The play Beyond the Horizon written by Eugene O’Neill depicts American farmers’ life and spiritual world in the 1920s, which makes it a great achievement in drama and injects vigor and vitality to the US Theater. The drama succeeds in molding the character Robert who holds tightly on hope and beauty in hardships. This paper focuses on the reasons for Robert’s tragedy and dream and explores its value to life.
First, this paper introduces the author Eugene O’Neill and the work Beyond the Horizon briefly; then it uncovers Robert’s tragedy according to his failure in marriage and career and reveals Robert’s slight changes in dreams in three periods; what’s more, the external and internal factors involving fatalism, social backgrounds, family environments and personal reasons are four aspects contributing to his tragedy and dream, for which it is easy to comprehend how O’Neill inherits and innovates the ancient Greek tragedy.
Based on these analyses, the conclusion part summarizes the paper to show the Robert’s destiny which is a showcase to the charm of the tragedy as well as its function of being the incentive of people’s life. The paper reveals the real significance of tragic writing, namely, encouraging people to meditate on life in a positive way, digging the root of tragedy. The dawn is the darkest period of time of the day, and people in dark need hope to meet and embrace the sunrise on the horizon.
 

tragedy , dream, reasons,hope