When these are modified under changed circumstances, moral duty also undergoes a change and it does not always remain the same. For a given promise or agreement may turn out in such a way that its performance will prove detrimental either to the one to whom the promise has been made or to the one who has made it. If, for example, Neptune, in the drama, had not carried out his promise to Theseus, Theseus would not have lost his son Hippolytus; for, as the story runs, of the three wishes/a that Neptune had promised to grant him the third was this: in a fit of anger he prayed for the death of Hippolytus, and the granting of this prayer plunged him into unspeakable grief. Promises are, therefore, not to be kept, if the keeping of them is to prove harmful to those to whom you have made them; and, if the fulfilment of a promise should do more harm to you
Play ends with a shriek that signals the protagonist demise. Oneill was so serious about what he was writing he produced only tragedys, 1 comedy. Moreover, by origin he was partly greek, used greek mythology in plays. Also like a typical modernist he was schoked by the lack of religious faith, the lack of religious myth. Connection with the past. He decided to create his own myth. Not to create, he remade old greek myths. One of his masterpiece is ,,desire under the elms". Phaedra and Hippolytus. In oneill's play this myth is used as a vechicle for understanding the characters motivation, see his characters as enslaved human beings. Enslaved by sexual desire, greed and jealousy. Another famous play by oneill is called ,,mourning becomes electra". He uses a subjective perspective. In many other plays oneill uses the mask. In this play the family members wear white, masklike faces. The colousr of white, that their faces are, indicates their perhaps artificiality
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