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Beyond the Horizon
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Act IIAct Summaries & Analyses
Act II Summary
Act II begins three years later in the same sitting room of the Mayo’s farmhouse. The home hasn’t changed too much, but there is an atmosphere of neglect about the place. Mrs. Atkins and Kate Mayo are discovered sat together, with Mrs. Atkins complaining that Rob is late for his dinner again. It is revealed that in the interceding years, Rob and Ruth have married and had a sickly daughter called Mary. Meanwhile, James Mayo died two years earlier. Mrs. Atkins criticizes their children, especially Rob, whom she blames for running the farm poorly. Kate hopelessly tries to defend Rob and says luck has been against him, but Rob is not the natural farmer that his father and brother were.
Mrs. Atkins is outraged that Rob is planning to mortgage the farm to raise some money, but Kate passively accepts and says Rob will manage until Andy gets back. Lamenting that James never had the opportunity to see Andy again and forgive him, Kate blames James’s stubbornness and pride for causing his death. Mrs. Atkins takes a keen interest in Andy’s imminent return and claims he would have been a better match for Ruth.
Ruth and Mary enter from the kitchen, but Ruth is irritated with the child because she wants to play with her doll rather than take a nap. Mrs. Atkins begins criticizing Ruth and Rob again, but Ruth snaps that it’s too hot to argue. Instead, Ruth picks up the topic of Andy’s return as a pleasant distraction, and all the women agree that things will be better when he is home.
Once Kate and Mrs. Atkins leave, Ruth starts to put Mary to bed but steals a moment to herself to re-read Andy’s latest letter. Rob enters, sweating and dirty from work, and Ruth considers trying to hide the letter but thinks better of it. Rob lovingly scoops up Mary; he clearly adores his daughter. Ruth and Rob’s relationship has deteriorated, and each partner irritates the other—the couple bickers over everything including how to treat Mary, Ruth’s interest in Andy’s letter, Rob’s lateness, and his obsession with reading.
Rob is trying to strike a truce with Ruth when Ben, the farmhand, appears and tells them he’s quitting. Hit by yet another setback, the couple’s attention returns to Andy and how good it will be to have him home. Rob enviously wonders out loud about all the places Andy has visited and says if it wasn’t for Ruth and Mary, he might set out on adventure himself, but he concludes he’s just dreaming his “old fool dreams” (161). Ruth remarks that Rob isn’t the only one to dream, and it is evident she is thinking about how her life might have been different with Andy. Rob continues to complain that Andy’s letters lack description and enthusiasm, and he feels as though Andy doesn’t appreciate his opportunity. Ruth interprets this as a personal attack on Andy and jumps to his defense, claiming that Andy has made a man of himself, unlike Rob. Ruth’s rage propels her to tell Rob that marrying him was a mistake, and she really loved Andy all along. The commotion wakes Mary, who starts to wail just as Andy arrives home.
Scene 2 takes place on top of a hill on the Mayo farm. Rob and Mary are alone, but Rob is lost in his thoughts. He asks his daughter if she would like him to leave, but Mary is horrified. Rob promises he will stay, and Andy walks up to meet them. Rob is pleased to see his brother, despite Ruth’s revelation.
Andy attempts to talk to Rob about how rundown the farm has become and Rob’s poor financial situation, but Rob only wants to hear about his brother’s adventures. Andy describes some of his travels, but he has no love for life at sea. Andy is planning on going to Buenos Aires for a job and tries to give Rob some money to help fix the farm up, but Rob rejects Andy’s offer. Andy also reassures Rob that he no longer thinks of Ruth romantically and that his feelings were only a “kid idea” (168).
Ruth interrupts the brothers, she looks “pretty, flushed and full of life” (168) and it is clear she has made an effort with her appearance for Andy. She makes an excuse to speak to him on his own. Ruth tells Andy how much they’ve all missed him and that the farm has struggled in his absence. To try and reassure her, Andy promises to send an experienced farmer to help after he’s gone, but Ruth is upset that he’s planning to leave and tries to persuade him to change his mind. For a moment, Ruth thinks Andy is leaving for the same reason as last time—because he loves her—but he crushes any hope she has of a future with him, telling her his old feelings were “silly nonsense” (171), and he thinks of her as his sister.
Andy is confused by Ruth’s hysterical reaction, but Rob and Mary return with Captain Scott, who tells Andy that there’s a steamer ship looking for a second mate that’s sailing for Argentina tomorrow morning. Although he wasn’t planning on leaving so soon, Andy decides it’s an opportunity that he can’t turn down. Andy walks away with Scott, leaving a distraught Ruth with Andy and Mary. Mary is upset by her mother’s crying, and Rob tries to comfort her. Ruth manages to collect herself enough to take Mary home for dinner, but she walks with “her eyes fixed on the ground” (174), empty and defeated.
Act II Analysis
Act II begins in the sitting room of the Mayo farmhouse—the same setting that Act I ended—but things have changed in the interceding three years and “little significant details give evidence of carelessness, of inefficiency, of an industry gone to seed” (150). The dilapidation and lack of care of the family home mirror the deterioration of familial relationships and the Mayo’s worsening economic situation. The conversation in Act II Scene 1 between Kate Mayo and Mrs. Atkins, Ruth’s Mother, reveals Rob’s failure as a farmer and a husband. Rob is regularly late for meals, he is letting the farmhouse go to “rack and ruin” (152), and his farming abilities appear to be getting worse instead of better. Although most of the criticism comes from Mrs. Atkins, whose disability has made her mean and bitter, it is evident the family is not as prosperous as before. However, this scene also develops some of Rob’s positives character traits; he is patient and optimistic, as well as a loving father. Whilst Mary seems to annoy Ruth, who threatens her with a spanking, Rob dotes on the little girl. The closeness of Rob and Mary’s relationship isolates Ruth, who looks at the pair with “ill-concealed jealousy” (158).
The regret of not pursuing dreams is also a central theme that develops throughout this act. The distant hills which once inspired Rob now torment him—they are a constant reminder of the life he could have had and the opportunity he let slip by. Rob imagines the hills like a “narrow prison yard shutting [him] in from all the freedom and wonder of life” (16). Whereas the hills were a metaphor for adventure and possibility at the beginning of the play, O’Neill now inverts the image, turning the hills to a claustrophobic symbol of imprisonment. Ruth also harbors her own regrets; she reads and re-reads Andy’s letter and silently ruminates over what her life might have been like if she would have married him, rather than Rob. Andy’s letters, much like Rob’s books, offer Ruth an imaginative escape from the drudgery of everyday existence.
Ruth’s confession that she loves Andy is the climax of the first scene. Her assertion to Rob, that if she could have seen his “true self” then she would have rather killed herself rather than marry him (162), signals the death of their relationship. However, it is questionable whether Ruth’s belief that Andy’s imminent return can fix everything and “he’ll attend to things like they should be” is any more realistic than Rob’s “old fool dreams” of the magical life that lies beyond the hills (161). In Scene 2, when Ruth talks to Andy alone, she tries to rekindle the closeness she felt toward him three years prior, telling him “It’ll be like old times” (169). Ruth attempts to turn back time to a point before she chose to marry Rob, who has made her frustrated and bitter. She sees Andy as an adventurous escape and tells him she feels so free in that moment that she’d “like to have wings and fly over the sea” (169).
The only central character that doesn’t appear to show regret about the path they have chosen so far is Andy, who’s resolution that he “couldn’t be content any more stuck here like a fly in molasses is completely at odds with his characterization at the start of the play (171). However, although Andy doesn’t seem to yet regret his decision to leave, he doesn’t enjoy being at sea or show any love for most of the foreign places he has visited. Andy tells Rob, “And as for the East you used to rave about—well, you ought to see it, and smell it! One walk down their filthy narrow streets with the tropic sun beating on it would sicken you for life with the ‘wonder and mystery’ you used to dream of” (166). Rob is aghast that all Andy has to say about the East is that it smells. Rob dislikes Andy’s account of the region he used to imagine exploring and finds the possibility that the reality of the place might fracture his fantasy of it uncomfortable.
Andy’s attempt to clarify that he sees Ruth as a sister also devastates her dreams of an alternative life with him. By the end of Act II, Rob, Mary, and Ruth are left alone. Ruth’s cries silently, which disturbs Mary, but Rob reassures her that Ruth is only covering her face because “the sun hurts her eyes, that’s all” (171). Here, the sun functions as a symbol of truth—Andy’s departure has illuminated the reality of Ruth’s situation and revealed that her ideas about being with him were only shadowy fantasies.
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