SOURCE: "The Women of Eugene O'Neill: Sex Role Stereotypes," in Ball State University Forum, Vol. XIV, No. 3, Summer, 1973, pp. 3-8.

In the following essay, Josephs confronts Eugene O'Neill's failure to treat the women in his dramas in any but traditional, sexually-stereotyped ways.

Although Ibsen voiced a prophecy of doom for the sexual double standard in A Doll's House nearly a century ago, Western playwrights have begun only recently to approach the radicalism of his remedy. Harold Pinter's Ruth in The Homecoming provides both a searing criticism of exploitation inherent in the unconscious sexual drives of men and a destructive resolution for the characters involved. She abandons her role as wife and mother to serve the varied lusts and fantasies of her husband's father and brothers. Edward Albee's Jenny in Everything in the Garden, solves her husband's need for both more money and her presence at home for his...