Desire Under the Elms, psychology
March 19, 2008
In Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, psychology plays an important role in the play. The three main characters of the play, Cabot, Eben, and Abbie were all greatly affected psychologically. The entire play, only able to be thought up by one with as sick of a mind as O’Neill, consisted of manipulation of another person. Abbie tried to manipulate Eben, Eben tried to manipulate Abbie but only to get back at Cabot, and Cabot tried to manipulate both of them to keep the farm. The entire play is based on psychology and whoever is the last to be blackmailed, is the last man standing, and unfortunately it’s Cabot.
Throughout the entire story, Cabot is a jerk. He is the only reason Eben even tries to manipulate Abbie or him, just because Cabot’s cruelty towards Eben. “Ye needn’t heed Eben. Eben’s a dumb fool—like his Maw, soft an’ simple!” said Cabot in front of Eben’s face. Remarks like this make Eben try and blackmail Cabot, and to do that he must manipulate Abbie. He uses Abbie to have sex with her to soil Cabot and try and get back at him. In Nester’s essay about O’Neill’s play, he states “When Eben thinks that if he seduces her then he will be able to take revenge from Cabot and his mother’s soul will be satisfied. So they both are engaged in making love to each other.” And the only reason that Abbie is with Cabot, is so she can one day take over the farm. After Eben makes a remark of how he will one day own the farm, Abbie retorts “Ye’ll never live t’ see the day when even a stinkin’ weed on it’ll belong t’ ye!” Abbie wants full control over the farm. Also, the killing of the baby innocent, Eben tells Abbie to kill the baby, but then later turns her into the police for doing so. Eben realizing then that he loves Abbie admits he was part of the scheme, and he too goes away to jail. Unfortunately, the play ends with both Eben and Abbie going to jail, so Cabot stays on the farm by himself. This proves my point, at the end of the play, Eben manipulated Abbie, his plan backfired, getting both of them in trouble, leaving Cabot with the farm. The last person standing after all of the psychological abuse everyone put on each other, would get the farm. Similar to Blanche and Stanley’s situation in Tennessee’s Streetcar, whoever could take the most psychological abuse would get Stella. And in both stories, the bad guys win, Stanley and Cabot. What is that saying about our modernist playwrights?
Jcroteau's Weblog 
March 23, 2008 at 9:31 pm
That was a great post Jeff. I agree with every point you made. I also like how you explained how the psycological abuse shaped the whole play. Finally, I think the comparason of Stanley and Cabot is a great point because we continue to see the “bad guys” beating the seemingly nicer characters in modernist literature. This then leads to an open ending because there is always the question of what the “psycological winner” will do after he “beats” the other characters. Nice job.
March 24, 2008 at 1:17 am
I liked how you compared “Desire Under the Elms” with “A Streetcar Named Desire”. It made things more interesting. I also liked how you mentioned the psychological abuse each character had to experience and how this abuse would influence their future. You made it clear that the one character who could tolerate the abuse would triumph in the end. Nice work mister.
April 2, 2008 at 12:40 am
I like how you pointed out the pattern of manipulation in the play. It’s really similar to my theory of the “triangle of control” in the play with Cabot, Eben and Abbie. Cabot thinking he has control over everything until Abbie comes along and tries to take the reins of control over everyone. Meanwhile Eben gives Cabot’s money away and thinks he owns the farm. Crazy.