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BEYOND THE 鈥淣EW WOMAN鈥�

IN O鈥橬EILL鈥橲 鈥淪TRANGE INTERLUDE鈥�

One way of approaching the literature of the 1920鈥檚 is through its 鈥渘ewness.鈥� It was the emergence of the 鈥渘ew age鈥� which expressed its 鈥渘ew鈥� ideas in the New Masses, The New Freewoman and the New Republic. These years were the beginning of the 鈥渘ew poetry鈥� and 鈥渘ew criticism鈥� of the new experiments with techniques and ideas. The 鈥渘ew woman鈥� was also a phenomenon of the 鈥橳wenties in America. The 鈥渘ew woman鈥� has been diversely interpreted or, let us say, misinterpreted. It is necessarry, therefore, to understand what we mean when we refer to the 鈥渘ew woman.鈥� The very word New underlines a certain novelityin the approach to the concept of woman in the 鈥橳wenties. The 鈥渘ew woman鈥� is not just a flapper concerned with hemlines. She embodies a deeper, integral and a more profound concept of woman. This new concept of woman in America has its continental counterparts and literary predecessors in Ibsen鈥檚 厂丑补飞鈥檚 Nora, 厂丑补飞鈥檚 Candida, An Whitefield and Major Barbara and even in Tolstoy鈥檚 Anna Karenina.

American drama attained a certain measure of maturity in the 鈥橳wenties, especially with the plays of O鈥橬eill. Hitherto, the major attitude in the depiction of women characters on the stage was rather flat and conventional. On the spectrum of the images of women, at one extreme was the idealized virgin and, at the other, the victim. In any case it was a sentimentalized rather than a sensitive approach to woman that rendered her an unreal, lifeless non-entity. The 鈥渘ew woman鈥� came as a refreshing gush of fresh air replacing the cliched notions of woman. Now, what is the 鈥渘ew woman鈥�? The 鈥渘ew woman鈥� is primarily a rebel. She is an individual. She stands on her own, thinks for herself, finds solutions to her problems and decides her own fate. No longer complacent, her inherited timidity of spirit is overcome. She asserts her individuality reiterating the fact that she is different from the rest. The dominant trait of the 鈥渘ew woman鈥� is then her search for self. Nina Leeds in O鈥橬eill鈥檚 Strange Interlude has all these qualities. She is a 鈥渘ew woman鈥� but there slowly emerges out of her personality, characteristics which one cannot brand as exclusively 鈥渘ew.鈥� These qualities in her are almost archetypal. Nina emerges out of the 鈥渘ew woman鈥� stereotype to become a vital, living character. Perhaps, Mary in Philip Barry鈥檚 Paris Bound, Christina in Sidney Howard鈥檚 The Silver Chord are sounder embodiments of the 鈥渘ew woman鈥� as such.

What strikes one most on reading the Strange Interlude is the emergence of a vital woman-consciousness such as had never taken place before. The entire vision of the writer is filtered through the female protagonist鈥檚 point of view. In so doing, O鈥橬eill adds a new dimension to what, according to him, constitutes the sickness of today. At the time when he was writing O鈥橬eill referred to it as 鈥渕y woman play.鈥� It appears that O鈥橬eill sought to create a character who would personify all women and not just the 鈥渘ew woman.鈥� It is worthwhile, however, to remember that O鈥橬eill鈥檚 protagonists cannot be ruled off into any rigid categories so that their futures are ascertainable. O鈥橬eill has a unique way of considering men and women that is rare among other dramatists of the 鈥橳wenties. His judgment of them is continuously suspended. The introduction of the novelistic technique in Strange Interlude heightens our awareness of the character to such a great extent that we get a glimpse of the poignant ambivalence of the character protrayed. The character of Nina Leeds develops until her 鈥渞ealistic actions acquire the dimensions of an archetypal myth.鈥� The very ambiguity of her position 鈥� her typical and a-typical, individual and archetypal stances鈥搒uggests that this play is written from the middle-ground of the human and actual. The play is a saga of strange frustrated desires, guilt feelings, promiscuity, talent, homosexuality, insanity, adultery, illegitimacy, neurotic motherhood with an undercurrent of incestuous desire and emotional exhaustion. At the centre of this shifting vision of raw life is the kaleidoscopic figure of Nina Leeds, 鈥渢he author鈥檚 most fascinating and least credible woman鈥�.¹ The characters are realized in dramatic depth by the new technical innovation of the play which allows the characters to express their inner state of mind, their conflicts of hidden human motives. This frankness in the analysis of Nina Leeds helps O鈥橬eill in presenting a woman not cut in alabaster, but very much living and real.

The play begins with World War I as a kind of a drop for the inner wars of the characters. Nina鈥檚 aviator fiance, the omnipresent Gordon Shaw, has been shot down just before the Armistice. Nina feels she has been cheated; her world of illusions crashing with the death of Gordon. There awakens in her a new awareness that the world of experience does not correspond to the moral idealism which she had fostered. Nina, we must note, is the daughter of a puritan, New-England professor. To the embattled self then the father embodies the structured evil of the rigid puritanical force which forbid her, in the past, to give expression to her natural self. While Nina represents the life-force, Prof. Leeds becomes the symbol of the 鈥渄enial and prevention of creation.鈥� He is, according to Nina, 鈥渢he professor of Dead languages,鈥� 鈥渁 dead man鈥� droning 鈥渄别补诲鈥� words with 鈥渟piritless messages from the 诲别补诲鈥�² (Italics mine). The recurrence of the word 鈥渄别补诲鈥� speaks forcefully of Nina鈥檚 鈥渨ill to live,鈥� which ultimately turns out to be a kind of a blind force mastering her life. Edwin Sapir summarized in the American Mercury the 鈥渁nti-Puritan revolt鈥� of the 1920鈥檚 as a 鈥済eneralized revolt against everything that is hard, narrow and intolerant in the old American life and which sees in sex repression its most potent symbol of attack鈥�.³ Nina鈥檚 guilt and frustration lead to rebellion which is wild, explosive and blind. Nina inhabits an absurd universe, and has an uncanny awareness of her own responsibility for fostering and clinging to such illusions. Her 鈥渟ickness鈥� is what Kierkegaard would call the 鈥渄espair at willing to be oneself.鈥� For the first time in American drama we listen to a woman telling us that despair, too, can be a way of life, but one must be bold enough to embrace it and walk on, to assume responsibility of the falsehood in one鈥檚 self, to carry destiny in one鈥檚 own hands. 鈥淚t鈥檚 too late
For lies!鈥� Nina tells her father in a moment of awareness.

Even from Nina鈥檚 frustration O鈥橬eill extracts tragedy by exploiting the complexity of the human dilemma. Nina鈥檚 growth is not a growth by plot nor by an obedience to any theatrical expectation, but a natural movement which is inevitable. Nina throws overboard all authority. The collapse of Nina鈥檚 traditional structure of beliefs makes her transvaluate all values. After having made up her mind, when she proclaims her intention of nursing soldiers who have been crippled by the war of sacrificing herself to them, Prof. Leeds says, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not yourself.鈥� Nina鈥檚 reply is significant, 鈥淣o, I鈥檓 not myself yet. That鈥檚 just it. Not all myself. But I鈥檝e been becoming myself. And I must finish.鈥� (Act I, Plays, p. 500) Nina鈥檚 declaration of her sexual freedom is really a revolt against quite other than sex restrictions. Her clamour against convention can be explained in part as an expression of her need to acknowledge an individual sense of guilt, and to experience evil. 鈥淎t the root of all disease and sin is a sense of guilt鈥�, said Auden, and the cure is a personal one; it consists in taking away the guilt feeling in the forgiveness of sins, by confession, the re-living of the experience, and absolution, the understanding of its significance.鈥� ⁴

O鈥橬eill鈥檚 description of Nina in this scene reveals the image of a defiant woman: a woman who is not only in revolt against the structured evil in society, but who is also in search of some meaning in life. 鈥淪ince Gordon鈥檚 death鈥�, we are told, 鈥渉er defiant eyes鈥� have a quality of continually shuddering before some terrible enigma, of being wounded to their depths and made defiant and resentful by their pain. Yet she is 鈥渟trained, nerve-racked, hectic, a terrible tension of will alone maintaining her self-possession鈥� (Act I, Plays, p. 495). Nina is shown in one of the two states of being. The first, and the dominant one that she reveals in the first acts of the play is the 鈥渘eurotic, tense-frustrated and vindictive.鈥� The second is contented, almost at peace, 鈥渇illed with a current of vitality flowing in her like the power of nature itself鈥�.⁵ Nina鈥檚 physical features are also indices of her personality traits. She has 鈥渂road, square shoulders鈥� capable of responsibility, 鈥渟trong hips鈥� suggesting her innate sexuality, and 鈥渁 firm jaw鈥� reflecting individuality. There sounds a cord of dissonance in her entire personality. There is something bewildering about her which is so attractive and makes her so humanly interesting. She is not just a representative of the 鈥渘ew woman鈥�; Nina Leeds has gone beyond the concept of the 鈥渘ew woman.鈥�

The central theme of Strange Interlude is Nina鈥檚 search for self, her pursuit of happiness and her attempt at the avoidance of pain. Gordon鈥檚 death threatens Nina with the problem of non-being. It spurs on the realization that human life has no intrinsic meaning or order except the meaning that man projects upon it. Nina puts a stay against the crumbling chaos in her life by willing to live, by a self-flagellating puritanic revolt against the puritanic faith:

Nina: What use is my life to me or anyone? But I must make it of use鈥揵y giving it! (Fiercely) I must learn to give myself ... give and give until I can make that gift of myself for a man鈥檚 happiness without scruple, without fear, without joy, when I鈥檝e accomplished this I鈥檒l have found myself, I鈥檒l know how to start in living my own life again.鈥� (Act I, Plays, p. 500)

Nina might sound very Indian with her fierce arguments of self-sacrifice. Actually, she is not out to renounce herself; on the contrary, she craves to 鈥渓ive on.鈥� There is violence and self-mockery in her realization that she is 鈥渟till Gordon鈥檚 silly virgin鈥�. There is a keen desire to live life intensely. Perhaps, Nina鈥檚 tragic awareness of her sense of loss, her need to belong is the key to her humanity. Her process of adaptation to the crisis鈥揾er promiscuity only results in total disillusionment:

Nina: (With a sad little laugh) ...

鈥淣o, I was the blindest! I would not see! I knew it was a stupid morbid business, that I was more maimed than they were, really, that the war had blown my heart and insides out! (Act II, Plays, p. 527)

The symbolic motif of her return to home heightens the irony of Nina鈥檚 desire to belong.

The death of her father confirms the absurdity of the human situation. She realizes the futility of all man鈥檚 efforts to belong. 鈥淗ow we poor monkeys hide from ourselves behind the sounds called words!鈥� The word has been emptied of its meaning. Life is just a long drawn out 鈥淟ie鈥� and even prayers are ineffectual. In fact, Nina tries hard to pray to the modern God science, but finds it difficult to believe how that God could care about the 鈥渢rifling mystery of death-born-of-birth.鈥� Nina seeks to find a new meaning for life beyond despair:

Nina: (Suddenly jumping to her feet and going to him with a horrible moaning desolation) Oh, God ... I want to believe in something! I want to believe so I can feel! I want to feel that he is dead 鈥� my father! ... ... I can鈥檛 feel anything at all! (Act II, Plays, p. 525)

Nina鈥檚 quarrel with God springs from a poignant sense of incongruity between life鈥檚 reality and her own romantic conception of it. She is in search of a new concept of morality which will give meaning to life. She creates a new concept of God, the Mother:

Nina: The mistake began when God was created in a male image. Of course, women would see Him that way, but men should have been gentlemen enough, remembering their mothers, to make God a woman! But the God of Gods 鈥� the Boss 鈥� has always been a man. That makes life so perverted, and death so unnatural. We should have imagined life as created in the birth-pain of God, the Mother. Then we would understand why we, Her children, have inherited pain, for we would know that our life鈥檚 rhythm beats from Her great heart, torn with the agony of love and birth. And we would feel that death meant reunion with Her, a passing into Her substance, blood of Her blood again, peace of Her peace! (Act II, Plays, p. 524)

Nina鈥檚 myth-making though poignant, does not lack irony, humour and pathos. Nina sounds a note of despair that is ever so human that we forget her naivette. This myth is both created and identified with Nina Leeds. In Desire Under the Elms we recall the myth of the Old Testament God which gave meaning to Ephraim Cabot. Nina hopes to become 鈥渉erself through motherhood. Ironically enough, it is the Mother (Sam鈥檚 mother) that foils creativity. The complication of insanity which leads to the abortion subtly inverts the created myth. It is at this stage that Nina realizes that nobody is responsible for what is happening to them. When Darrell tells her that he, somehow, feels responsible for her unhappiness, she says: 鈥淣o one is.鈥� Nina鈥檚 words reflect that of Mary Tyrone鈥檚 in Long Day鈥檚 Journey Into Night:

Mary: None of us can help the things life has done to us. They鈥檙e done before you realize it, and once they鈥檝e done they make you do other things, until at last everything comes between you and what you鈥檇 like to be, and you鈥檝e lost yourself forever.

There is something in Nina which drives her on to 鈥渂elong.鈥� Nina鈥檚 attempt 鈥渢o discover and to belong to the force from which she takes her life, and the attempt of her men to belong to the God in her, is at heart O鈥橬eill鈥檚 primary theme鈥�. ⁶

O鈥橬eill is portraying a modern woman driven by the strange life-force in her bloodstream to unconventional relationships and seeking multiple possession of men鈥檚 lives. The specific nature of Nina鈥檚 problem is that she stands in an unsteady position between all her men. In the fear of losing power over them she is nervous, fretful and discontented. In creating a new image of women, O鈥橬eill creates a new concept of power. Gordon was for Nina the symbol of a redeeming figure representing the ideal husband, lover and father. This trinity is no longer attainable in one man. Nina seeks it through her three men. She marries Sam not for love, but with the reasoning that 鈥渨hen children come, love comes.鈥� After her abortion she decides to sleep with Darrell in a bold experiment to produce a healthy child, ostensibly for Sam鈥檚 happiness. Her child is conceived in 鈥渟cientific鈥� planning: Nina and Ned becoming guinea pigs in the experiment. In this scene, one also notices that Nina鈥檚 decision to have a baby is only apparently an act of will. It is as if she is moved by something outside her (the words of Sam鈥檚 mother ring in our ears) in such a way that she is somehow stripped of her responsibility, of her will. Nina鈥檚 voice takes on a 鈥渕onotonous insistence鈥� and Darrell assumes 鈥渁 cold emotionless professional voice, his face like the mask of a doctor鈥� (Act IV, Plays, p.567). A sharp dichotomy of their personalities occurs, and they enact roles of 鈥淪am鈥檚 wife鈥� and 鈥淒octor.鈥� A kind of scientific detachment occurs when they come to a decision. This hypnotic trance is, however, broken by Ned: 鈥淚 must confess the Ned you are speaking of is I, and I am Ned.鈥� To which she replies, 鈥渁nd I am Nina, who wants her baby.鈥� Here, 鈥渢he role and the reality of both join as the decision is made.鈥� Nina, who has freed herself from all outward authority, is trapped by the authority within herself, Strange Interlude is certainly concerned with the need of the female to have multiple male relationships for no one relationship is presented as creative or satisfying. She continues as Sam鈥檚 wife and Darrell鈥檚 mistress and in addition forms a daughter-father relationship with Charles Marsden.

Nina says in the quintessential scene:

Nina (more and more strangely triumphant): My three men! 鈥� I feel their desires converge in me! ... to form one complete beautiful male desire which I absorb ... and am whole ... they dissolve in me, their life is my life ... I am pregnant with the three! ... husband! ... lover! ... father! ... and the fourth man! ... little man! ... little Gordon! 鈥� he is mine too! 鈥� that makes it perfect! ... (Act VI, Plays, p. 616)

The complexity of relationships presented here makes the play the opposite of Welded, where an absolute one-to-one union is the ideal. It is only Marsden who, the most feminine of them, senses what has happened, that Nina has 鈥渟trange devious intuitions that tap the hidden currents of life鈥� which have entrapped each and which makes her child 鈥渢he child of our three loves for her.鈥� It is also significant that the woman now is the God-force, and in finding her, the mancan achieve a sense of belonging he can obtain where else in life. Nina鈥檚 general attitude to marriage is far from conventional; she has freed herself from her traditional status by refusing to cater to the traditional notion of womanhood created by men, in which their true feelings and personalities were disregarded and denied. In this scene Nina embodies the quintessential woman or 鈥渢he eternal feminine鈥�, what Goethe called 鈥渄as ewige Weibliche.鈥� What distinguishes this play is its groping, smoldering passionate sincerity which is so intense, relentless and mysterious. Nina has been acting out successively various roles that exhibit major aspects of woman. The play 鈥渞ationalizes her development from idealistic virgin to self-sacrificing wanton to dutiful wife to a devouring kind of Earth Mother鈥�.⁷ The above scene seems incredible, realistically speaking. The language even seems puerile. However, 鈥渢he quality of subconscious realism triumphs over conscious reality and the interweaving of these twin realities produce a dramatic myth...鈥�⁸ She is a kind of a goddess who encompasses the functions of daughter, wife, mother, mistress and superwoman whom all men find attractive and whose needs no single man is capable of fulfilling. Nina鈥檚 extreme will to power is manifested in her need of all her men. Sam represents status and material security for her; creative power is represented byDarrell: while Charles fulfils her; emotional and psychological need of a father figure. In the quintessential scene Nina feels triumphant because she has supreme power over all her men.

One of the themes of the play is the instability of human relationships and the errosive workings of time. Nina鈥檚 felicity cannot last long. The lover breaks off and exists as an old friend; the husband dies (though not out of insanity); the son must grow up, marry and lead his own life. Nina is left only with 鈥渢he good, old Charlie鈥� to 鈥渞ot away in peace.鈥� The triumph of Act VI is replaced by 鈥渢hese men make me sick!...I hate all three of them!鈥� (Act VII) In Nina Leeds O鈥橬eill presents the ultimate in self and social alienation, she is the 鈥渕asochistic product of modern rationalistic probing鈥�, she attempts to possess people鈥檚 lives, as if she were 鈥済od and had created them.鈥� (Act VIII, Plays, p. 650) Her exercise in personal divinity had made her boast once 鈥淚 am a Mother...God is a Mother.鈥� The tragic self-recognition puts an end to Nina鈥檚 godhead. The tragic tension between her need to give and her need to receive is over, because of her growing awareness of the limitations of the self:

Nina: My having a son was failure, wasn鈥檛 it? He couldn鈥檛 give me happiness...The sons of the Father have all been failures: Failing they died for us, they flew away to other lives, they could not stay with us, they could not give us happiness! (Act. IX, Plays, p. 681)

Nina鈥檚 recognition of this fact enables her to give her son freedom in a supreme act of stoical self-sacrifice. Self-assertion had only given her pain. Here is charity in her act of freeing her son. She has passed through all the stages of eros, psyche to agape and caritas. She realizes her fault, the 鈥渦npardonable sin鈥�.

Nina: And I forgive you Father. It was all your fault in the beginning, wasn鈥檛 it? You mustn鈥檛 ever meddle with human lives again. (Act VIII, Plays, p. 662)

At the end of the play, all passions spent, Nina discovers a mutual equation of love and rest and peace with Charles Marsden. Like 厂丑补飞鈥檚 Methusalites, both have 鈥減assed beyond desire to become pure vortices of memory.鈥� A subverbal communion has been built over the years, underneath the tides of passion and the cataclysms of unhappiness that each has wallowed in. Marsden feels that some kind of a timeless, indefinable yet genuine relationship has been achieved between them, while all the other relationships in the play are completely fluid and unstable. Peace descends at the end because the struggle against time has been abandoned. The human heart is no longer in conflict with itself. A kind of stasis overtakes us at the end of the play. Nina has passed beyond desire, and Marsden is a neuter gender. The pace that comes at the end is not merely physical. There is something more to it. Nina has passed beyond the will to power. It is a significant observation of Lawson that 鈥渨hile Ibsen presents emotions as a means of salvation, O鈥橬eill can find no salvation outside of religion. The Strange Interlude is not a theologically oriented drama of souls. What one must understand, however, is that emotion is here depicted as negative, working in man鈥檚 own heart to accomplish his destruction. Nina clings to the will to belief, but there is no room for 鈥渨ill.鈥� Nina is faced with a tragic universe and is unable to support it with her whole strength ofthe intellect or the emotion. Her pride gives way to powerlessness. Having passed beyond power and desire Nina is now capable of humility. Extreme powerlessness is virtue.

Nina: (with a strange smile) Strange Interlude! Yes, our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father! ... You鈥檙e so restful, Charlie, I feel as if I were a girl again and you were my father... I wonder is our old garden the same? ... It will be a comfort to get home, to be old and to be home again at last 鈥� to be in love with peace together 鈥� to love each other鈥檚 peace 鈥� to sleep with peace together! .. to die in peace! I鈥檃m so contentedly weary with life! (Act IX, Plays, pp. 681-82)

If Nina Leed鈥檚 attainment of peace is a kind of a stale finale, it is because the struggle is over, because Nina鈥檚 鈥渇ighting, willing-living 鈥渋s also over. That may explain the phrase 鈥渢o rot away in peace.鈥� It is not the dramatists to give clear-cut solutions All O鈥橬eill鈥檚 plays have this kind of a tentative conclusion 鈥� a momentary stay against confusion. The Hairy Ape, we are told, 鈥減erhaps, belongs.鈥� And if we find difficulty with his plays鈥� endings it is because we search for an answer, when there is none. The peace that Nina attains can, perhaps, be explained by reference to O鈥橬eill鈥檚 mysticism. O鈥橬eill had always been drawn by the idea of mysterious forces beyond the individual life of man. When O鈥橬eill and Terry Carlin first came to Provincetown together, Terry gives him a book entitled Light on the Path which was to initiate O鈥橬eill into the Eastern wisdom. O鈥橬eill was ready to absorb it all for he was temperamentally a mystic. The germ of O鈥橬eill鈥檚 鈥渉opeless hope鈥� is also found in this book: Desire only that which is within you. Desire only that which is beyond you. Desire only that which is unattainable鈥�.⁹ O鈥橬eill reverses these ideas with Nina Leeds. In all his mature plays, O鈥橬eill seeks the answers beyond the self in the struggling individual. The predicament of a generation is mirrored in Nina鈥檚 strange interlude between despair and faith. Her despair鈥撯�淚 wanted to believe in any price鈥� 鈥� is the despair of a generation. But her faith is the faith of an individual who has found peace, love and innocence by becoming a child again, by the return of the self into itself at a superior level of experience.

References

¹ Louis Sheaffer. O鈥橬eill: Son and Artist (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973) P.240.
² Eugene O鈥橬eil. Strange Interlude in Nine Plays (New York, Random House, Inc., 1952) P. 497. Later references have been incorporated in the text of the paper.
³ Frederick J. Hoffman. The 鈥橳wenties (New York: The Fress Press, 1965) P. 230.
⁴ Hoffman, 鈥�Twenties, P. 235.
⁵ Travis Bogard. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene. O鈥橬eill (New York: OUP, 1972). P. 311.
⁶ Bogard. Contours m Time. P.314.
⁷ Sheaffer. Son and Artist. P. 241.
⁸ Carpenter. Eugene O鈥橬eill. P.127
⁹ Doris Alexander; Tempering.p. 216