O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms: A Tragedy of Extreme Desire

Abstract

O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms represents the first of O'Neill's explicit attempts to write an American tragedy using the basic plots of ancient Greek tragedy. O'Neill borrows from the stories of three well known Greek heroes: Oedipus, the man who engaged in killing his father and incredibly married his mother; Phaedra, the woman who lusts for her stepson; and Medea, the mother who kills her own children. The study explores the play with the extremity of desire in passion, sin and redemption.