ABSTRACT No writer of American drama was more conscious of language than Eugene O’Neill. In his plays, characters make speeches rather than engage in dialogue, and language is layered, slabs of soliloquy are placed upon one another. He presents a critique of language, a profound suspicion of utterance. He offers not only a dramatization of the inadequacy of words to feelings but enacts evidence of the betrayal of truth by words. Downer believes “in spite of the lack of poetic language in his dialogue O’Neill could achieve an effect similar to the effect of poetic language.” O’Neill’s characters are sailors, farmers, housewives, soldiers, actors and postmen. Lairs, deceivers and fantasisers all come alive in his plays. These are the characters that push language forward as though it could offer them some protection or amusement. In his early plays, we see that O’Neill was very much interested in sailors. This fascination was because of their inarticulateness in which he identified their “silence.” O’Neill’s characters mostly in his last plays are all self-conscious performers. They play roles, which will turn away the pain of the real life. They seek oblivion through alcohol, through memory or through narrative, repeating the story of their lives as though thereby to create those lives. It was O’Neill’s style rather than the content of his plays that was of first importance, style indeed was sufficient content: the language of Anna Christie, the crude color, the drumbeats and the phantasmagoria of the Emperor Jones, the engine rhythms, the masks, the ballet movements of The Hairy Ape, all constituted a denial of the neat proprieties, all spoke of a life more colorful and terrible than the American theater had ever thought of representing. This article which is based on a research work is composed of three parts. The first part called “introduction,” will present O’Neill as the father of modern American drama. The second part of the article called “Discussion,” includes: a)O’Neill as a tireless experimenter: his naturalism, b)Fusion of naturalism, symbolism, and expressionism, c)O’Neill’s language and style, d) the great poetic dramatist, e) Sense of form and pattern, f)The great tragic artist, g) Human sufferings; its causes, his characters and themes. The last part called “Conclusion,” will present the findings of the study and some points for further researches.

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