Name-Dropping Like a Boss: It’s Casual (not)

“Against the wall between the doorways is a small bookcase, with a picture of Shakespeare above it, containing novels by Balzac, Zola, Stendhal, philosophical and sociological works by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Engels, Kropotkin, Max Stirner, plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, poetry by Swinburne, Rossetti, Wilde, Ernest Dowson, Kipling, etc.” (11)

I’ve read Shakespeare, Wilde, a bit of Marx, but that’s about it from the long list of works that O’Neill rattled off on the first page of Act One. As Anna commented earlier, O’Neill seems to have put a lot of effort into his stage directions, so I decided to indulge such efforts and look up a few of the names that I didn’t recognize (thanks, Wikipedia).

I’ll briefly share my notes on this international melting pot of writers: Balzac was one of the founders of realism and was known for blurring the lines between good and bad in his characters. Zola wrote La Comedie Humaine, which followed five generations each of a well-respected family and another not-so-respected family. Stendhal (real name: Marie-Henri Beyle) was another founder of Realism, and his works were known for their irony and psychoanalytic perspective of their characters. Schopenhauer was an ascetic atheist writer; Nietzsche was a believer in the now rather than the afterlife; Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto (all about class struggles); Kropotkin and Stirner were anarchists; Strindberg was an extremist, naturalist playwright, and also one of O’Neill’s idols; Ibsen was another founder of realism who wrote on family life and what it hides; Shaw wrote about class struggles; Swinburne was a crazy, alcoholic, but intensely eloquent poet; Rossetti wrote passionate, oftentimes autobiographical poetry; Wilde intertwined aesthetics with social issues; Dowson was a decadent writer; and Kipling wrote stories to convey political messages.

Whoa. I guess O'Neill really meant it when he said the play would be autobiographical; it's as if he were describing his own bookcase rather than that of the Tyrones. He has apparently listed off all the sources of inspiration for his play, because I have noticed bits and pieces of several of the writers throughout the first two acts of the play. For instance, the play as a whole is an examination of the family unit (Zola, Ibsen), and the dedication at the beginning of the play indicates the quasi-autobiographical nature of the play (Rossetti). Most interesting to me were the meticulous stage directions, which act as narratives, and, by extension, a psychoanalysis of each character’s emotions (Stendhal). I’m not sure where the wackier writers like Kropotkin and Swinburne fit in yet, but I have a feeling that they will pop up eventually as we watch the Tyrone family deteriorate.

-Ly Pham