The Iceman Cometh (1939) is the Representation of the Social Problems by Eugene O’ Neill: Modern American Drama

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to trace the social problems in The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill. The social issues are the pipe dream and hopelessness of man in American family and society. These social problems leads to tragic issues. The researcher is going to use the socialism theory by Karl Marx to tackle social issues (the hopelessness of man and the pipe dream) to present the tragic problems. The analysis of data will be qualitative approach and the technique is interpretive as storytelling type. The data is collected by the textual method. In the analysis and discussions part, the researcher will use the play (The Iceman Cometh) as the main idea of analysing. In conclusion, the findings will be analysed the speech of the characters in the play such as the actions of the plot, setting, and characters. This study will contribute/ add to academic, social, cultural, and literary in modern American drama. For example, literary contribution will be generalized as new study about the social problems in O’Neill’s plays. This study adds the literary background to modern American drama.