Struggles Of Neurotic Personalities

Eugene O'Neill is one of the greatest dramatists in America.He focuses most of his attention on the process of distorting and splitting of personality under exterior pressures.His characters all confront their fates in different ways.Although they have tragic endings,an optimistic spirit is conveyed by their struggles and confrontations.The neo-psychoanalysis of Karen Horney is in correspondence with the optimistic spirit in O'Neill's plays.She thinks that there are no inevitable conflicts between culture and humanity.Culture determines the development of human beings as well as the emergence of neurosis.Only through changing the environment of the diseased society and family,can neurotic personality be saved. This paper tries to analyze the six heroines in O'Neill's plays in the perspective of Horney's neo-psychological theory.Mrs.Roylston in Servitude and Nina in Strange Interlude both belong to the self-effacing or compliant type.Behind their superficial self-sacrifice,there is concealed hostility and a hidden possessive desire.Lavinia in Mourning Becomes Electra and Abbie in Desire under the Elms belong to the vindictive or aggressive type.They hate helplessness and make use of others to conquer everything to achieve their goal.Lavinia dominates and manipulates her brother Orin as her weapon to revenge against her mother.The actions of her killing mother by her brother as well as her goading brother to take suicide are carried out under the banner of "justice" and "honor of her family".Another heroine Abbie struggles in the possession between wealth and sexuality.Her desire towards farm finally gives way to sexuality,but not love.Her infanticide implies not only abjuration of farm but also the nature of sexuality in her love.Her courage of receiving the final judgment comes from her neurotic pride instead of her remorse in a moral sense.Mary in Long Day's Journey into Night and Deborah in More Stately Mansions are apparently detached type.Due to their desperation in reality,they lose their worldly pursuit and only yearn for perfection and freedom.They indulge in their world of dream by their own ways.Once others intrude upon their forbidden area,they will become nervous and indulge into conflicts. The neurotic women of O'Neill's works are all victims of their culture and society.They do their utmost to struggle against fate in a wrong direction.This can be seen as sympathy and understanding of the author towards them.In fact,through the description of these neurotic women,O'Neill calls for a totally change of the neurotic society.