Skip over navigation  The Iceman Cometh  Eugene O'Neill  Plot
Overview  Table of Contents  Character List  The play opens on
an early summer morning in 1912 in the crowded back room of
Harry Hope's saloon. The majority of the customers sleep slumped
over their tables. Rocky, the night bartender, sneaks Larry
Slade, a former Syndicalist-Anarchist, a drink of whiskey. Larry
notes how their group has a "touching credulity" concerning
tomorrows: the pipe dream gives life to the "misbegotten lot."
He, on the other hand, has buried his pipe dreams, retiring to
the "grandstand of philosophical detachment" to await his death.
Parritt, a young ex-Anarchist, enters. His cohorts were recently
arrested for a bombing on the Coast, and he has come to Larry
for help, since years ago, Larry had an affair with his mother.
Willie tells of his days at Harvard Law School and the ruin of
his industrialist father. A chorus of each guest's fond
reminiscences and pipe dreams follows. Hope has not left the bar
for twenty years ago.