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In 1912, at the age of 24, eugene o'neill sensed a great change in himself. To quote one biographer, “He found that, without conscious effort, story ideas, scraps of plot and dramatic situations—peopled largely by seamen, prostitutes, other battered souls—were welling up and crowding his thoughts. He continued to work on poems but also began to record his story ideas, expanding some into detailed outlines” (Sheaffer, 1968, p. 225). It was at this point in his life that he was determined to form and realize his ambition to be a creative writer. He expressed his aim in terms of unmistakeable competition and grandiosity: “Some day James O'Neill will best be known as the father of Eugene O'Neill” (Sheaffer, 1968, p. 225). He was preparing to take on his famous actor father as rival, and to challenge him in the arena of his success—the theater. Four years later his identity as a developing creative artist was realized.
When we think of Eugene O'Neill, we think of a playwright, himself tormented, who created a theater peopled by characters deeply in conflict with one another and with society—an American counterpart to Strindberg and Ibsen. I am addressing myself here to the subject of a younger O'Neill. I am exploring the inner world of the creative writer-to-be during adolescence and its prolongation into the early adult years (Erikson, 1959). I wish to explore