Finding the Function in Dysfunction.
Finding the Function in Dysfunction
In a token moment of Irish brogue, Phil Hogan vividly professes "Be God, look at you standing there with the club! If you ain't the damnedest daughter in Connecticut, who is (O'Neill 297)?" Without question, no statement could more clearly define the chaotic relationship between Phil and Josie Hogan in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten than this. The analysis of this parent-child relationship proves to be quite a paradox in nature, a love/hate bond of sorts between a father and his daughter. These two characters come to express their emotions in such crude terms that one would wonder about the functionality of their relationship, yet Phil and Josie seem strangely comfortable with this perpetual saga of slander and subtle jabs. However, the harsh reality of their interaction will in fact reveal the deeper meaning of Eugene O'Neill's chaotic life through dramatic means.
The character of Josie Hogan carries a true aura of dominance wherever she goes. A strapping woman of unusual size and strength, Josie is everything her brothers--Mike, Thomas, and John--never were. Without question, the script of A Moon for the Misbegotten is full of awkward references to the blatantly obvious lack of Josie's femininity. Statements from her own father such as "To hell with your temper, you overgrown cow!" leave the impression that Josie is unusual in many ways, not always positive (296). Yet despite the raucous language used, her father (Phil) loves her in ways he could never have loved his virtuous sons. For instance, Phil, quarreling with Josie over his son's theft of some money, states "To tell the truth, I never liked him. And I never liked Thomas and John, either (297)." O'Neill creates this all-too-believable dysfunctional clan and maintains their quandary throughout the script. While multiple dysfunctions develop in the play, Josie and her father remain the centerpiece of character driven interactions in A Moon for the Misbegotten. In order to investigate the motives behind the "colorful" language and spats between Phil Hogan and his daughter, it is necessary to take a peek into the life of the author, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill.
The reckoning behind the conversations and complex relationship between Josie and Phil Hogan is a direct result of O'Neill's own life. For example, in Hogan's tirade on Josie to find his son Mike, he declares "Where is he? Is he hiding in the basement? I'll wipe the floors with him, the lazy bastard! (Turning his anger against her.) Haven't you a tongue in your head, you great slut you?" This outburst of violent and profane emotion was not unlike the reactions of O'Neill himself. During the composition of A Moon for the Misbegotten--which was O'Neill's tribute to pay ...
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The reckoning behind the conversations and complex relationship between Josie and Phil Hogan is a direct result of O'Neill's own life. For example, in Hogan's tirade on Josie to find his son Mike, he declares "Where is he? Is he hiding in the basement? I'll wipe the floors with him, the lazy bastard! (Turning his anger against her.) Haven't you a tongue in your head, you great slut you?" This outburst of violent and profane emotion was not unlike the reactions of O'Neill himself. During the composition of A Moon for the Misbegotten--which was O'Neill's tribute to pay his deceased brother Jamie his due--O'Neill once listened to a speech by Hitler on the radio with his wife Carlotta. Without warning, O'Neill sprang up exclaiming "Goddamn whore!" and bolted from the room (Goldman 42). The further instability of Eugene O'Neill is documented when his wife commented on the matter. Carlotta stated "He told me he hadn't known what he was saying, and explained that he had been reliving his days with Jamie--the days they spent in whorehouses together (Goldman 42)." Just as many troubled souls will find solace in their own outlets, O'Neill found his in the characters he created, which is easily traced to the development of the irate Phil Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten.
The three central characters of A Moon for the Misbegotten--Phil and Josie Hogan and Jim Tyrone, Jr.--are unmistakably "New England Irish, with just enough Catholicism still clinging to them to provide expressive profanity," and O'Neill made no mistake in crafting the characters in this fashion (Bloom 31). The implementation of such a dysfunctional cast of characters affects the play in a way that "normal" identities couldn't. Specifically speaking, Josie and Phil bring a turbulent, yet predictable twist to the plot. While the insults and profanity flow freely from their loose Irish lips, it's evident that they both love each other dearly. Josie proves this theory, despite the fact that she openly slanders her father in front of her brother in the beginning of Act I. Almost uncharacteristic of Josie's strapping size, the exchange goes as follows:
Josie (quietly): Then keep your tongue off him. He's my father too, and I like him, if you don't.
Mike (out of reach-sullenly): You're two of a kind, and a bad kind.
Josie (good naturedly): I'm proud of it.
Without question the remark by Mike Hogan is blunt and quite rude, and Josie still defends her father despite the continual arguments and conflicts between them. She even goes so far as to say she is proud of their similarities, though all they can see is their differences when face to face.
Conflicts stir the heart, and it is this aspect of the play that powers the desires of both Josie and Phil. There is certainly more than meets the eye to this trouble plagued relationship between father and daughter. A drunken, unrefined, lonely Irishman, Phil wishes nothing more than for his daughter to find happiness in marriage, although it would pain him to see her go. A rare glimpse of this loving sensitivity is seen when Phil says "Maybe he'd like a fine strong handsome figure of a woman for a change, with beautiful eyes and hair and teeth and a smile (O'Neill 300)." Though appreciative of her father's unusually gracious compliments, Josie can't stand to succumb to manners and return the polite gesture. Instead, Josie replies in a jeering manner "Thank you kindly for the compliments. Now I know a cow kicked you in the head (300)." It is this inability to humbly accept a compliment from her own father that Josie becomes renowned for, and therefore the vicious cycle of taunting and name calling continues between the pair.
Not only are the differences between Josie and Phil Hogan present, but they are necessary to view the characters in a real life context. The Hogans have no doubt endured many hardships during their years, namely the passing of Mrs. Hogan. In order for O'Neill to characterize these people accurately, he must show the variable in their lives, in this case being the death of a loved one. In another brief moment of heart-to-heart conversation, Josie and her father reminisce about their lost loved one in civilized terms:
Hogan: A sweet woman. Do you remember her Josie? You were only a little thing when she died.
Josie: I remember her well. She was the one could put you in your place when you'd come home drunk and want to tear down the house for the fun of it.
Hogan: Yes, she could do it, God bless her...
In the seemingly stone-cold relationship between Josie and Phil Hogan, the dynamic factor for the pair to turn off their defenses and discuss the matter is again seen in a brief respite from the anger and bitterness of their other interactions.
In an indirect correlation to the play through his own life, O'Neill again substitutes parallels of his existence into A Moon for the Misbegotten. Jim Tyrone's mother tells of his mother's passing, a direct allusion to O'Neill's past: "She had no one but me. The old man was dead. My brother had married--had a kid--had his own life to live...she only had me to attend to things for her and take care of her (Bowen 138)." O'Neill had written this about his own mother, so the connection for the Hogan family to experience the same life changing hardship is only natural in O'Neill's style of drama.
Despite all the argumentative positions and clashes of interest between Josie and her father, they do relate to one another. Phil knows his daughter will never turn heads (for beauty's sake), yet he also understands her loss in not having a mother and living with four men most of her life. Phil Hogan's irate reactions are merely a defense mechanism to push Josie away in a sense that will make her want to be more in life than he has been...to accomplish something worthwhile.
At the same time, Josie throws insults at her father in a similar fashion. She certainly does not hold a weak appearance, yet inside she is as human as the next girl. Her brash talks of sexual prowess are merely a front to convince people that she is in control, in a life that has not followed a storybook guideline by any means. The absence of her mother and gradual loss of her brothers to the "real world" put her in a position where she has to be responsible and look after things herself (this includes her father), and surely a lady-like woman couldn't handle such a burden.
The manner in which O'Neill bonds these two main characters together through a deceptive charade of degrading and disrespectful speech is a very unique approach to showing the love between them. That is exactly what the reader must not falsely identify in A Moon for the Misbegotten, because in fact their relationship is one of sincere care and compassion, although on the outside it is hard to see.
While the mantra of yelling and griping holds true for much of the play, the dynamic aspect of the occasional sincere conversation makes the reader stop and realize that there is more to Phil and Josie Hogan than just being a pair of intolerable and unforgiving characters. Though the question of effectiveness may come into play about this creation of conflict in O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, you must also question the affect on the play without this aspect of the perfectly believable father/daughter relationship. In O'Neill's world, there is no room for courteous peddling when the subjects of family relationships arise, just as there was none for O'Neill himself. A Moon for the Misbegotten is a play expressing the hardships and losses of O'Neill's life, from the loss of his mother to the traumatic experience of losing his brother, Jamie. It is through Phil and Josie Hogan that we come to understand a look into Eugene O'Neill's mind's eye, and the play could surely not survive the test of time without their wonderfully crafted dysfunctional relationship.
Works Cited
Bowen, Croswell. The Curse of the Misbegotten. New York: New York, 1959.
Goldman, Arnold. "The Vanity of Personality: The Development of Eugene O'Neill." Eugene O'Neill. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: New York, 1987. 37-58.
O'Neill, Eugene Gladstone. "A Moon for the Misbegotten." Modern and Contemporary Drama. Ed. Miriam Gilbert, Carl H. Klaus, and Bradford S. Field, Jr. Boston: 1994. 294-332
