The study begins with because that play's plot was consolidated by a dream that opened up the transfixing grief that precipitated the play for O'Neill, and it ends with when he had resolved his major emotional-philosophical struggle and created within himself the voice of his final great plays. Since the analysis brings to bear on the plays all of his conscious decisions, ideas, theories, as well as the life-and-death struggles motivating them, documenting even the final creative changes made during rehearsals, this book provides a definitive account of the nine plays analyzed in detail ( , , and , with additional analysis of plays written before and after.