Bound East for Cardiff is one of Eugene O’Neill’s earliest plays, written for the Provincetown Players in 1916. The one-act play depicts a dying sailor in his final throes of life. As a heavy fog surrounds the ship, Yank lies convulsing in pain in a cabin bunk, with his friend and colleague, Driscoll, by his side. As Yank sees the blackness coming towards him, the two men agree that a life spent on the seas holds little pleasure or fulfillment. After a life spent running, Yank now faces the potential nothingness that follows. The play is significant for its early use of naturalistic dialogue and the symbolic use of the fog, which lifts as Yank takes his final breaths.
Bound East for Cardiff guide sections
