Beyond The Horizon And Diff

’rent By Eugene O’Neill Essay, Research Paper

Beyond The Horizon and Diff’rent by Eugene O’Neill

In Beyond the Horizon and Diff’rent, Eugene O’Neill reveals that dreams

are necessary to sustain life. Through the use of the characters Robert Mayo,

Andrew Mayo, Ruth and Emma Crosby, O’Neill proves that without dreams, man could

not exist. Each of his characters are dependent on their dreams, as they feed

their destiny. When they deny their dreams, they deny their destiny, altering

their lives forever. O’Neill also points out, that following your dreams,

brings you true happiness, something all of his characters do not experience.

The characters of Rob, Andy and Emma are stripped of their dreams and

their destinies, by the ones who profess to love them. Rob and Andy unknowingly

allowed Ruth to lead them down a path, they were not meant to travel. Emma is

the same as Rob and Andrew in this respect, because she let Caleb’s actions

control her ability to follow her dream. Rob is a dreamer. His only wish is to

go `beyond the horizon’ and discover the mystery of life. Andy, however, is

Rob’s opposite. Andrew is practical and down-to-earth. His deepest desire is

to spend his life farming. “One constructs the world out of fact, the other out

of pure imagination.” Rob’s quest is strange to Andy; it goes beyond anything he

can comprehend. Andrew, who is “A Mayo through and through.” does not think in

the imaginative terms Rob does. “It’s just beauty that’s calling me-the beauty

of the far off and unknown…in quest of the secret which is hidden over there,

beyond the horizon.” (Horizon, 85) Andy does understand, that his brother could

never be happy living on the farm, because his heart is elsewhere. Emma is like

Rob in a few ways. Both characters have idealistic views. Rob believes in the

secret beyond the horizon and Emma in Caleb’s fidelity. Neither of them

consider the fact things may not be as they perceive them. For Emma, this

innocence is her undoing. Emma considers Caleb to be `diff’rent’. This

difference is what makes him special to her. She trusts he will always be this

way and that they will always have a future. “But you’re diff’rent. You just

got to be diff’rent from the rest.” Andrew is not like Rob or Emma. He is

always logical. He considers Rob’s dreams to be a result of his College

education, something Andy does not have. Andy has no desire to go anywhere

beyond the farm, because it has everything he needs. He is the one to tell Rob

that “we’ve got all you’re looking for right on this farm.” (Horizon, 85) This

is his nature and to change it, alters the course of his life, as well as that

of the people around him.

In Beyond The Horizon, Ruth is the catalyst for the changes that occur.

She convinces Rob she loves him and that he should stay on the farm, instead of

going in search of his dreams. “Oh, Rob! Don’t go away! Please! You musn’t

now! You can’t! I won’t let you! It’d break my –my heart!” (Horizon, 91)

Rob does not consider the long-term effects of this decision, he sees only

momentary satisfaction. Rob does not realize the impact his decision will have

on Andy, who is also in love with Ruth. Andy, thinks he could never stand to

live on the farm, with Ruth and Rob married. He feels in time he would grow to

hate it. “I can wish you and Ruth all the good luck in the world…but you

can’t expect me to stay around here and watch you two together, day after day.”

(Horizon, 110) So, Andy defies his own nature and sets out on the boat, Rob was

to travel on, in search of happiness. This is a point that Andy is similar to

Emma, in the way that she reacted to someone else’s actions. Caleb cheated on

her when he was away at sea. Emma being a highly moral person, cannot love him

the same way any more. “I can’t Ma. It makes him another person–not Caleb,

but someone just like all the others.” (Dif, 512) Emma made Caleb out to be the

perfect man and made him totally infallible in her eyes. She did not fall in

love with Caleb the person, but with Caleb the ideal, that never actually

existed. Many people try to save her from making the biggest mistake of her

life, like Rob tried to stop Andy, but to no avail. Emma remains firm in her

decision, despite her mother’s warnings. “It’d be jest like goin’ agen an act

of nature for you not to marry him.” (Dif, 512) By rejecting Caleb, Emma denies

herself a future, because she knows she could never marry anyone else. “She

loses her only chance for happiness because of her wilfulness and her tragic

flaw, an overweening pride.” In essence Emma cannot live with Caleb and cannot

live without him. Rob is Emma’s opposite, because he does not need another

person to make him happy, he only needs to be free, to go where he wishes.

However, even he does not realize it till the end.

For each of the characters, tragedy results, because they did not

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