Throughout the ages, humankind has been deeply troubled by the existence of evil. ... Early writers did not clearly distinguish between daimon ("divine being") and theos ("god"), which suggests that daimon, the word from which the English "demon" was derived, did not have negative connotations attached to it in the beginning of its use in literature. ...
The characters are ordinary people like us, taken from the lower and middle classes of society, who struggle with everyday problem, such as poverty, sickness, crime, family strife and other problems within marital and paternal relationships. ... In his plays, O'Neill has embodied the trends and conflicts of his own time; he rebels against the narrowness, mindedness, hypocrisy, crudeness of feelingness, and the materialistic short-sightedness of his age.16 Throughout his plays, O'Neill reflects the reality of the American society. ...
