Seminar Presentation

On

The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for Award of Degree of

Bachelors of Arts (Hons.) in English

Submitted by: Submitted to:

Vertika Rawat Dr. Debasree Basu

A0706117219 (Asst. professor)

Amity Institute of English Studies and Research

AMITY UNIVERSITY UTTAR PRADESH
India
ABSTRACT-

The Iceman cometh is a play written by Eugene O’Neill in 1939. The Iceman Cometh deals
with the attempt of the hardware salesman Hickey to free his friends and former drinking pals
in Harry’s Bar from their “pipe dreams”.

On the occasion of Harry Hope’s (the owner of the bar where the play takes place) sixtieth
birthday Hickey is expected to show up at the bar and to provide a good time for the “gang”
as he used to do in former times. This time, however, he has a different goal. He wants to free
his friends from their pipe dreams: “Just stop lying to yourself and kidding yourself about
tomorrows. Hickey’s attempt is founded in a kind of epiphany in which he seemingly found
peace with himself and was able to quit drinking and stop having pipe dreams. His method is
simple: He serves as a role model for his former friends and he tries to convince them of his
new style of life in face to face conversations. He manages to persuade his old friends to live
their pipe dreams (e.g. Harry Hope takes a walk across the street), but all of them come back
to the bar and are stripped of their illusions. Unlike Hickey had planned they fall into a state
of despair and are only revitalized when Hickey says in the course of his confession (how and
why he killed his wife), which explains his epiphany; “I must have been insane”. This allows
the “family circle of inmates” to live their pipe dreams once again, since they are able to
laugh off the preceding events as another of Hickey’ s games.

CONTENT-

Illusion and Reality…………………………………… Vertika Rawat-3, 4

Conclusion………………………………………………………………Vertika Rawat-5

Work cited…………………………………………………………... Vertika Rawat-6

ILLUSION AND REALITY IN THE ICEMAN COMETH

In The Iceman Cometh all characters are subject to their respective pipe dream from the
beginning of the play. These pipe dreams, however, are not connoted negatively in the
beginning. Larry is a character different from the rest because he believes himself to be the
“grandstand philosopher “and as such to see through everything that is going on. He
introduces Don Parritt, a newcomer to Harry’s bar, to the concept of pipe dreams and what it
means to the people at the “No Chance Saloon” “No one here has to worry about where
they’re going next, because there is no farther they can go. It’s great comfort to them.
Although even here they keep up the appearances of life with a few harmless pipe dreams
about yesterday and tomorrow’s Pipe dreams are described as being “harmless” and even
being a help to the people around since they give them inner peace.

In the conversion between Larry and Don Parritt another typical feature of the pipe dreams
in The Iceman Cometh is revealed: They are obvious to everyone, but not to the character that
has them. When Don Parritt asks Larry about his pipe dream, Larry’s reaction is a defensive
one: “Oh, I’m the exception. I haven’t any left, thank God”.MIn the first act this fact is the
basis for common laughter and it creates a unity among the drinking lads, because they need
each other to confirm the validity of their dream: “ROCKY: Hell, yuh’d think I wuz a pimp
or somethin’. Everybody knows me knows I ain’t. [] You know dat, Larry. LARRY: A
shrewd business man, who doesn’t miss an opportunity to get on in the world. That’s what I’d
call you.

In the course of the play, however, Hickey uses this mutual knowledge for his own purposes.
He drives a wedge between all the other characters that now use their knowledge to hurt each
other in order to keep up their own identity. The atmosphere has completely changed and
Hickey uses this change to push his therapy forward. The pinpricks that are set by Hickey are
intensified by the quarrels the characters have now. This allows Hickey to achieve his first
goal: The characters face their pipe dreams and try to live them. Their complete failure has
been anticipated by Hickey and is part of his plan to set them free. The final result of his
therapy, however, is not what Hickey had in mind. Instead of achieving inner peace, Hickey’s
former comrades fall into apathy which Hickey realizes with great discomfort: “By rights you
should be contented now, without a single damned hope or lying dream left to torment you!
But here you are, acting like a lot of stiffs cheating the undertaker!”
CONCLUSION-

The title refuses to run a gag between Hickey and the dead-enders about coming home after
traveling his sales route to find his wife rolling in “hay with Iceman”. In reality, he has
murdered her confessing his crime, he must confront the consequences, including the
prospect of execution.

The day dreamers in the play limit their ideas and fantasies within themselves which dissolve
into chaotic and entangle thoughts to result into ineffective. Therefore Iceman means a
metaphor for the dissolution of characters of pipe dreams through death.
WORK CITED-

O’Neill, Eugene. The Iceman Cometh, America: Martin Beck Theatre, New York, 1946