Beyond the Horizon | Unsettling Ambiguity

In the following essay, the author explores how the last scene of Beyond the Horizon contrasts with the predictability of the rest of the drama, chiefly through Robert's "theatrically heightened speeches."

Beyond the Horizon, completed in 1918 was O’Neill’s first full-length drama to be produced (1920) and his first play to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Despite contemporary praise for its powerful realism, early reviewers voiced an awareness that the play was flawed. Some objected to its graphic depiction of tuberculosis; others, to what they considered its excessive length. Predictability and overexplicitness were two of the more significant faults pointed out. Early reviewers Alexander Woollcott and Heywood Broun targeted the final scene for its illusion-dispelling...

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