Home > Anna Christie Summary & Study Guide

Anna Christie | Introduction

Anna Christie went through several revisions before its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O’Neill’s first version was a four-act play entitled Chris, which opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey on March 8, 1920. Anna’s father dominated this play, and Anna and Mat were minor roles. O’Neill called his second version The Ole Davil, which provided the outline for the final version. O’Neill’s last revisions strengthened the character of Anna and reworked the plot to focus on her. The success of Anna Christie helped reinforce O’Neill’s reputation as one of the finest American dramatists.

The play focuses on the problematic relationship between a sailor and the daughter he has not seen for almost twenty years. Their relationship becomes complicated by her romantic involvement with another man of the sea and her unveiling of her troubled past. In this compelling account of a young woman’s decline and subsequent salvation, O’Neill presents a realistic and painful exploration of family conflict and the harsh reality of women’s lives in the early part of the twentieth century. Yet, audiences and critics also praised the play’s confirmation of the power of love and forgiveness. Frederic I. Carpenter, in his study of O’Neill’s plays, comments that Anna Christie is ‘‘a serious study of modern life, which dramatizes that mixture of comedy and tragedy most characteristic of life.’’

Anna Christie was successfully adapted to the screen three times. The second version starred Greta Garbo and is considered by film critics to be one of Hollywood’s finest motion pictures.

Anna Christie Summary

Act 1
The play opens in Johnny-The-Priest’s saloon in New York City, one afternoon in the fall. Barge captain Chris Christopherson receives a letter from Anna, his daughter, who writes that she is coming to see him. Chris explains that he hasn’t seen her since she was five and lived in Sweden. Since he was a sailor who rarely saw his family, Anna’s mother brought her to Minnesota to live with her cousins on a farm. When her mother died, she stayed on. Chris insists that it was ‘‘better Anna live on farm, den she don’t know dat ole davil, sea, she don’t know fa’der like me.’’

When Chris leaves to get food, Anna appears in the bar, ‘‘plainly showing all the outward evidences of belonging to the world’s oldest profession.’’ She immediately demands of the bartender, ‘‘Gimme a whisky—ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.’’ As she drinks, she relates details of her past to Marthy, the woman who has been staying on the barge with Chris. Anna explains that when the police raided the house where she worked in Saint Paul, she was thrown in jail, and then she was sent to the hospital. She has come to see her father to get rest but does not expect much from him, since men, she claims, ‘‘give you a kick when you’re down, that’s what all men do.’’ She admits that she hated the farm where her cousins worked her to death ‘‘like a dog.’’ After one of her cousins raped her, she escaped to Saint Paul, where she found work as a nanny. She soon became tired of taking care of other women’s children, and so she drifted into prostitution. When Chris returns to the bar, the two have... » Complete Anna Christie Summary