Eugene O’Neill

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in “a Broadway hotel room in New York City”. Son of the famous actor James O’Neill, Eugene was constantly on tours with his father as a young child. Eugene enrolled in Princeton University but was expelled. In the year of 1912, he came down with tuberculosis and became very ill. But the disease actually set his career in motion, for he was inspired to become a playwright while reading during his recovery from the illness. O’Neill’s playwriting was broken up over three periods. His early realist shows were influenced by his own life experiences. His next batch of shows were expressionistic. Some of his many influences during this time consisted of Frederick Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and August Strindberg. O’Neill went back to writing about realism in his final playwriting period. His final pieces were those “which most critics consider his best”. Four of his plays won Pulitzer Prizes: Beyond the Horizon in 1920, Anna Christie in 1922, Strange Interlude in 1928, and Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1957. O’Neill was also awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.

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