Antithesis Between Illusion and Reality in The Iceman Cometh

Pages:17-18
Mohd Akram (English Teacher Government High School Pharwahi, Malerkotla Punjab)

Eugene O’Neill has been universally acknowledged as the creator of the serious American drama. He ranks with the greatest European dramatists of the 20th century. He was regarded as the American Shakespeare. He revealed man battling with harsh environments and with his own inner passions. He was a ceaseless experimenter. He began as a realist and became an expressionist and than turned into a symbolist. He got ‘Nobel Prize’ for literature. The present play “The Iceman cometh” is one of the admirable plays from the pen of O’ Neill. It deals with one of the most crucial problems of man’s flight from reality into the realm of illusion. The play “The Iceman cometh” depicts the theme of reality v/s illusion and the man must cling to his illusions or perish. It has been rightly remarked that all the derelicts that assemble in Harry Hope’s saloon are bereft of any hope. They live largely by illusions. The most important thing is that we live in this manner. Duddy Nichols puts it: