In Beyond the Horizon and Diff'rent, Eugene O'Neill reveals that dreams are necessary to
sustain life. Through the use of the characters Robert Mayo, Andrew Mayo, Ruth and Emma
Crosby, O'Neill proves that without dreams, man could not exist. Each of his characters
are dependent on their dreams, as they feed their destiny. When they deny their dreams,
they deny their destiny, altering their lives forever. O'Neill also points out, that
following your dreams, brings you true happiness, something all of his characters do not
experience.
The characters of Rob, Andy and Emma are stripped of their dreams and their destinies,
by the ones who profess to love them. Rob and Andy unknowingly allowed Ruth to lead them
down a path, they were not meant to travel. Emma is the same as Rob and Andrew in this
respect, because she let Caleb's actions control her ability to follow her dream. Rob is
a dreamer. His only wish is to go `beyond the horizon' and discover the mystery of life.
Andy, however, is Rob's opposite. Andrew is practical and down-to-earth. His deepest
desire is to spend his life farming. "One constructs the world out of fact, the other
out of pure imagination." Rob's quest is strange to Andy; it goes beyond anything he can
comprehend. Andrew, who is "A Mayo through and through." does not think in the
imaginative terms Rob does. "It's just beauty that's calling me-the beauty of the far
off and unknown...in quest of the secret which is hidden over there, beyond the horizon."
(Horizon, 85) Andy does understand, that his brother could never be happy living on the
farm, because his heart is elsewhere. Emma is like Rob in a few ways. Both characters
have idealistic views. Rob believes in the secret beyond the horizon and Emma in Caleb's
fidelity. Neither of them consider the fact things may not be as they perceive them.
For Emma, this innocence is her undoing. Emma considers Caleb to be `diff'rent'. This
difference is what makes him special to her. She trusts he will always be this way and
that they will always have a future. "But you're diff'rent. You just got to be
diff'rent from the rest." Andrew is not like Rob or Emma. He is always logical. He
considers Rob's dreams to be a result of his College education, something Andy does not
have. Andy has no desire to go anywhere beyond the farm, because it has everything he
needs. He is the one to tell Rob that "we've got all you're looking for right on this
farm." (Horizon, 85) This is his nature and to change it, alters the course of his life,
as well as that of the people around him.
In Beyond The Horizon, Ruth is the catalyst for the changes that occur. She convinces
Rob she loves him and that he should stay on the farm, instead of going in search of his
dreams. "Oh, Rob! Don't go away! Please! You musn't now! You can't! I won't let you!
It'd break my --my heart!" (Horizon, 91) Rob does not consider the long-term effects of
this decision, he sees only momentary satisfaction. Rob does not realize the impact his
decision will have on Andy, who is also in love with Ruth. Andy, thinks he could never
stand to live on the farm, with Ruth and Rob married. He feels in time he would grow to
hate it. "I can wish you and Ruth all the good luck in the world...but you can't expect
me to stay around here and watch you two together, day after day." (Horizon, 110) So,
Andy defies his own nature and sets out on the boat, Rob was to travel on, in search of
happiness. This is a point that Andy is similar to Emma, in the way that she reacted to
someone else's actions. Caleb cheated on her when he was away at sea. Emma being a
highly moral person, cannot love him the same way any more. "I can't Ma. It makes him
another person--not Caleb, but someone just like all the others." (Dif, 512) Emma made
Caleb out to be the perfect man and made him totally infallible in her eyes. She did not
fall in love with Caleb the person, but with Caleb the ideal, that never actually
existed. Many people try to save her from making the biggest mistake of her life, like
Rob tried to stop Andy, but to no avail. Emma remains firm in her decision, despite her
mother's warnings. "It'd be jest like goin' agen an act of nature for you not to marry
him." (Dif, 512) By rejecting Caleb, Emma denies herself a future, because she knows she
could never marry anyone else. "She loses her only chance for happiness because of her
wilfulness and her tragic flaw, an overweening pride." In essence Emma cannot live with
Caleb and cannot live without him. Rob is Emma's opposite, because he does not need
another person to make him happy, he only needs to be free, to go where he wishes.
However, even he does not realize it till the end.
For each of the characters, tragedy results, because they did not follow their
destinies. Ruth because of her haste in deciding to marry Rob, has grown to hate him.
She realizes that she never loved him and wishes Andy would come home and save her from
her prison of a marriage. "Ruth Mayo, having married the wrong Mayo brother... must see
her marriage fall apart, along with the farm. Her consolation is that the absent Andy
still loves her and he will be a final refuge for her." Andy does not give Ruth the
response she desires and she becomes more bitter and cold as the years pass. Rob,
because of Ruth's treatment of him, has grown depressed and no longer dreams. He
realizes what he has been deprived of and thinks he still has a chance to reclaim it.
Rob was a failure as a farmer, just as Andy predicted. "Farming ain't in your nature...
as a place to work and grow things, you hate it." (Horizon, 84) His true nature tried to
lead him down the right path, but he refused it. Rob's life could never work out as long
as he is trapped behind the hills surrounding his farm. "For Robert Mayo the hills
surrounding the Mayo farm are a physical symptom of the restrictions, the limitedness and
the monotony of farm life." The restrictions slowly suffocate him and eventually destroy
his imagination, so he can even no longer dream of a happier life. Andy's punishment, is
that he is never truly happy. He spent eight years running from who he is and where he
belongs.
"Andrew, who has changed during the eight or so years of the play's action from
a healthy young farmer into a tense, hard, even ruthless--and unsuccessful-speculator, is
the greatest failure of all, for he has spent eight years running away from himself and
has been changed from creator to parasite."
This is Andrew's sad fate, which is intensified when Ruth
admits she loves him. Knowing his brother is dying because of Ruth's admission, Andy
must live with the guilt of knowing he had a part in his brother's suffering and eventual
death. Ruth's interference in the course of the Mayo brothers' lives ruined the lives of
all three, Ruth included. Ruth and Caleb seem to have the same role, however, Caleb was
not the one that revealed his infidelity. Emma's brother Jack told her, which makes him
the catalyst in Emma and Caleb's destruction. Benny, merely took advantage of the
situation. Emma's involvement with Benny, was her last feeble attempt to find happiness,
even though she knew, it was not what she is looking for. She only thought she loved
him, because she was so desperate to be loved. But because of her own stubbornness, her
chances of happiness are again thwarted. Caleb, asks her one last time to marry him and
still indignant, Emma turns him down. With that, she sends Caleb over the edge and he
kills himself, ruining her last chance to be happy. Only then does Emma realize what she
has done and kills herself in guilt. "Only after Caleb's death does she realize that his
love for her remained untarnished, while hers for him was flawed." Emma's flaw is her
high moral standards, whereas Rob's is his lack of foresight. "It is ironic, but the
stress is on emptiness, not on the irony." The emptiness, as the audience realizes, is
all that is left of the characters of both plays.
Emma Crosby and Rob Mayo were both physically destroyed by the decisions they made in
life. Ruth and Andy, although they survive, they have little left in them. Ruth is no
longer capable of love and Andy is no longer capable of being a farmer. Instead of a
creator he is the destroyer. But unlike Emma and Rob, Andy and Ruth have the chance to
correct their mistakes and get back on their proper path. If Ruth can get past her
bitterness and Andy past his grief they can still live a happy life. Rob and Emma
however, have paid the price in full, for neglecting their dreams, proving that without
their dreams they were nothing. They were merely the vessel in which their dreams would
be realized. When the dream died, the vessel no longer had a purpose and they were
slowly destroyed.
Bibliography
Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction To Twentieth Century Drama. London: Cambridge
University Press, 1982.
Floyd, Virginia. The Plays Of Eugene O'Neill. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing,
1985.
Leech, Clifford. O'Neill. London: Oliver & Boyd, 1966.
O'Neill, Eugene. "Beyond The Horizon". The Plays Of Eugene O'Neill. New York: Random
House Publishing, 1954.
O'Neill, Eugene. "Diff'rent". The Plays Of Eugene O'Neill. New York: Random House
Publishing, 1954.
Raleigh, John. Eugene O'Neill The Man And His Works. Toronto: Forum House Publishing
Company, 1969.
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