A Comparative Study Of Thunderstorm And Desire Under The Elms

Cao Yu and Eugene O’Neill are two outstanding playwrights with great achievementand influence in the first half of the20th century. Although they stood in different nationaland cultural background and had never met before, there are many similar conceptions oftragedy in their plays. Their tragic consciousness comes from not only the obsession ofancient Greek tragedies, but also from their own tragedies; unhappy families and repressedsoul endow them with a deep sense of tragedy. Both Thunderstorm and Desire under theElms staged a tragic life and presented the tragic conception which is caused by the tragedyof life, based on the reality and unreality. This thesis attempts to compare two tragicperspectives of the two plays to reveal the social conflicts, family conflicts and the spiritembodied in three groups of characters.The introduction offers a brief survey between the playwrights and their dramas, aliterary review of the studies done so far, points out the successes and shortages, a briefintroduction to this thesis.The second part is the main body which is composed of three chapters. The FirstChapter explores the causes of social conflict and the form of the social conflict-classconflict, from the background of playwrights and works. The Second Chapter is acomparative study of family conflicts caused by the social conflicts. Although family conflictis a kind of internal conflict, it is caused by patriarchal management mode under the socialconflict. Therefore, family conflict is one of the branches of conflict. The Third Chaptercompares the three groups of characters in Thunderstorm and Desire under the Elms-ZhouPuyuan vs Cabot, Fanyi vs Abbie, and Zhou Ping vs Eben. Although the three groups ofcharacters belong to different countries and different works, both Dionysian spirit andApollonian spirit referred in ancient Greek tragedies are reflected in their hearts throughanalyzing. These two spirits struggled in every character’s heart, trying to control their souls,their personalities.Based on the previous chapters, the last part comes to a conclusion for the entire thesis.These two playwrights, although come from different countries, reveal the similarities oftragic conflicts in their respective works. It is pointed out clearly that this thesis makes abreakthrough on the basis of the materials by the previous scholars, and providing referencevalue for the future studies.