O'Neill's Iceman-Not Ice Man

Abstract

N O'Neill's Iceman: Another Meaning (American Literature, XL11, Nov., I970, 387-388), Delma Eugene Presley points out that Eugene O'Neill probably knew the word Ice-Man, defined in the Dictionary of American Underworld Lingo as any official or inmate whose promises are not to be relied upon, or secondarily as who makes ostentatious gifts of worthless or trivial things. It seems very likely, given the Greenwich Village inhabitants he knew, that O'Neill was familiar with the slang of the period of i9i2, the year in which he set The Iceman Cometh. It is also truethat Hickey's promises of salvation are not to be relied on and that his ostentatious gift of making the habitues of the Hope's saloon face reality proves to be disastrous. If the playwright had not insisted upon the love-death purpose of the title, therefore, it would seem possible that he had had in mind these meanings as well as the major one of Hickey as the iceman of death. In a letter to George Jean Nathan (August 2, i940), however, ONeill writes that he would be glad to have 'his friend and critic mention certain things in an article about Iceman in order to circumvent misrepresentation and distortion of the true content of the play by speculative critics. Among other aspects of the play, O'Neill requests Nathan to mention: That it is 'Iceman' in the title and not 'Ice Man' (which spoils it).' The playwright seems to assume that Nathan will understand the argot meaning of Ice Manl and will explain that the intention of the title is to equate love and death by substitution of the cold iceman of death for the warm bridegroom of love, rather than to emphasize Hickey as the deceiver of the inebriated gang. Hugo's reiterated quotation-The days grow hot, 0 B.abylon! 'Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!-with which the play concludes, further emphasizes 'the thermal love-death connotations of the title.