Introduction:
The Theme of “pipe dream” in “The Iceman Cometh” by O’Neill is central. The play is set in a rundown bar where a group of disillusioned characters survive by clinging to comforting illusions—what O’Neill calls “pipe dreams.” These are not literal dreams but false hopes, self-deceptions, and imagined futures that give meaning to otherwise empty lives.
In the world of the play, each character holds onto a personal pipe dream—such as the belief that they will reform, find success, or return to a better past. These illusions act as psychological support systems, protecting them from the harsh reality of their failures, regrets, and purposeless existence. Without these dreams, they would be forced to confront despair and hopelessness.
The arrival of Hickey, a traveling salesman, disrupts this fragile balance. He challenges the characters to abandon their pipe dreams and face the truth about themselves. However, instead of liberating them, the destruction of their illusions leads to emotional collapse and paralysis. O’Neill thus suggests that while pipe dreams are false, they are also necessary for survival.
Ultimately, the theme reveals a tragic insight: human beings often depend on illusion to endure life. In The Iceman Cometh, the “pipe dream” becomes a symbol of both human weakness and a vital coping mechanism, highlighting the tension between truth and illusion in the human condition.
O’Neill’s realism is at its best in the play ‘The Iceman Cometh’. In the play he presents a set of such people that are tired of their lives. They have got no success in life and are likely to get none in future too. In this disappointing state they take shelter in Harry Hope’s bar. Here they drink to be lost in their pipe dreams of a better tomorrow. Larry disapproves this approach and Hickey asks all to get rid of their pipe dreams.
A Set of Drunkards:
All the drunkards are sitting in Harry Hope’s bar. Hugo is a small man in his late fifties. His head is much too big for his body. His forehead is high long black hair twisted with white and gray lines. His square face has a flat nose, a wide mustache and black eyes which shine behind thick-lensed spectacles. His hands and feet too are tiny. He is dressed in rough black clothes and white shirt. But all is clean. His tie is neatly tied. He is asleep now.
Larry Slade is sixty. He is tall. His hair is white, long and roughly cut. His face is thin with a big nose. His cheek bones are high with week’s unshaven beard. His thoughtful pale blue eyes are filled a gleam of sharp bitter humour. His clothes are dirty: His gray sport shirt is open at the neck. It seems it has never been washed. His long fingered hairy hands scratch his body. He is not asleep.
Joe Mott is a Negro. He is about fifty years old. His skin is brown. He wears a light suit. His pointed shoes are buttoned and dark brown. His pink shirt and bright tie look faded. He has nothing dirty in his appearance. His nose is thin and lips are not thick. His hair is twisted and he is beginning to get bald. He has a scar mark on his left cheek. His face is not rough and hard. He is asleep. Piet Wetjoen, the Boer, is in his fifties. He is a huge man with bald headed a long uncared beard. His dress is dirty, the suit is fully patches and food marks. His eyes are bloodshot blue. James Cameron (Jimmy Tomorrow) is about the same size and age as Hugo, the small man. He is dressed in clean threadbare black. Jimmy has a face like an old well- bred bloodhound’s with folds of flesh hanging from each side of mouth. His brown friendly eyes are full of honesty. He has mouse coloured thin hair, a little nose, projected teeth in a small rabbit mouth. His forehead is fine. His eyes are intelligent. His speech is educated. His manners are gentle. He is asleep.
Cecil Lewis (‘The Captain’) is over sixty. His hair and military mustache are white. His eyes are bright blue. His figure is lean and square shouldered. He is naked upto waist. His coat, shirt and tie are crushed in the pillow. There is a scar of an old wound on his lower left shoulder.
Both Mcgloin and Mosher have big belly. Mcgloin bears the stamp his old occupation of policeman all over him. He is bullet-headed with big ears and little round eyes. Time and whisky have melted down his brutal and greedy face to good humour. He is dirty and wears old clothes.
Ed Mosher is going on sixty. He has a round cupidy face. He is drunkard who remains unshaven. He looks like a village fat boy or a practical joker. He is very lazy. The influence of his old circus career is reflected in his appearance. He wears a cheaply attractive dress, rings and heavy brass watch-chain. He is dirty like Mcgloin.
Harry Hope is sixty, white haired and very thin. He has the face of an old family horse. He is one of those men whom everyone likes. He is soft hearted without malice. He does regard himself as superior to others. He is a sinner among sinners. He tries to hide his defenselessness behind his aggressive manner. He is a little deaf but not as much as he pretends. His sight is failing but not as much as he complains it is. His spectacles, teeth and clothes all are awkward.
Larry On Pipe-dream:
Larry talks to Rocky, the bar attendant about the great importance of a pipe-dream for all those people who spend their time in the bar of Harry Hope’s saloon. Larry points out the bitter irony of human life that reality is full of miseries. Therefore, nobody wishes to be in his senses. He finds it better to have a drink and be lost in a pipe dream. It is a dream of golden tomorrow but that tomorrow never comes. The truth is cruel. To forget it dreams are the best means and they cost nothing. It is philosophic wisdom to be lost in them. Larry remarks that all mad people like him pass their time in the bar-house and remain free from the worries of life.
The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober. And that’s enough philosophic wisdom to give you for one drink of rot-gut.
According to Larry every movement is a pipe-dream for it believes in a bright tomorrow. It aims at improvement in human beings but the reality is otherwise. It is a great irony that men do not wish to be improved. They are not ready to give up their greed. It makes them unjust and corrupt. Without giving up evils of this nature no improvement is possible and true liberty for mankind is not possible. Therefore, every movement is reduced to be a pipe-dream that is never turned into reality.
I saw men didn’t want to be saved from themselves, for that would mean they’d have to give up greed, and they’ll never pay that price for liberty.
Hickey on Pipe-dream: A Meaningless Illusion:
Hickey asks his friends to come out of the world of imagination. Nobody can make his tomorrow bright without working hard today. It is useless to waste time in pipe dreams. It is no better than poison that will ruin their lives. It will never fill their minds with peace. In fact, they are deceiving themselves by neglecting bitter reality of life. He presents his own example before them. There was a time when like them he too used to be over drunk all the time. But now he does not drink. He has become a new man. He faces reality with boldness. Now he is honest with himself. He knows what he is. It is useless to dream what he may be tomorrow. But for this realization a bit of determination and resolution ought to be developed.
No, boys and girls, i’ve never known what real peace was until now. It’s a grand feeling, like when you’re sick and suffering like hell and the Doc gives you a shot in the arm, and the pain goes and you drift off.
Hickey claims that all people present there are well-known to him. He has passed such a long time with them that he is well-acquainted with their inward thoughts also. He knows what they really are and in what pipe dreams they have lost themselves. It is true whenever he met them he was overdrunk but his senses are so sharp that nothing could remain hidden from his perception. But it was great irony that even in that state he could not know himself. Being overdrunk he too was lost in a pipe dream. But now he has got rid of that pipe dream. He has realized what he really is and everybody can mark the great difference in him. He is happy and satisfied. He is not willing to drink for he does not need any intoxication to forget reality. He asks all these people to get rid of their pipe dreams. They should give up the artificial means of forgetting reality. They should try to attain the real peace of mind that is not to be disturbed by any today, yesterday or tomorrow. It is a guilt to remain blind to reality. It is no life that they are trying to deceive themselves.
You can let go of yourself at last. Let yourself sink down to the bottom of the sea. Rest in peace. There’s no farther you have to go. Not a single damned hope or dream left to nag you.
Vain Pipe-dream of Hickey’s Wife:
Hickey accounts for his wife’s kind behaviour to him. She loved him so deeply that she was blind to his faults. He used to drink in excess and have relations with other women but she always forgave him with the belief that he would never do that again. It was her pipe dream. But this overkind attitude irritated Hickey. He wished for her anger when he was in the wrong. He began to suffer heavily with the sense of guilt. It became intolerable. He had only two options either to kill her or himself. He knew she would not be able to live without him. To save her from that grief he decided to kill her when she was in sound sleep. Thus, she died in peace and he too attained peace by getting rid of that heavy sense of self-guilt.
Hickey’s Impact on Drunkards and Dreamers:
Hickey asks all to recognize the truth of life and begin their struggle without delay. All feel inspired in their own ways and decide for self-improvement. But when Hickey is arrested under charge of killing his wife all the drunkards and dreamers go back to their pipe dreams. Hugo tells Larry that it is good that Hickey has been taken away by the police. According to Hugo, Hickey was mad and was filling minds of all those people with crazy thoughts and lies. He was claiming that pipe dreams would ruin their lives and they all should recognize the truth and come in reality. He was asking them to give up drinking. They can’t live without drinking. He was ill-intentioned. He was trying to kill them. It is good that they have got rid of him.
It is a great irony that they regard Hickey as a mad man who was the only sane man among them.