Act Three
Summary
It is the morning after the party and Joe is begrudgingly spreading sawdust on the floor. Hugo is sleeping, Larry sits stone-faced, Parritt sits nearby, and Rocky is behind the bar. Rocky grumbles about taking Chuck’s shift so he can apparently get married, and also adds that Hickey was very annoying last night as he went room to room with his speeches.
When Larry responds proudly that Hickey didn’t come to his room, Parritt sneers that Larry is an old faker and had his door locked. Rocky scowls and tells him to keep out of it. He tells Larry he is a sap and yawns, eventually nodding off.
Parritt turns to Larry and apologizes for bothering him but that it upsets him when Larry acts like he doesn’t care about him. Also, Hickey scares him more and more and it makes him think about Mother, wondering if she were dead. He muses that he even thought Larry could be his father, a sentiment that Larry angrily denounces.
Parritt blurts out that he didn’t think the cops would get her and that everything he said last night about being patriotic was false; he just wanted money for a whore and sold Mother out. He seems to speak as if this exonerates him somehow. Larry tells him to shut up.
Rocky is roused by their conversation and asks Larry drowsily what he meant when he said that Hickey was afraid of being asked questions. Larry replies that he thinks Hickey is hiding something and seems to have brought death with him. Rocky is skeptical at first but then guesses that Hickey maybe caused his wife to commit suicide.
Parritt listens to them and points out that she’d never do that; she is too much like Larry and clings to life even when there is nothing else. Larry is riled up but tiredly backs down. Curious, Rocky asks how Parritt knows anything about Hickey’s wife and Larry comments that the boy doesn’t know anything. Parritt is hurt and full of anger and self-pity.
Rocky continues to mull over the possibility of Evelyn's suicide and finally gives up. He then starts to complain about how obnoxious the girls are and how he had to slap them – not beat them like a pimp would. Unbelievably, he shakes his head, they even said something about going on strike.
Chuck enters the bar dressed in his Sunday best. He gripes that Cora wants a drink before they wed. Rocky teases him and says he’ll give him a week at that Jersey farm. Chuck is frustrated with Cora for her behavior but takes it out on Rocky. They almost come to blows but Joe calls to them that they are friends.
For a moment both men turn on Joe, Chuck even calling him the N-word. They pull out weapons but back down when Larry laughs a sardonic, uproarious laugh at how Hickey has led them to murder each other.
Hugo wakes for a moment and wheedles in his accent about wanting to be an aristocrat leading the proletariat, even if it is to make them slaves and be a god to them. He is bewildered by his own words and Larry soothes him.
Joe defiantly states that Hickey has been bad luck for them. He is, though, ready to give up his key to his room and move out. He isn’t wanted there and he is tired of messing around with white men. He states his plan to open a gambling house just for "colored" (in 1912 parlance) men, and that it’s not a pipe dream. He departs.
Willie comes downstairs next. He is dressed well but although he is sober, he is sickly and shocked looking. He plans to go to the D.A.’s office, but says his legs are shaky and takes a seat.
Lewis is next, clean-shaven and forcibly self-assured. He complains about Wetjoen and turns in his key. A moment later Wetjoen appears. Both speak of their plans to find work and make money for a passage home, though they jeer at each other. They end up scuffling and Rocky and Chuck pull them apart. Again, Larry comments snarkily, “you can’t say Hickey hasn’t the miraculous touch to raise the dead, when he can start the Boer War raging again!” (152).
Both Lewis and Wetjoen make it to the door but stand on either side, stiff and nervous. Chuck leaves to get Cora. Willie asks Parritt for a word and tells him he knows the young man is in trouble and he can help with the law. Indignantly, Parritt rebuffs him. Willie persists and warns him he won’t be safe here for long.
When Parritt turns to Larry for help, Larry bursts out that he wishes the cops were after him. Parritt is dismayed at first but then a mean light enters his eyes and he accuses Larry of still being in love with Mother. In a lower tone he admits that he still loves her too and Larry must know that. Larry pretends not to listen and begs him to leave.
Finally, Larry jumps up and walks over to the bar to demand a drink from Rocky. He didn’t want to take advantage of Hickey’s tab but he will now even Hickey is the iceman of Death. He is startled to hear himself say this, but Rocky grumbles for them to stop talking about that gag.
Mosher appears, dressed but sickly and apprehensive. He plans to go out today. McGloin also appears. Willie addresses McGloin about being his lawyer but McGloin shoots back that he doesn't want him and doesn’t need a lawyer at all; the force will figure out he is innocent. Mosher and McGloin turn in their keys.
Cora and Chuck enter loudly. Cora’s giggle is strained but she announces that it’s time. They squabble for a while but finally depart when they hear Hickey coming down.
Hickey, Jimmy, and Hope come downstairs. Hickey looks tired but cheerful, Jimmy looks worn, and Hope looks like he’s undertaking the march of the condemned. Jimmy is peevish but says he is going out today. Hope talks about his rheumatism but Hickey teases him that he can’t use that as an excuse. He launches into his speech again, telling them he knows what they’re going through. Turning to Lewis, he suggests he and Wetjoen ought to lead the charge, being that they were in the military. Both finally push out through the door even though they do not look happy about it. Glaring at Hickey, Mosher and McGloin also step out. Willie thanks Hope for his kindness and leaves. Jimmy reaches for a drink but Hickey pulls him away, pleading to go tomorrow instead. Finally he relents and dashes out through the door after feebly trying to throw a drink at Hickey.
When Hickey turns to Hope, Larry cries out to leave the man alone. Hickey smiles that he believes in Hope, and Hope himself wearily tells Larry to stay out of it. However, he delays. He asks Rocky about the weather and mentions that he is concerned about automobiles and about being half-blind and half-deaf. Hickey brushes these excuses aside, even when Hope brings up Bessie and how they went to church together on her last day. This angers Hope, and he finally heads outside in a rush of anger.
Rocky stands at the window and watches Hope in wonderment. He narrates how Hope is going to make it and how he seems to be standing on the curb. When he mentions that he thinks he will come back, Hickey says straightforwardly that they all will; that is the point.
Larry asks bitterly if it is his turn now and Hickey exhorts him to stop lying to himself. He laughs that Hickey probably wants him to admit he is afraid of living and dying so he just hangs on and wants just a few days more. Hickey tells him he just did admit it.
Rocky announces that Hope is walking down the street but worries why he stopped in the middle. A moment later Hope bursts in begging for a drink and claiming that he was almost hit by a car. Rocky is disgusted and Hickey gets him to admit he lied about the car, but the beleaguered Hope only wants to get drunk. Larry offers Hope compassion but Hickey turns on Larry with a flash of anger and asks why he wants to lead Hope on.
Hugo wakes up and mumbles for a few and asks Hope why he looks dead. Hope does indeed look weary and broken, saying he wants to pass out like Hugo. When Larry says Hickey’s brought the peace of death Hickey loses his temper for the first time calls Larry a liar. He recovers and claims that once the shock wears off Hope will be a new man.
Hickey lowers his voice and confides to Larry that he didn’t know Hope would take it so hard. When he mentions his own experience Larry stops him and demands that he finally tell them what happened. Hickey agrees and says a bullet killed Evelyn. Hope, Rocky, and Larry are stunned. Larry apologizes. Serenely, Hickey says it was okay; she didn’t commit suicide but was killed. In the corner Parritt yells that Hickey is a liar and she is still alive, but everyone ignores him.
When Rocky asks who did it, Larry says that they need to refrain from more questions but Hickey smiles, amused. He says the police don’t know yet but soon will. Parritt stares at Larry and implores him to see that it was just for a few dollars.
Suddenly Hugo raises his head and shouts that he cannot sleep and is afraid of the blood beneath the willow tree. He is crazy and needs more drink. No one pays attention.
Hickey stands over Hope and genially tells him he will be okay, just like he is. It’s hard, but he will feel better now that the dream is over. It’s time for Hope to feel happy.
Analysis
The moment Hickey has been waiting for is finally here: the men step outside, ready to throw aside their delusions and pipe dreams and achieve lasting peace and self-awareness. Of course, the outcome is quite different. The men are fearful, stricken, irritable, and despairing. They bicker amongst themselves, find it difficult to even get out the door, and, in Hope’s case, extravagantly fail and rush back inside to the cold solace of drink. At no point does one of these characters evince a glimmer of hope or excitement; they all seem as if they are being forced to leave. Indeed, Hickey visited them all in their rooms and wore their resistance down with speeches and cajoling and sheer tenacity.
Even if at first the audience/readers were inclined to think these men were losers who needed, but were not able, to face the truth about their lives, it is hard to imagine sustaining that view in light of the sheer psychic trauma that comes from such a reckoning. Hickey may be likable enough and may mean well, but his quickness to judge and his reluctance to truly look deeply inwards make his pushing and pulling more reprehensible than helpful. Critic John Patrick Diggins notes, “O’Neill insists upon the necessity of sustaining illusions.” The play had to be as long and detailed as it was, Diggins quote O’Neill as explaining, because he wanted to write a work “where at the end you feel you know the souls of seventeen men and women…as well as of you read a play about each of them.” Each character has to come back with his or her experience of the outside world and, more importantly, their interpretation of it. O’Neill said, “I don’t write this as a piece of playwriting. They do it. they have to. Each of them! In just that way! They must tell these lies as a first step in taking up life again.”
One of the most obvious face-saving lies is that of Hope, who claims that an automobile rushes him when he was outside. He tries every excuse – deafness, bad eyesight, rheumatism, weather – to get out of going and when he finally does, he makes up a story about a close call with a car. Rocky and, thus, the audience know this to be patently false. The car symbolizes modernity and the outside world, for 20 years ago (in 1892) when Hope was last outside they did not exist; now they stand as a fast, terrifying avatar of the modern world that has changed around - and without - Hope. The car cracks open Hope’s dreams, leading him to even denounce Bessie: “Bejees, [Hickey] you’re a worse gabber than that nagging bitch, Bessie, was!” (172).
There are several other moments of note in this act. First, Larry, in an attempt to mock Hickey’s claims to insight, actually gives away what his pipe dream is: “I’m afraid to live, am I? –and even more afraid to die! So I sit here, with my pride drowned on the bottom of a bottle, keeping drunk so I won’t see myself shaking in my britches with fright…Beloved Christ, let me live a little longer at any price!...You think you’ll make me admit that to myself?” (168). Hickey is all of us when he responds, “But you just did admit it, didn’t you?” (168).
Second, Parritt gives more away as to his possible motivations in selling out his Mother. Earlier he pretended that it was because he grew patriotic and knowledgeable and was against the Movement. Now he says “It was just for a few lousy dollars!” (176). Parritt is a double of Hickey’s for as Hickey begins to crack and come clean about his crimes, Parritt does as well.
In addition, Hugo reveals his own deep-seated beliefs. He drunkenly denounces the proletariat, saying “Gottamned stupid proletarian slaves! Buy me a trink or I vill have you shot!” (176). The psychic distress caused by this announcement is palpable; O’Neill writes, “He collapses into abject begging” and “He hides his face on his arms, sobbing muffedly” (176). It is hard to think he is better off now that he’s admitted this truth to himself.
