O'Neill and the Wobblies: The IWW as a Model for Failure in The Iceman Cometh

Abstract

Wobblies? What de hell's dat? --Yank in The Hairy Ape Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and The Hairy Ape contain a number of allusions to Industrial Workers of World--the Wobblies. 1905 through 1917 were heyday of IWW, period in which organization showed considerable power as an industrial labor movement in United States, and these years also provide setting for many of O'Neill's plays, including earliest, dated during that period, and latest, which were written about that period--most notably 1912, date accepted for Long Day's Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh. Margaret Loftus Ranald lists a play, no longer extant, about IWW that was entitled G.A.M., performed at Harvard c. 1915-16. (1) Yet neither Atkinson's bibliography nor catalogue of O'Neill collection at Yale's Beinecke Library has any mention of it. (2) The Iceman Cometh provides only slight mention of IWW, but anyone seeing play or reading it becomes quickly conscious of something called the Movement, which becomes part of atmosphere in back room at Harry Hope's Saloon. It is a repeated, almost musical theme, like fog in Long Day's Journey, its companion period piece. shall outline those actual references to IWW and describe importance of class divisions in Harry Hope's Saloon as well as history of IWW in order to suggest their relevance to theme of failure in play, with history of Wobblies functioning as a movement parallel to much of failure in characters' lives. It will also be noted that this background provides a touchstone to world of 1912. O'Neill's knowledge of subtleties of international anarcho-syndicalist movement is shown by way he delineates political profiles of his characters. Yet his awareness of IWW as a movement is barely acknowledged by his biographers, including Louis Sheaffer and Arthur and Barbara Gelb. (3) Social historians such as Christine Stansell have noticed IWW's pervasive presence in world of O'Neill and pre-World War bohemia of New York, far from movement's origins in American West. Stansell, for instance, mentions Emma Goldman's career as a possible influence on Iceman, although she does not suggest a direct link between play and IWW. (4) It should also be noted that Doris Alexander pays very close attention to role of IWW in The Hairy Ape, which is to my knowledge only such careful consideration of Wobblies in O'Neill scholarship. (5) In The Iceman Cometh O'Neill is careful to let us know that the Movement of which his characters speak in back room of Harry Hope's Saloon is in fact IWW, and he does this by naming organization three times and by identifying characters, including Larry Slade and Don Parritt, as former Wobblies. In act 1, Parritt, explaining to Larry Slade why he has shown up at saloon from West Coast where his mother has been arrested, says: I hung around pool rooms and gambling joints and hooker shops, where they'd never look for a Wobblie [a variant spelling, `Wobbly' being more common form], pretending was a sport (27). (6) Later in same act Harry Hope berates Slade: Crazy is right! Yah! The old wise guy! Wise, hell! A damned old fool Anarchist I-Won't-Worker! (54). (This was a popular and deliberate misinterpretation of acronym IWW along with I Want Whiskey) In The Hairy Ape Senator Queen in a demogogic speech also calls them Industrious Wreckers of World (215). Later in act 1 of The Iceman, immediately after Hickey's entrance, Hope says again to Slade: You bughouse I-Won't-Work harp, who asked you to shove in an oar? Here again he is identifying and making fun of Slade's IWW past (87). Covert allusions begin to appear early in act 1. Larry Slade says of James Cameron that [h]is nickname here is Jimmy Tomorrow. …