Desire Under the Elms is a mid-life work by Eugene O’neil, over the course of this tragedy the lives of the principle characters unravel and they see each other, and allow the others to see them for what they truly are: disparing individuals who are trapped within their own world of hate and fear. This hatred traps them within there prisons and keeps them bound there for the entirety of there lives. This prison is expressed in two ways at the end of the story, firstly there is the presumed imprisonment of Eben and Abbie, and from there the possiblity of execution. this imprisonment and death show the short route there selfishness leads them to. In contrast Ephraim Cabots damnation is far more drawn out. His is the curse of life. He will “live to be 100″ alone, at which he’ll presumbly die and for aiding in the deaths of his two wives he’ll burn.

Over the course of the tragedy every primary character is damned in some way,

CABOT–(edging away) Lust fur gold–fur the sinful, easy gold o’ Californi-a! It’s made ye mad!

SIMEON–(tauntingly) Wouldn’t ye like us to send ye back some sinful gold, ye old sinner?

PETER–They’s gold besides what’s in Californi-a! (He retreats back beyond the vision of the old man and takes the bag of money and flaunts it in the air above his head, laughing.)

SIMEON–And sinfuller, too!

except for the prothers Simeon and Peter who are saved from there prison through the deadly sin of greed. The solititude these characters feel in there world must be examined from character to character, from the raging insanity seen in abbie to the inability to make decision’s in Eben’s life, to Cabots self imposed isolation were only the hard survived. These realities shape characters into there end results: three damned individuals and a dead baby.
Focusing on Abbie the damnation seems as less of a choice and more like a natural reflex.

ABBIE–(calmly) If cussin’ me does ye good, cuss all ye’ve a mind t’. I’m all prepared t’ have ye agin me–at fust. I don’t blame ye nuther. I’d feel the same at any stranger comin’ t’ take my Maw’s place. (He shudders. She is watching him carefully.) Yew must’ve cared a lot fur yewr Maw, didn’t ye? My Maw died afore I’d growed. I don’t remember her none. (a pause) But yew won’t hate me long, Eben. I’m not the wust in the world–an’ yew an’ me’ve got a lot in common. I kin tell that by lookin’ at ye. Waal–I’ve had a hard life, too–oceans o’ trouble an’ nuthin’ but wuk fur reward. I was a orphan early an’ had t’ wuk fur others in other folks’ hums. Then I married an’ he turned out a drunken spreer an’ so he had to wuk fur others an’ me too agen in other folks’ hums, an’ the baby died, an’ my husband got sick an’ died too, an’ I was glad sayin’ now I’m free fur once, on’y I diskivered right away all I was free fur was t’ wuk agen in other folks’ hums, doin’ other folks’ wuk till I’d most give up hope o’ ever doin’ my own wuk in my own hum, an’ then your Paw come. . . . (Cabot appears returning from the barn. He comes to the gate and looks down the road the brothers have gone. A faint strain of their retreating voices is heard: “Oh, Californi-a! That’s the place for me.” He stands glowering, his fist clenched, his face grim with rage.)

This page just after the introduction of Abbie into the story provides the reader with her back story. A back story that, yes, is full of tragedy those tragedies throughout her life definitely explain the poor decisions abbie will make later on in the work, however this lonesome past, which further tires her into this lonely world devoid of loving people, is no excuse for the decisions she will make, and in this world were god is seen as something unclean relating to Mr. Cabot, there is really no hope for Abbie to escape the doom she has set before herself.

CABOT–(raising his arms to heaven in the fury he can no longer control) Lord God o’ Hosts, smite the undutiful sons with Thy wust cuss!

EBEN–(breaking in violently) Yew ‘n’ yewr God! Allus cussin’ folks–allus naggin’ em!

CABOT–(oblivious to him–summoningly) God o’ the old! God o’ the lonesome!

EBEN–(mockingly) Naggin’ His sheep t’ sin! T’ hell with yewr God! (Cabot turns. He and Eben glower at each other.)

CABOT–(harshly) So it’s yew. I might’ve knowed it. (shaking his finger threateningly at him) Blasphemin’ fool! (then quickly) Why hain’t ye t’ wuk?

Over the entirety of the work no one aside from Ephraim Cabot openly acknowledges the existence of god. In fact, for Cabot the entire story is about god, that is what makes his damnation all the more sweet.

CABOT–Listen, Abbie. When I come here fifty odd year ago–I was jest twenty an’ the strongest an’ hardest ye ever seen–ten times as strong an’ fifty times as hard as Eben. Waal–this place was nothin’ but fields o’ stones. Folks laughed when I tuk it. They couldn’t know what I knowed. When ye kin make corn sprout out o’ stones, God’s livin’ in yew! They wa’n't strong enuf fur that! They reckoned God was easy.They laughed. They don’t laugh no more. Some died hereabouts. Some went West an’ died. They’re all under ground–fur follerin’ arter an easy God. God hain’t easy. (He shakes his head slowly.) An’ I growed hard. Folks kept allus sayin’ he’s a hard man like ’twas sinful t’ be hard, so’s at last I said back at ‘em: Waal then, by thunder, ye’ll git me hard an’ see how ye like it!

Cabot’s arrogance apparently had existed long before he had taken the farm, long before the events in Desire Under the Elms because of the hardness he had acquired he attributed his own traits to god and in effect made god in his image.

CABOT–(then suddenly) But I give in t’ weakness once. ‘Twas arter I’d been here two year. I got weak–despairful–they was so many stones. They was a party leavin’, givin’ up, goin’ West. I jined ‘em. We tracked on ‘n’ on. We come t’ broad medders, plains, whar the soil was black an’ rich as gold. Nary a stone. Easy. Ye’d on’y to plow an’ sow an’ then set an’ smoke yer pipe an’ watch thin’s grow. I could o’ been a rich man–but somethin’ in me fit me an’ fit me–the voice o’ God sayin’: “This hain’t wuth nothin’ t’ Me. Git ye back t’ hum!” I got afeerd o’ that voice an’ I lit out back t’ hum here, leavin’ my claim an’ crops t’ whoever’d a mind t’ take em. Ay-eh. I actooly give up what was rightful mine! God’s hard, not easy! God’s in the stones! Build my church on a rock–out o’ stones an’ I’ll be in them! That’s what He meant t’ Peter! (He sighs heavily–a pause.) Stones.

Cabot’s work becoming hard in the last passage alludes to purgatory were sinners would work off there sins before entering into heaven. in this passage Cabot his received his call to enter heaven and goes and finds it: a place were he can live an easier life but not a sinful one. he then turns away from that eden and returns to purgatory to the backbreaking work. He chooses his fate, however even while he is making his decision he makes it completely about himself, not God. Saying he could of been a rich man, and that he actually gave up what was rightfully his, even though in the scriptures that he would have read stressed piety and the relinquishing of worldly possessions

Cabot–All the time I kept gittin’ lonesomer. I tuk a wife. She bore Simeon an’ Peter. She was a good woman. She wuked hard. We was married twenty year. She never knowed me. She helped but she never knowed what she was helpin’. I was allus lonesome. She died. After that it wa’n't so lonesome fur a spell. (a pause) I lost count o’ the years. I had no time t’ fool away countin’ ‘em. Sim an’ Peter helped. The farm growed. It was all mine! When I thought o’ that I didn’t feel lonesome. (a pause) But ye can’t hitch yer mind t’ one thin’ day an’ night. I tuk another wife–Eben’s Maw. Her folks was contestin’ me at law over my deeds t’ the farm–my farm! That’s why Eben keeps a-talkin’ his fool talk o’ this bein’ his Maw’s farm. She bore Eben. She was purty–but soft. She tried t’ be hard. She couldn’t. She never knowed me nor nothin’. It was lonesomer ‘n hell with her. After a matter o’ sixteen odd years, she died. (a pause) I lived with the boys. They hated me ’cause I was hard. I hated them ’cause they was soft. They coveted the farm without knowin’ what it meant. It made me bitter ‘n wormwood. It aged me–them coveting what I’d made fur mine. Then this spring the call come–the voice o’ God cryin’ in my wilderness, in my lonesomeness–t’ go out an’ seek an’ find! (turning to her with strange passion) I sought ye an’ I found ye! Yew air my Rose o’ Sharon! Yer eyes air like. . . .

Cabot’s worldly greed grows over the course of the story. He is lonely in the company of his family, and all that matters to him is his farm. blaming them for aging him. he rants about his, his, his, and all the while it becomes increasingly more apparent that he may believe in a God, he does not revere that god and in fact committed some of the worse excesses of human nature.

Ephraim Cabot may be the only god-fearin’ member of this family but his god is merely himself glorified, the piety he should reflect upon his lord, as well the respect and devotion to its cause is directed upon himself inferring that he in someway believes that he is that god.

And if the most god-fearin’ member of the bunch is screwed with that much Narcissism then the rest of the bunch cant be much better off!