cabot declares that the little baby will be the heir of the farm, which provokes Eben. As a matter of fact, Abbie has loved Eben, for the purpose of proving her love to Eben, she kills their son. Eben is very angry with it and goes to the police. When the police come, Eben finds that he still loves Abbie, so he decides to accept arbitration with Abbie.

榆树下的欲望,悲剧色彩。

Everyone in the farm is full of lust, and everyone acts unscrupulously for their desire. Cabot is a typical Puritan who holds that only when they work hard ceaselessly, can they acquire the grace from the god. Therefore, he often orders about his sons to work hard. In fact, what he does are all for money, not for respect of god. In his mind, money is everything, which results that all his sons leave him and he lives lonely finally. Eben pursues the property of his father, maybe not because of his desire of money, just because he has pity on his mother and hates his father. However, he falls in love with his step mother, Abbie, which leads to the tragedy of him. The desire of him is the love to Abbie. Abbie is the soul of the play. She wants to get inherit from old Cabot, so she can put up with the marriage with an old man. But she can’t reckon with her love to Eben. Under the desire of the love to Eben, she kills her kid unexpectedly. In a word, they are all the sacrificial lambs under the desire of money and love.