China and the West

Cao, Yu. Lei yu = Thunderstorm. In : Wen xue ji kan ; vol. 1, no 3 (1934). = (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1936). (Wen xue cong kan ; 1). [Uraufführung in Nanjing 1936]. 雷雨
Cao Yu writes in the preface to Tunderstorm : "Critics have regarded me as a disciple of Ibsen, or conjectured that certain parts of the play are inspired by Euripides' 'Hippolytus' or Racine's 'Phedre'. I am still myself, be so small as I am. I cannot fathom the profundity of the masters, just as the beetle in the dark wonders about the brightness of the day. Over the past decade I have read several plays and have performed in them. However hard I try, I still wonder which part of the play I have deliberately imitated. Perhaps at the lower stratum of my subconsciousness, I have deluded myself : I am an ungrateful servant. I have stolen thread by thread the golden yarn of my master's house, and woven my ugly garment out of the stolen threads and deny the discolored threads (now in my hands) remain the master's."

Cao, Yu. Ri chu = The sunrise. (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1936). 日出
Cao Yu writes in the postscript to The sunrise : "It is a novel attempt, which I have seen in O'Neill's plays and I know it has been successful."

Cao, Yu. Yuan ye. = The wilderness. (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1937). 原野
Cao Yu writes in the postscript to The wilderness : "I had trouble writing the third act. I have adoped two techniques that O'Neill uses in The emperor Jones – the drums and the gunshots in two of my scenes. At first I didn't think he exerted any influence on me, but after I finished writing and read it twice, I felt I was unconsciously influenced by him. The two techniques, to be sure, belong to O'Neill, and if they are aptly used, they are created out of O'Neill's ingenuity, not mine."

Sekundärliteratur
Cheng Fu-tsai : Cao Yu is fascinated with Greek drama, Aeschylus and Euripides. Several of Shakespeare's plays have influenced him considerably while in college and he was influenced by Eugene O'Neill. Cao Yu's plays, especially The wilderness and Thunderstorm bear a striking resemblance to O'Neill's plays in many aspects. Both of them, for example, employ the expressionistic technical devices to enhance the dramatic effect on the stage. There are also similarities in characterization, the connection between the individual and the race or society and the use of symbols. One remarkable similarity is the treatment of the conflicts of the inner world. In The wilderness Cao Yu adapts O'Neill's The emperor Jones to a Chinese background. Cao Yu does not merely borrow the structure, theme and expressionistic devices from The emperor Jones. He has successfully blended the expressionism of O'Neill with his own realistic portrayal of Chou Hu's regression into a delirious state.
Liu Haiping : All these plays are indebted in different degrees to O'Neill in terms of characterization and stagecraft. We find striking parallels between Abbie in Desire under the elms and Fan Yi, the heroine in Thunderstorm, who is also a stepmother with an incestuous longing for her stepson. Robert in Beyond the horizon parallels Zhou Chong in Thunderstorm, also a younger brother with a touch of the poet and a longing for beauty beyond the horizon. Anna in Anna Christie and Chen Bailu, the heroine in Sunrise are both prostitutes hurled into intense suffering by the evil forces of life. Like O'Neill, Cao Yu uses the hallucinatory scenes not only to externalize the haunting memories of the character and explain the source of his tragedy, but also to present a brief, panoramic review of the nation's past.
Joseph S.M. Lau : The wilderness resembles the American prototype in 'its bold and inventive use of grotesque images, disconnected plots, contrived symbolism, and deliberate pauses between the already sparse dialogues to create tension'.
Chen David Y. : Wilderness adopts the form and technique from its prototypes with so much flexibility that it works out a pattern of its own. Wilderness seems to follow The emperor Jones in the artistic pursuit, lending itself to the expressionistic treatment of emotion through advanced stagecraft and extensive use of symbolism.
Horst Frenz : The main character Zhou Fanyi in Thunderstorm is modeled upon Abbie Putnam in Desire under the elms. Like Abbie, Fanyi longs for her stepson. Their incestuous passion becomes a most eloquent and powerful expression of their defiance of traditional morals.