Margins
The Rope book cover
The Rope
1919
First Published
3.47
Average Rating
46
Number of Pages
From the Eugene O'Neill Newsletter: "O'Neill's script begins with preparations by the niggardly father, Abraham Bentley, for the return of his prodigal son, Luke. Old Bentley hid the remainder of the family fortune at one end of a rope he arranged in the barn—the noose at the other end is in plain sight. He receives the young man with a mixture of obvious joy and of inarticulate urgings for Luke to hang himself. Young Bentley does not become aware of the morbid joke below the surface of his father's mutterings, and nearly kills the old man before storming out in a rage. It is the halfwitted granddaughter, Mary, who finds the gold at the end of the rope and chucks it piecemeal into the ocean."
Avg Rating
3.47
Number of Ratings
34
5 STARS
15%
4 STARS
24%
3 STARS
56%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Author · 62 books

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956. He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches. His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

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