유진 오닐의 극에 나타난 아이들

Children in Eugene O 'Neill's Plays

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that O'Neill's feelings toward children including his own were reflected in the children in his works, and for O'Neill, writing drama itself was not only a jet to express his hidden emotion but also a means to fulfill his wish which he couldn't realize in his life, by examining his three children's lives and the children in O'Neill's plays. When O'Neill was a child, he wasn't able to overcome the Oedipus complex properly because he couldn't receive enough love from his mother owing to her drug addiction and identify himself with his father due to his father's frequent absences caused by his annual tours. As a result, he couldn't achieve his social and mental developments and had maintained a self-centered way of thinking until his death. Therefore, he wasn't able to fulfill his duty as a father to his children. Thus, O'Neill regarded most children in치uding his own as annoying beings to get his goat. O'Neill's negative feelings toward children were reflected unconsciously in his plays so that the children who appeared in his early works, Warnings, Servitude, The Rope, The Straw, Beyond the Horizon, All God's Chillun Got Wings, were depicted vaguely and negatively. In other words, these children are portrayed as beings who always Quarrel with their brothers and sisters and behave selfishly so that they make a negative impression on the audience. However, with the passing of time, O'Neill began to feel sorry for not being a warm-hearted and generous father to his children, so he expressed this feelings of regret through the words of Ned in Strange Interlude. And O'Neill began to portray children more positively. He came to depict children's attitudes and psychology more subtlely than before. O'Neill's changes resulted primarily from his relationship with his eldest son, Eugene, Jr. Watching his eldest son growing to a capable youngster, O'Neill came to see children with a friendly eye. Furthermore, O'Neill created an ideal father image who understood a teenage son's mental disorder and encouraged him to get out of a long dark tunnel, and an ideal adolescent image who succeeded in standing on his feet after going through mental chaos in Oh, Wilderness!. Through his works, O/Neill expressed his feelings of regret for not being a good father and fulfilled his wish to be an ideal father and also to have a happy boyhood and adolescence which he might have had, if not for the tragic background of his family life. In short, for O'Neill, writing itself was a necessary means for his mental health in that it could provide a chance to release his hidden emotion and to fulfill his wish which couldn't be realized in his life.