O'Neill의 비극적 좌절과 극복에 관한 연구

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the frustration of humanity, which is reflected in O'Neill's representative dramatic works, such as Desire Under the Elms, Long Day`s Journey Into Night, and The Iceman Cometh. He became one of the playwrights, who achieved remarkable things in the history of the contemporary American literature. And he also brought significant development to the American theatrical world. The main subject in this dissertation is composed of the identical ancient arguments which not only existed but also would exist in his dramas, including conflict between O'Neill's life and his own fate. Here, life and fate used to be the gods. However, they are now within his own self and his past. I will also explore the artistic property of his works which reflected his family's characters. The property is closely connected with the fountainhead of his own passion and power including much of his subjective matter. Therefore it seems to me that situations acquired from his past experiences could bring about the cause of tragedy. Throughout this dissertation, in order to discuss the core factors in the spectacle reflected by the author, I attempt to suggest O'Neill's perspective and I wish to demonstrate the objectivity of three visual issues. First, in Desire Under the Elms, the relationships of wife-husband, parent-child, and brother-brother gradually become destructive, resulting in a serious crisis of family dissociation through excessive materialism and sexual desire. The relationships also become increasingly fatal through adultery, murder, and an Oedipus complex. Accordingly, the intimate relationships in the family become destructive like a trick of fortune. Second, in Long Day`s Journey Into Night, the human relationships look very different from those of the two prior plays. The members of the family in this play suffer from hate, malice, anguish, and feeling of guilt towards one another. However, they endeavor to establish reconcilable and desirable human relationships by means of love, forgiveness, and understanding. Finally, though the dramatic presentation of the absurd human condition and elements is absent from it, O`Neill offers an opportunity to his audiences to reflect what is missing from modern human existence in his late play, The Iceman Cometh. In order to describe the condensed human situation, O`Neill selects characters to represent various classes in society and makes them congregate in a microcosm called Harry Hope Saloon. Three types of elements are found lacking in the lives of these characters who dwell there: 'The Absence of Hope', 'The Absence of Today', and 'The Absence of True Human Relationships.' These deficiencies in the lives of the dwellers in Harry Hope Saloon, emphasize the absurdity of modern man's empty, retrogressive, and secluded existence. In conclusion, given the three visual issues described above, the tragedy in O`Neill's works is the symbol of what he called the 'Force behind-Fate', God, and our biological past creating our present. The struggle against the fate aims at self-emancipation and redemption. Man can achieve a new universal order and victory only through the struggle against tragedy. These facts are what O`Neill tried to express on the modern stage and are the core of his tragic concepts.