spooky
10-19-2009, 01:01 PM
warning: includes spoilers about ending
I just finished reading O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten. I really loved it, I can even say it's my favorite play among those I read to this day, but something about the ending is bothering me.
Those who read or watched the play know that Josie decided to leave Phil after learning about his scheme and confronting him about it, but after his explaining about how the real reason behind all of that was getting Josie and Jim together, how all he really wanted was Josie to be happy with the man she loved, Josie believed him and changed her mind and decided to stay with him. And at the ending we saw them the way they always were, like nothing happened. It bothered me and after thinking about it I still can't answer the questions it raised:
First, I don't find it believable that Josie really believed her father about him doing the scheme mainly for her happiness. I mean, as Josie said, a man smart enought to think about a scheme like that should also be able to think that if they conned Jim to marry her, a man like him couldn't stay with her after a thing like that and leave her to never see her again and eventually return to his miserable life, broadway, women etc...So I think it's evident that Phil came up with this excuse because he was afraid Josie was really gonna leave her. But I can't make peace with the idea that Josie believed him easily, and decided to stay with him, and a minute later everything was like it used to be..
But there's another possibility, and it makes more sense, Josie knew everything, she didn't believe Phil, but after all he is her father, she knows no one outside that farm except her brothers, and she thought a woman like her can never make it anywhere else after that point, and saw how helpless the situation really is, she knew she could never make a new start(or maybe it's better to say she thought that she couldn't make a new start, anyway) and decided to go on with her miserable life...
I don't know, either way i don't believe Phil...Have I misread him?
What do you think?
I just finished reading O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten. I really loved it, I can even say it's my favorite play among those I read to this day, but something about the ending is bothering me.
Those who read or watched the play know that Josie decided to leave Phil after learning about his scheme and confronting him about it, but after his explaining about how the real reason behind all of that was getting Josie and Jim together, how all he really wanted was Josie to be happy with the man she loved, Josie believed him and changed her mind and decided to stay with him. And at the ending we saw them the way they always were, like nothing happened. It bothered me and after thinking about it I still can't answer the questions it raised:
First, I don't find it believable that Josie really believed her father about him doing the scheme mainly for her happiness. I mean, as Josie said, a man smart enought to think about a scheme like that should also be able to think that if they conned Jim to marry her, a man like him couldn't stay with her after a thing like that and leave her to never see her again and eventually return to his miserable life, broadway, women etc...So I think it's evident that Phil came up with this excuse because he was afraid Josie was really gonna leave her. But I can't make peace with the idea that Josie believed him easily, and decided to stay with him, and a minute later everything was like it used to be..
But there's another possibility, and it makes more sense, Josie knew everything, she didn't believe Phil, but after all he is her father, she knows no one outside that farm except her brothers, and she thought a woman like her can never make it anywhere else after that point, and saw how helpless the situation really is, she knew she could never make a new start(or maybe it's better to say she thought that she couldn't make a new start, anyway) and decided to go on with her miserable life...
I don't know, either way i don't believe Phil...Have I misread him?
What do you think?