Hughie, the only surviving manuscript from a series of eight one-act monologue plays that O'Neill planned in 1940, was completed in 1941. In the play, only two characters appear on stage; Hughie, the third and most important one, is dead. It is Hughie's innocence, gullibility, and need to believe in a far more exciting existence than he ever knew that gives purpose to the shabby livs of the two who remain. O'Neill here again writes of the defeated and the courage that comes by way of illusions.