The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

First off I'd like to say that O'Neill's plays are so perplexing (of the two I've read before--this one and Long Day's Journey Into Night). Long Day's Journey Into Night, another good play by O'Neill, would also be an interesting piece to analyze in compilation with the theme of this class. It takes a unique stance of its own on the time after dark and its implications.

There is one aspect of The Iceman Cometh that I found particularly striking: The way all the characters need affirmation from peers before they can show their own feelings.

When asking Larry about suicide toward the end of the play and Larry says he should go for it, Parritt replies, "Thanks, Larry. I just wanted to be sure" (209). He acts as if Larry is simply confirming his supposition that he should kill himself, and that he knew that was what he had to do all along, but really what is happening here is that Larry is making the decision for him. If he would have said that he should not kill himself, it is indubitable that Parritt would have said that same exact thing ("Thanks, Larry. I just wanted to be sure").

There are also moments in the play where the barroom full of men will sit around uneasily during all of Hickey's speeches of things that make them uncomfortable such as following through with their words, but then as soon as Hope or someone gives a speech of how they should disregard Hickey and get drunk, they all cheer and laugh and say they've been thinking just that all along. They will not tell Hickey how they feel but instead give him the satisfaction of going along with him. Why? Why don't they just tell him that they don't want to change their situation and to go away? They need affirmation from the people around them because they have too low of self-esteem to make these decisions for themselves. They are very set in their ways of the group dynamic and when one takes one path, the others will eagerly follow, but it is very rare that someone takes the first step in a certain direction.

This is certainly true concerning their pipe dreams. When one takes the first necessary step toward accomplishing their pipe dream, the others follow, but when he stops and does not fully carry it out, the others do that too. Although Hope sort of carries out his pipe dream by going outside, he does not really accomplish much because he ends up turning right back around and coming inside and never going back out. His life is not better for it.

In this play it seems as if the pipe dreams are meant for the nighttime or the time "after dark". The peculiar thing about this play is that that time seems to be all the time. They are always in the dark barroom. Also, alcohol is typically associated with being consumed at night, which is something they do at all hours of the clock. These men are in a perpetual state of night, therefore they never have the reality of the daytime to carry out their dreams within. Whereas most people do their introspective thinking and dreaming at night, these men do it all the time. This play is one long series of endless empty dreams; hence this particular version of the nighttime is one of complete hopelessness.