The influence of the Past and the Present in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

Ahmed Al-Azzawy, Qusay Jaddoa

doi:10.25130/Lang.8.4.14

The influence of the Past and the Present in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Qusay Jaddoa Ahmed Al-Azzawy

Ministry of Education / Salah Al-Din Education directorate

10.25130/Lang.8.4.14

Abstract

The most American writers who tackle the theme of past and present in their works are Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. This paper attempts to analyze the theme of past and present in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Williams' A streetcar Named Desire. They have presented their tragic theory of the relationship between the characters' tragic downfall and the power of the unconscious self or their psychological mental fate. They have used memory as a recurrent motif in their major plays. The aim of this paper is to analyze memory that symbolizes the past and its impact on the present in the two selected plays. The major characters are shown through memory as they feel haunted with the restraints of past, which casts shadow on their present condition. As the human archetypes live under unfavorable conditions whether they are political, social, or economic, they cover their harsh realities with memory of the beautiful past. Key words: past, present, liquid, memory, misery, reality.