A Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Martin’s Predicament In The Goat Or,Who Is Sylvia?

Edward Albee（1928-2016）is one of the most influential American playwrights in the 20^th century.Albee has written or adapted more than 30 plays during his career which spans about half a century.Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama,and two of his other plays won the Tony Award for Best Play.He was also the recipient of Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.With observant eyes,Albee was adept at reflecting on modern life,mirroring social problems and dilemma of human existence,human alienation and isolation in his plays.The Goat or,Who Is Sylvia?—Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy is one of the most important plays by Albee which won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play.It depicts an astonishing family tragedy caused by an extramarital love affair.Martin,the protagonist of this play,confesses that he has fallen in love with a goat that he has named Sylvia.This event provokes intense conflicts in his family.Sylvia is killed by Martin’s wife.Martin is reduced to a bestialist from a successful gentleman.He is like a trapped animal,overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness.His situation is the real existence of human beings.Why has Martin fallen in love with a goat?Why is he alienated,helpless and lonely?Martin’s affair with a goat is eye-catching;however,his predicament therein is thought-provoking.The Goat has been analyzed by overseas and domestic scholars from the perspectives of eco-criticism,archetypal criticism,ethical criticism,absurdity,intertextuality,subjectivity,Freudian psychoanalysis,etc.Martin’s predicament has not been interpreted from the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis.Since psychoanalysis is helpful for people to understand human behavior,psychoanalysis can help to understand literary texts.And this thesis aims at interpreting Martin’s spiritual predicament from the psychoanalytic perspectives of Freud and Lacan so as to understand the author’s intention and analyze its social significance.The thesis consists of three parts:the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The first part is the introduction.It concludes a brief introduction to the author,The Goat,the literature review of this play as well as the significance of interpreting this play from the perspective of psychoanalytic criticism.The second part is the main body of the thesis.And there are four chapters.Chapter One outlines psychoanalytic criticism,in particular Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis,pointing the theoretical framework and the core ideas upon which this thesis is based.Chapter Two analyzes Martin’s concrete spiritual predicament.By analyzing Martin’s sexual aberration,the thesis uproots Martin’s unconscious momentum for his parapraxis.Chapter Three explores the causes for Martin’s spiritual predicament.On the one hand,the goat symbolizes Martin’s lust and Sylvia is the other which sets Martin’s repressed desire in motion.Martin seeks the feeling of completeness and union with the world by having sexual intercourse with Sylvia.On the other hand,Martin has to be restrained by Other/social norms and laws.He is obliged to identify with the law of the father to get his identity in the symbolic order.Bestiality is unacceptable in the society.He is detested by others,which makes him distressed.Martin finds himself in the mire due to the conflict between his desire and rules.Chapter Four elaborates on the consequences of Martin’s spiritual predicament.The alterity of other and Other makes Martin an alienated and split subject during the process of imaginary identification and symbolic identification.Mutual understanding is elusive.Martin fails to overcome his separateness and to leave the prison of his aloneness.The last part is the conclusion.A psychoanalytic interpretation of this play is helpful to break Martin’s illusion of subject and desire to find the truth of Martin’s predicament.The goat Sylvia is the projection of people’s desire.Desire can never be satisfied.People should not give ground to their desire so as to prevent such a tragedy from happening.