i90
PAR TIS AN REV lEW
a tragedy-"We begin to live," said Yeats, "when we have con–
ceived life as a tragedy"-they ha:ve a deep suspicion that it may
well be-for all they know-a farcical comedy. And against Yeats's
observation we must place the perhaps better known one of George
Bernard Shaw:
An
Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces
him, never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality nor
deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer at those
that do . . . and imagination's such a torture that you can't bear it
without whiskey.... And all the while there goes on a horrible, sense–
less, mischievous laughter.
These two observations, of Yeats and of Shaw, define precisely
the unique quality of the atmosphere in which the Tyrones live, and
O'Neill himself puts both observations in the mouths of the two char–
acters in the play, the mother and Edmund, who are the most per–
ceptive and intelligent of the Tyrones. A pessimistic version of Yeats's
observation is put, most appropriately, by the mother:
None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before
you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things un–
til at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be,
and you've lost your true self forever.
But Edmund, in the middle of a serious conversation with his father,
makes Shaw's point. The father has just turned out a light bulb, and
Edmund suddenly realizes the humor of the father's stinginess, which
has also caused tragedy:
Edmund suddenly cannot hold back a burst of strained, ironical
laughter. Tyrone is hurt.
What the devil are you laughing at?
EDMUND
Not at you, Papa. At life. It's so damned crazy.
And his own bit of philosophy, which verges upon the old-style
O'Neillian bathos and pseudo-poetry-"I dissolved in the sea, be–
came white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm. "
-is
saved by irony and humor:
He grins wryly.
