EUGENE O'NEILL & CARLOTTA MONTEREY

Today, for my internship, I was reading a long biography of Eugene O'Neill. I was focusing on the information revolving around his marriage to Carlotta Monterey. He had a complicated family life and was estranged from the mother of his children and largely from his three children. O'Neill had discussed a "pledge" with his first wife, Agnes, that stipulated that "if ever one came to the other and said they loved someone else that we would understand--that we would know that love is something which cannot be denied or argued with." I think this is such a fascinating topic, and a scary one; O'Neill and Agnes made good on this pledge when O'Neill fell in love with another woman.

I have become totally fascinated with their lives, and I think some of the pictures of them are truly stunning.

Despite what some of the less-than-optimistic content of his plays would suggest, O'Neill displayed boundless energy and happiness he exuded in his writings to Carlotta. In one small example, he dedicated a copy of his Mourning Becomes Electra to her by writing to a "mother and wife and mistress and friend! And collaborator! Collaborator, I love you!"

He also is quoted saying "I love life, but I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation."

On to reading Long Day's Journey Into Night...