Seven Deadly Sins in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under The Elms Alia Windi Pangesti College

Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under The Elms is a tale about love, possession, and revenge wrapped in an enthralling narration and closed with an unexpected ending. There are lots of powerful themes inside this play, such as Greek myth tragedies, Puritanism, desire, loneliness, and the representation of seven deadly sins. According to the Bible, seven deadly sins consist of pride, lust, wrath, greed, gluttony, sloth, and envy. O’Neill succeeds in portraying four of the seven great sins through his fictional
character inside Desire Under The Elms. Ephraim Cabot, Ephraim Eben, and Abbie Putnam are three major characters in this play. They bring significant change to the plot due to their actions and consequences.

Ephraim Cabot is Eben, Simon, Peter’s biological father, and Abbie’s current husband. He is represented as the pride sin in this drama. His strong belief in God makes him feel superior to others, yet inferior in front of God itself—it is like an irony of his character itself. He often quotes about he is hard and the other is soft, so people must not go against him because of that difference. His high pride is the result of his belief toward puritanism and also the major source of his loss at the end because he thought that God...