Breakfast 1916 by Eugene O\'

¶ … Breakfast 1916 by Eugene O' Neill

Eugene O'Neill's Before Breakfast

O'Neill's Before Breakfast is a one act play, constituted as a monologue and only interrupted briefly by the action at the end. The structure of the play is used in a very significant way by O'Neill, so as to illustrate the theme. Thus, first of all, the brevity of the text contributes to its dramatic and even shocking effect. Moreover, the play consists only of Mrs. Rowland's long monologue, preceded, interrupted and then followed by the author's stage directions. The dramatic effect is thus built with the help of the particular structure of the play: the audience is only allowed to witness Mrs. Rowland's monologue, while the absent character of the play, Mr. Rowland, is completely hidden in an adjoining room. O'Neill thus deftly substitutes the objective point-of-view for Mrs. Rowland's. In this way, the audience becomes engrossed in her monologue, as she is, failing to pay enough attention to the other drama that takes place in the next room: the husband that commits suicide, "before breakfast," with a razor blade.

The theme of the play is obviously the communication breakdown between the two main characters in the play, the Rowlands. Mrs. Rowland's monologue is in itself dramatic through its bitterness. Through this monologue, a large part of the story of Mr. And Mrs. Rowland's life is revealed. Their marriage was obviously a mistake and their characters are completely opposed. From the sketch drawn by Mrs. Rowland, Alfred is the son of a multi-millionaire, who, nevertheless, left only debts behind. He is moreover a poet, who, presumably had higher aspirations from life and could not contend himself with the simple and limited life to which his wife constrained him. Coming from a poor, honest family, Mrs. Rowland is exactly the opposite of her husband, seeing money and comfort as the greatest achievement. As such, the clash and the lack of communication between the two main characters form the substance of the text. The structure is what actually reveals the meaning of the play: Mrs. Rowland's sharp and irritable speech is interrupted by a few noises coming from the other room and by her own brief and inattentive intrusions in her husband's bedroom. The audience at this time could remain entirely unsuspicious of what is actually happening to Alfred, if it weren't from the casual commentaries Mrs. Rowland drops as to his appearance and gestures. Also, the event is intentionally trivialized; the title deceives the audience to think that the play is about the domestic life of a family "before breakfast." The suicide is done again at a trivial moment, when Alfred is shaving in his bedroom. The drama that erupts in the middle of domestic life is thus much more shocking. The rising action can only be noticed by the able reader who grasps the signals of the husband's real state of mind. The structure is so built nevertheless that everything is seen from Mrs. Rowling's perspective, emphasizing the fact that she is completely unaware of what is going on to her husband. To her, the haggard look on his face and his trembling hands are no more than signs of his weakness and drunkenness. She is completely blind to his suffering, while she drowns herself in her own bitterness: "How awful you look this morning! For heaven's sake, shave! You're disgusting! You look like a tramp. No wonder no one will give you a job."(O'Neill, 249) the falling action is indeed a consummate moment of the play. While Alfred is trying to kill himself, his wife still interprets his gesture as part of his clumsiness, and is even satisfied that he is taught a lesson: "(With satisfaction) There! I knew you'd cut yourself. it'll be a lesson to you."(O'Neill, 250) it is only at the very end that she realizes she has been talking alone all the time, and begins to be startled by his silence. Thus, the play has a masterful structure: made of a prolonged monologue, it forces the reader to be absent from the drama that is happening in the next room, just like Mrs. Rowling herself is absent.