on the stony farm His heart is full of pride not love O Neill uses Cabot to criticize the Puritan idea that faith means rejecting joy He shows that such belief makes life dry and cruel Hard Work and Lack of Humanity The Puritan faith values work more than feelings Cabot thinks his land is sacred because he earned it with sweat and pain But his love for the farm becomes greed He forgets his family s needs His wives die in sorrow and his sons hate him O Neill shows that work without love brings emptiness The stones on the land become symbols of Cabot s hard heart and the cold Puritan spirit Suppression of Desire and Joy Puritanism teaches people to control emotions and desires But O Neill believes that natural desires are part of human life Eben and Abbie s love is sinful by Puritan law yet it is full of life Abbie says Can t ye see it s got t be that an more much more fur me t be happy Her words express passion and longing O Neill suggests that denying such feelings leads to tragedy The play shows how love when suppressed turns into guilt and destruction Conflict Between Religion and Nature O Neill contrasts Cabot s religion with the natural world around him The elm trees stones and farmhouse reflect human emotion The elms are described as They brood oppressively over the house They symbolize nature s power over human pride Cabot sees God as a punishing ruler but O Neill presents nature as a living force He believes that nature not strict religion guides true human feeling Through this O Neill rejects Puritan coldness and supports natural emotion and freedom Loneliness and Moral Failure Ultimately Cabot feels alone and broken His Puritan belief gives him no comfort He says sadly God s lonesome hain t He God s hard an lonesome His life proves that faith without love is empty His sons leave him and his wife betrays him O Neill shows that strict Puritan ideals destroy relationships and happiness Cabot s loneliness becomes the punishment for his pride and blindness The play ends with silence under the dark elms symbols of sorrow and lost hope To sum up O Neill clearly rejects Puritanism Through Cabot he shows that faith without love becomes cruelty Puritan ideals of work sin and punishment bring only loneliness and guilt O Neill believes that true life lies in emotion passion and nature His reaction to Puritanism is a defense of human desire and freedom against cold lifeless faith and moral pride