The Gentleman wears a white shirt with black slacks, a black tie, has black hair, and perhaps in a most telling detail, is marked by a line of black moustache dye running down the side of his face. Providing an additional image of blackness, O’Neill also describes how the man “licks his swollen lips with his blackened tongue” (20).

The Dancer is also clad in black, her costume of velvet and spangles set off by her blonde hair. However, “continuous weeping has made a blurred smudge of her rouge and black eye makeup” (20), furthering O’Neill’s depiction of the false nature of color as a determinant of reality. As he will do with the riot of colors against the white walls in the opening scene of The Emperor Jones, the playwright uses color as an indicator of theme. In “Thirst,” O’Neill is clearly using color to show how closely the three are linked in their situation, in their humanity, and ultimately, in their fate. For example, each character is provided with a splash of red: the red of the lettering on the Sailor’s sweater, the Gentleman’s bald spot “burned crimson by the sun” (20), and the smeared rouge on the Dancer’s face. Before the characters even speak, they reveal their common humanity, their mutual bond of eventual doom marked by the colors they wear, with black predominant. In this case, black represents not stigma but inclusion. The Gentleman states as much early in the play, claiming the Sailor as a “companion in misfortune” and states how the three are “all in the same pitiful plight” (25). Clearly, the gentleman is acting as a mouthpiece for O’Neill’s own fatalistic views that people cling to life sustained only by a pipe dream that some sort of salvation is possible and that only a knowledge of a shared bond makes life bearable. Esther Jackson claims that O’Neill indeed was, throughout his life, engaged in just such a search for a way to verify the existence of a common, universal and eternal principle in human experience (252). O’Neill’s rejection of religion at the time of writing “Thirst” mirrored his anguish at his own inability to confirm or deny the existence of God. In “Thirst,” he found the “eternal principle” in the human bond symbolized by the characters’ shared predicament and the black makeup and splashes of red marking each character. The blackness then functions as a literal and figurative mask, initially indicating distinction among the three doomed souls but yet functioning ultimately as a common and unifying characteristic. It is a mask which must be seen for its own falsity, and it is seen clearly in relief against the background of the white raft that covered much of the stage of the tiny Wharf Theatre in the play’s first production.

The falsity is a startling realization that would later become embodied perhaps most memorably in Strange Interlude with Nina Leeds’ wail that life itself is a lie: “Say ‘lie,’” Nina commands another character. “L-i-i-e! Now say life. L-i-i-i-f-e! You see! Life is just a long drawn out lie with a sniffling sigh at the end” (40). In “Thirst,” the Dancer anticipates both Nina Leeds and the existential despair of Harry Hope’s universe: “My God, this is horrible to wait and wait for something that never comes” (26). But she cannot escape the curse that hovers over O’Neill’s imaginary world: suffering as a secular equivalent to the idea of Original Sin, the inevitable outcome of the human condition (Raleigh 236).

The inner strength of the Sailor is initially played out in his reticence and calm, “monotonous Negro song,” while the Gentleman and the Dancer torture each other with talk of heat and blood. The sailor continues his crooning and shark-watching, while the Dancer cries, “Oh, this silence! I cannot bear this silence. Talk to me about anything you please but, for God’s sake, talk to me! I must not think! I must not think!” (21-22). The Dancer’s shrieks are telling, for in them she is calling upon the power of language to block out the reality that is slowly driving her mad. In a sense, she demands a sort of rhetorical masking of her hopelessness, begging for a life-lie that exists only in the articulation of it.

Nor does the Gentleman stomach the silence. Early in the play, he “sulkily” claims, at the request of the Dancer to avoid discussing the blood-red color of the sea, “Very well. I will not speak.” But he is unable to keep his vow. Before either of the other characters has the opportunity to act, he cries, “God! God! How my eyes ache! How my throat burns!” (21). He is, of the three, the most garrulous and in fact serves to bind the three widely disparate characters together. He frequently intercedes on the Dancer’s behalf, acting as a sort of negotiator among them, at least until the Dancer ultimately succumbs to insanity and is finally able to address the Sailor without fear. The Gentleman is also the character who most frequently relies on the label that sets the Sailor off rhetorically from the others, referring to him as “a poor Negro sailor” (25), “this nigger” (32), “pig” (36), and finally, “the black dog” (41), the epithets growing more dehumanizing and desperate as the action progresses, in stark contrast to Brutus Jones’ rhetorical shift away from rhetorical negativity as his own tragedy deepens. Clearly, O’Neill’s use of the increasingly derogatory terms is a specific rhetorical choice, wedded to an awareness of how such language functions dramatically and culturally. In his stage directions, O’Neill initially refers to the Sailor as “West Indian mulatto” (19), though his subsequent references are “Negro.” Perhaps such a reliance on the latter is more indicative of O’Neill’s time than his intention, as “Negro” was the accepted term, in white and black cultures, for people of African descent in American society, until the shift to “colored” some decades later. More pointedly, the Dancer refers to the Sailor as a “black animal” and “dirty slave” after her feigned seduction fails (44). This final derogatory reference is perhaps the one that reduces the Sailor, at least in her eyes, to the lowest level of existence. Even a dog may be considered superior to some animals in her world, and she is futilely trying to stave off the realization that in death all humans are equal, a realization that O’Neill obviously and progressively embraces throughout his career. He uses the words with great awareness of how they serve to denigrate their intended receivers. The Sailor’s ritualistic chanting to the sharks serves the same purpose as the use of language does to the others. He uses his song as a brace against the very real presence of impending death, couching his understanding of the situation in a reliance on his own cultural and spiritual mythology. While the Gentleman and Dancer ramble, often insanely, the Sailor maintains his song and his poise. As a person whose life is closely connected to the primal power of the sea, he is used to its dangers and has accepted them as part of his life. It is likely that he sees his predicament as only one more burden, an occupational hazard. Though the Gentleman and Dancer may be considered both socially and culturally less primitive than the Sailor, his close ties to nature suggest that he, more than the other two, possesses the means to survive, at least in his present environment. In fact, the two white characters even wonder if the black character may possess an advanced skill at survival. When they are unsure, they turn to him for answers. “Maybe he can clear away our doubts,” the Gentleman hopes in response to the Dancer’s question regarding the events prior to the crash (33). Neither white character was apparently aware enough of the situation during the crisis. The Dancer cannot recall who rescued her, and in an ironic twist, the Gentleman tells how he grabbed a menu rather than the wallet he returned for before the sinking. Earlier, they turn to the Sailor to stand and survey the horizon. “You are stronger than we are and can see farther,” he says to the Sailor. “Stand up and tell me if there is any ship in sight” (26). Continuing the visual evocation of ties between and among characters, the sharks are also black, as the Gentleman observes: “Those pointed black things you see moving through the water are their fins” (23). Here is another obvious link among the three survivors delineated in black. Finally, the initial “black stain” that appears on the water after the Dancer’s death, the appearance of the Sailors’ “black head” after he is pulled overboard, and the subsequent widening of the stain once all three have fallen overboard indicate not separation, nor even a negative connotation. Rather, they link the three victims not only in a common doom, but more importantly in O’Neill’s universe, a common humanity.

These examples may support a claim made by Virginia Floyd in her assessment of O’Neill’s plays. She says that in “Thirst,” O’Neill first uses a strategy that he will use in later works: “ representatives of a particular ethnic group, usually a deprived, exploited social class, are superior, physically, morally, or both, to the possessors of wealth, position, and power” (34). Indeed, we see the Sailor possessing closer ties to nature and no desire for material goods, other than the life-giving water. Of the three survivors, he is the only one without a visible representation of material wealth. The Dancer has her necklace, and the Gentleman has his menu from the United States Club of Buenos Aires. Both characters seek and hold these fragments of their privileged societies despite their current and common predicament, though the Gentleman throws away his menu at the dancer’s request. She considers it a mockery of their misfortune, and it becomes a “black spot” on the water (29). The Sailor’s close connection to the natural world, rather than the acquisitive and materialistic civilization of his compatriots in misery, delineates him as more closely in tune with humanity’s basic existence. Such a conclusion also links O’Neill to American writers such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Twain. Their consistent criticism of the old world in favor of the new American world, the natural over the synthetic, depicts Americans as those who are less corrupted by societal and cultural strictures, those who are more in tune with a natural existence. Emerson’s nature, Hawthorne’s Pyncheons, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Twain’s Huck Finn all exemplify the same vein that O’Neill was mining in his efforts at creating a serious American theatre. A connection to nature is a common American literary index of viability, one with which O’Neill is familiar.

In their desperation, both the Gentleman and the Dancer cry out to a God who, if he exists, apparently has turned a deaf ear to their predicament, while the Sailor has found in his natural surroundings a source of strength and belonging denied him by his compatriots on the raft as he sings his charms to the sharks. In fact, the Dancer’s first words are “My God! My God! The silence is driving me mad!” (20). She continues to cry out and invoke her Christian God’s name throughout her ordeal, doing so six more times before insanity and dehydration claim her. The Gentleman is likewise connected to his deity, calling out God’s name twelve times while he deteriorates beneath what O’Neill calls in his opening and closing stage directions, “a great angry eye of God” (19, 48). Apparently, O’Neill’s God is not uninterested. It is the universe that is indifferent, while God remains a force that is very much alive, although apparently very displeased with his creation. For the Sailor, the sharks, representative of his own mythology, are ever-present and able to be appeased through his song: “It is a charm. I have been told it is very strong. If I sing long enough, they will not eat us” (23). His belief is not merely ignorant superstition, which would reflect a negative stereotype of African ethnicity. For the Sailor, the invocation is his equivalent to a Christian prayer or psalm—words intended to invoke protection and comfort—though both “charm” and Christian appeal would fail to provide salvation. The Gentleman retorts shortly thereafter, seeing the Dancer frightened by the Sailor’s words, “At least tell her the truth about the sharks. That is all a children’s tale about them eating people. . . . You know they never eat anyone” (24). Here, the Gentleman attempts, in the face of accepted knowledge, to “undo” the truth by lying about it, by disclaiming it, by disempowering it rhetorically. Later, when the situation becomes even more desperate and rhetoric is no longer enough to fend off impending disaster, the Gentleman himself recounts his own fear to the Dancer: “A woman near me with a life belt around her gave a cry of agony and disappeared—then I realized—sharks!” (30). His rhetorical failure to continue the lie indicates his inability to maintain the presence of mind needed to survive his plight, just as the Gentleman and Dancer fail to understand the nature of their relationship to the Sailor. Only the audience is privileged to see how the character of the black sailor is not defined so much by O’Neill’s stage directions or description as much as it is by the other characters’ reactions to him.

For example, their initial assumption is that he cannot speak English well, and they are puzzled as to why he has not spoken after they learn of his linguistic ability. He is an “animal” and a “dog” not because of his behavior, but because the other characters must resort to name-calling when their own efforts to survive fall short. It is not his failing, but rather theirs, which causes them to denigrate their mysterious companion. If the Sailor is suspect, O’Neill never spells out clearly whether he stole the only fresh water.

Ironically, all characters are locked within their “white prisons”: the white raft upon which they are trapped, the white majority that the Sailor must tolerate despite his greater ability to manage his predicament, and the self-centered perceptions of the white characters that blind them to the truth and their own weaknesses. Self, not skin color, is their own worst enemy, much as it is in “The Dreamy Kid.” Lack of perception dooms the travelers, for O’Neill’s message in this play is evident: when people turn on each other, thereby shattering the link that binds them into a common humanity, they hasten their own eventual destruction, inevitable though it may be.

Most of the play’s dialogue is uttered by the Gentleman and Dancer, and as the situation aboard the white raft grows more desperate, so does their speech become more theatrical, taking the form of alternating monologues as they recount the events that led up to and followed the disaster. However, the monologues and the white characters’ subsequent mad attempts to seize the non-existent flask of water from the Sailor function even more as theatrical language when we realize that the characters had already stated a clear understanding of their position, one in opposition to the desperate clinging to hope that they eventually embrace. “My God, this is horrible,” the Dancer despairs early in the play. “To wait and wait for something that never comes” (26). Foreshadowing the interminable waiting for such theatrical no-shows as Godot and Lefty (and O’Neill’s own “Iceman,” who, as personified by Hickey, arrives inevitably but late and then disappears, seemingly forever), the survivors are doomed to disappointment, and the Gentleman knows it as well: “The blind sky will not answer your appeals or mine” (34). If, according to the Gentleman, anything is better than dead silence, then surely their desperate rantings presage their coming deaths.

The spoken word is perhaps more significant in the reticent Sailor’s speech, for it signals the beginning of O’Neill’s transformative ability to give black characters a voice in his new American drama. As previously discussed, critics continue to debate whether those characters are fully or truly realized as embodying their ethnic heritage. At the time, O’Neill’s efforts won approval from such black voices as W.E.B. DuBois, who praised the play as a “splendid tragedy” (Locke 56), as did Langston Hughes and Alain Locke. Jessie Redmond Fauset praised O’Neill for enabling black actors to appear in other than blackface and minstrel shows, stating her hope that such characters as O’Neill’s would show the full range of humanity—“wells of feeling”— possessed by black people (“Gift” 167). As O’Neill’s Gentleman in “Thirst” points out, “anything is better than silence” (24), and it seems to hold true for a black population that was beginning to find a louder voice during the Harlem Renaissance that was gaining momentum even as O’Neill’s characters were being realized. Locke declared, “The day of ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ and ‘mammies’ is equally gone” (5). While “Mammy Saunders” would find her way into O’Neill’s “The Dreamy Kid,” discussion of how she is distinct from the “mammy” caricature will follow later in this chapter. The important development is that a voice had been found for a population whose voice had been, except for a few notable exceptions, ignored.

In “Thirst,” we learn that the taciturn Sailor is able to speak English on a par with his fellow doomed passengers. When the Gentleman says, “Yet he speaks good English. It cannot be that he does not understand us,” the Dancer replies, “When he does speak, it is as if he had some impediment in his throat” (25). O’Neill does allude to the impediment earlier in his stage directions: “When [the Sailor] speaks, it is in drawling sing-song tones as if he were troubled by some strange impediment of speech” (19). O’Neill’s choice of words in this quotation suggests that the impediment is not really an impediment at all, with the “as if” casting doubt as to the cause of his difficulty. We must question how “sing-song” tones would constitute an impediment, since such tones would seem to indicate no inherently negative connotation. Rather, if we take O’Neill’s words to indicate mere difference we may find that it is the vocalization of language that acts as a barrier between the Sailor and his cohorts. Joel Pfister suggests that the “impediment” is imposed by the only people left with whom the Sailor may converse (259); that is, the impediment is nothing more than the Sailor speaking in his own cultural mode. Indeed, an examination of the Sailor’s words illustrates no forced dialect for which so many critics take O’Neill to task. Lorraine Hansberry says that these “translations ‘to the Negro’ have generally meant (aside from adding saxophones and red dresses) haphazardly assaulting the English language beyond recognition, as if the Negro people had not produced an idiom that has a real and specific character” (166). She says, however, “I believe that it is within the cultural descendants of Twain and Whitman and Melville and O’Neill to listen and absorb [appropriate language], along with the totality of the American landscape, and give back their findings….” (167), leading us to conclude that O’Neill’s failings—if they are failings—are failings of form, not of content. Unlike the heavy dialect of blacks and whites pervading “The Dreamy Kid,” “The Emperor Jones,” “Rope,” Desire Under the Elms or any of his later plays involving lower class or ethnic characters, “Thirst” does not resort to categorizing the Sailor through heavy dialect, or translating “to the Negro.” In fact, the lack of strong dialect seems further evidence of O’Neill’s effort at creating a picture of a common human community. In this play, there is no difference in dialect to delineate difference in class. The use of the voice itself serves to indicate the bond, even as it serves to provide empowerment to those silenced within a majority population.

Perhaps the ultimate evidence of that bond, as indicated by the common voice, is the death that all three share. If it is true, according to Long in The Hairy Ape, that “all men is born free and ekal” (39), then according to “Thirst,” they are also “ekal” in death, an idea that permeates O’Neill’s canon.

Bringing it Home: “The Dreamy Kid”

To move the discourse beyond labeling, to discover the extent to which O’Neill’s black characters either further or obscure his tragic vision of life in which there is no tomorrow: this is the task inherent in examining how O’Neill’s moral imagination does not seem to allow his protagonists to survive as mere victims, as well as how they participate actively in the evolution of their own fates, much as the Gentleman and Dancer choose to challenge the Sailor, which leads to their immediate, rather than eventual, doom. One such example can be found in “The Dreamy Kid” (1919), a one-act play that seems to exemplify Hansberry’s “to the Negro” dialect but actually uses that dialect with perhaps greater narrative significance than may appear at first glance.

Inspired by a tale told to O’Neill by his friend from the Hell Hole, Joe Smith (himself the inspiration for Joe Mott in The Iceman Cometh), “The Dreamy Kid” follows the destructive progression of Dreamy, a black gang leader who is being hunted down by the white police who trail him to the home of his dying grandmother, Mammy. According to Joel Pfister, the militancy that audiences in 1919 saw in Dreamy’s drive was the same that 1916 audiences saw in the Sailor in “Thirst”: a fear of the return of black soldiers from action in World War I (124). Apparently, not all members of the human community were going to be blended easily into the American “melting pot,” and O’Neill seemed aware that an understanding of the prejudice against the transplanted Irish—those who shared his own ethnic heritage—would illuminate his understanding of the prejudice against the black immigrants from the South who were migrating north to fill lower-class job openings.

O’Neill’s fight against such prejudice may have resulted from an awareness of similar cultural stereotypes shared by the Irish and black Americans: Nineteenth-century blackface minstrel shows often lampooned the Irish as shiftless, ignorant drinkers and featured actors in blackface dancing Irish jigs. The term “Irish nigger” originated in the antebellum South, where the Irish were employed as cheap, expendable laborers on jobs too dangerous to be undertaken by black “property.” (Pfister 123-24)

The first character on stage is Mammy, calling weakly for her granddaughter, Ceely. Embedded in the heritage of slavery in the United States, the “mammy” stereotype masks the importance of the subject’s traditional role as nurturer and domestic (White 29). What may at first seem like cultural blindness on the part of O’Neill, whose access to the marginalized culture may not have provided him a full view of its more intricate workings, may thus be understood as an awareness of how such a stereotype may exist ironically. Mammy is an honored elder in the African and African American cultures, and she is a staple of the Plantation Tradition in literature1. Mammy Saunders was born in slavery, as we learn from the text, and her migration to the North symbolizes an attempt to achieve higher social status, her belief that the American Dream is within her grasp. Dreamy, whose real name is the symbolically ripe Abe, becomes Mammy’s means of achieving that dream, and despite his desperate circumstances, he sacrifices an opportunity for escape in order to honor his grandmother’s wishes.

We have already seen how O’Neill used superstition as similar in function to Christianity in “Thirst” and that superstition affects white characters in his canon as well as it does black ones, in such plays as “Rope,” “Where the Cross is Made,” and Desire Under the Elms. It is a device of inclusion, a sense of supernatural or metaphysical faith shared by blacks and whites, even if that faith or spirituality may differ vastly in nature. The fact remains that no matter the source or form of spirituality, both representative ethnic groups subscribe to it. Dreamy’s eventual accession to capture is no less affecting simply because he is black, just as Abbie Cabot’s infanticide is no less affecting because she is white. Their wishes to protect their loved ones lead both to their respective captures. Any claim that the portrayal of Dreamy is negative because he is black and a criminal is false, just as any such comment made of one of O’Neill’s murderous white characters would be dismissed as too simple—and inaccurate—a generalization. Would Abbie be accused of being a criminal because she is white? I suggest that part of the effectiveness of and shock resulting from Abbie’s infanticide derive from the fact that she is clearly not a representative of the “cult of true womanhood,” a cultural categorization developed in the nineteenth century (the period in which her actions take place) that served to privilege white women over black women.