the subconscious mind can withstand. As Professor Van Laan notes, O’Neill’s male characters in general “exist in a state of regression, of confused and angry infancy” (Cunningham 1).
Comparisons between O’Neill and Freud may be more obvious than those associated with Nietzsche or Jung. However, within Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra we will find many parallels to the work of O’Neill, including the concepts of eternal recurrence, first expounded upon in The Gay Science. It is difficult for anyone familiar with the devastating impact of reality on the gin-swilling, pipe-dreaming patrons of Happy Harry’s to miss the similarities between Hickey’s impact on the patrons of Harry’s and Nietzsche explanation in The Gay Science of the greatest stress. In what will serve as the foundation of his “eternal recurrence” theory in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes, “The question in each and every thing, ‘Do you want this once more and innumerable times more?’ would weigh upon your actions as the greatest stress. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” (Kaufmann 102).
The duality in this explanation of the “greatest stress” is a duality often found in the characters of O’Neill. Prior to this passage Nietzsche explains that you might be destroyed by the thought that every single moment of your life will keep repeating for all eternity over and over again. However, he also notes that there is great joy at times when one might embrace this theory as if a god, welcoming it wholeheartedly. In order to do so one must live in such a manner as to crave nothing more fervently than what in Thus Spoke Zarathustra will become the “eternal recurrence”. Despite their attempts at this, O’Neill’s characters in the later plays are thwarted in their effort to live in such a manner. Typi...