The characters Eben, Abbie, and Ephraim roughly correspond with Hippolytus, Phaedra, and Theseus respectively. Both plays are driven by a love triangle between a father, a son, and a stepmother, and the tragedy arises from misguided actions made by the stepmother. In Phaedra's case it is her lust of her husband's son and the falseness of her letter. O'Neill takes this one step further in "Desire Under the Elms" and makes Abbie's misguided actions the begetting and murder of her child.