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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
The Natural World
The sky, land, and farm are important motifs throughout the play. The natural world is almost a character in itself, and it has an enormous presence. The characters comment on the beauty of the sky, sunsets, and sunrises, and they fight over the land. Ephraim Cabot repeats that he's getting "ripe on the bough," comparing himself to fruit and trees. He feels more comfortable with the cows in the barn than in the house with his family. He also talks about the land being hard and made up of stones, but he admires the beauty of the sky, as do his sons. Each character seems to have a different reason for their admiration for the farm and natural world.
The farm plays a major role in the conflict in the play. Eben and Cabot are both possessive of the farm for different reasons, and Eben views Abbie as a threat to his inheritance. Although the farm itself is a source of conflict, the landscape and nature are less so. O'Neil makes the setting almost its own character and shows its significance within the conflict between people. The play explores human desire and emotions while presenting the natural world as an objective, beautiful, and harsh presence around them.
Hardness versus Softness
Cabot often refers to Eben as soft, like his deceased mother, while he himself is described as hard in appearance, demeanor, and the way he treats others. However, he shows moments of softness to Abbie and, in the end, shows his desire to go to California for an easier life. The idea of life being hard versus easy is reflected in the land—the farm was full of stones when Cabot first bought it, while the land in California is soft and easy to plow. By contrasting these opposites, O'Neill suggests not that one trait is preferable to the other but that there has to be some middle ground that people can inhabit in order to live a life of bearable struggle.
