His lustful words show his sinful passion Abbie marries Cabot for the farm and later betrays him O Neill presents how greed and desire blind human hearts leading them toward inevitable guilt and suffering Adulterous Love as Sin Eben and Abbie s love is the central sin of the play Their relationship begins as revenge but turns into forbidden love Abbie says Can t ye see it s got t be that an more much more fur me t be happy This love violates family and moral laws Their passion leads to guilt not joy O Neill shows that love without purity becomes sin Their secret affair brings shame and tragedy proving that sinful desire always demands a painful retribution Murder as the Final Sin Abbie s act of killing her baby is the greatest sin She kills the child to prove her love for Eben She says I killed him Eben Her crime shocks both Eben and Cabot This murder becomes the turning point of their punishment Abbie s act though born of love is morally wrong It destroys the family completely Through this O Neill shows that even passionate love cannot justify sin The killing becomes the symbol of human weakness and tragic retribution Retribution Through Guilt and Suffering Every character in the play faces retribution Eben s heart fills with guilt after Abbie s crime He says I ll tell the Sheriff His decision to confess shows his deep regret Abbie too suffers mentally and emotionally Cabot loses everything his family pride and peace His final words God s lonesome hain t He God s hard an lonesome show his inner punishment O Neill makes it clear that their suffering is not God s revenge but the natural result of their own sins and desires Moral and Spiritual Realization Ultimately the sinners gain awareness of their guilt Eben and Abbie accept their punishment together Their final walk to prison becomes an act of spiritual cleansing They find peace in suffering Cabot realizes his loneliness and failure as a father O Neill s treatment of sin and retribution is not about divine punishment but human realization The characters pain purifies them Their suffering under the dark elms becomes their moral redemption and tragic end To sum up O Neill treats sin and retribution with deep humanity Desire greed and pride cause every sin and guilt becomes the true punishment Abbie s crime Eben s guilt and Cabot s loneliness show that sin destroys but also awakens the soul O Neill teaches that retribution is not from heaven it comes from within the human heart filled with pain and repentance