A Horneyan Interpretation Of Tom's Neurotic Personality In The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams is regarded as the most famous Southern playwright in the history of American literature.The unique growing environment and life experience have made him successfully create a series of the vivid images of marginal people.The Glass Menagerie is Williams' first well-known play,and one of his classic plays as well.In 1944,it first opened at Chicago's Civic Theatre,and caused a sensation in 1945 when it opened again in New York.In less than two weeks after it opened in New York,it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and was nominated as the Best American Play of 1945.And as a result,Williams himself has suddenly emerged as one of the American top-dollar playwrights.Taking Williams' own experience as the model,this play tells of a story of the Wingfields happening in America of the 1930 s.This is a tragedy without any villain,and all the plots are memories.Based on Karen Horney's theory of neurosis,this thesis tries to explore the inner world of protagonist Tom through a detailed analysis of the representations and causes of his neurotic personality.Different from Freud's biological determinism,Horney emphasizes more the effect of environment and considers it the fundamental cause of neurotic personality.In her view,everyone lives in a specific environment.People's feelings and attitudes are to an amazingly high degree molded by the conditions under which they live,both cultural and individual,inseparably interwoven.Sometimes,they are also known as social culture and interpersonal relationship.The contradictory culture and maladjusted interpersonal relationship will easily trigger and aggravate individual's basic anxiety.And the defensive strategies developing to allay the basic anxiety will further crystallize into lasting character trends which become part of his personality.These defensive strategies although equally imperative,are nevertheless incompatible with one another.So when they are present in any strong degree,the individual is bound to sink into a severe conflict.Horney calls the conflict born of incompatible attitudes “basic conflict” and considers it the core of neurosis.That is to say,she holds that neurosis is an expression of a disturbance in human relationships.The unique social cultural context of The Glass Menagerie makes the environment particularly vital in the development of Tom's personality.The absence of paternal love,distortion of maternal love and commitment to his beloved sister all make young Tom feel very anxious.And the unique cultural conditions of the 30 s,like the decline of the old South and domination of patriarchal society,further make his anxiety reach to its peak.Eventually,the inward anxiety and maladjustment of defense system lead him to make the same choice as his father—hoping to achieve a spiritual liberation and redemption through exiling himself.Horney points out in her book Our Inner Conflicts that the key to resolve the neurosis lies in resolving the basic conflict.And the conflict can be resolved only by changing those conditions within the personality that brought them into being.Tom fails to realize it.So no matter how far he goes,he will always be haunted by his memory of past.This thesis is mainly composed of three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The introductory chapter includes an account of Tennessee Williams' life and his first well-known play The Glass Menagerie,then reviews the previous research on this play both at home and abroad.Chapter One introduces Karen Horney's life and the development of her ideologies,then explores the main points of her theory of neurosis from four aspects.Chapter Two demonstrates the representations of Tom's neurotic personality and classifies them into three types according to the three broad neurotic trends in the theory.Chapter Three analyzes the causes of Tom's neurotic personality and divides them into two parts according to Horney's point of view.Chapter Four mainly probes into Tom's self-redemption and its consequences.Tom fails to face up to his real emotional needs and solve the contradictions between him and his mother.So his selfredemption is doomed to failure.In general,Tom in The Glass Menagerie should not be briefly defined as a cowardly or an irresponsible man by considering how that unique environment influences the development of his personality.His spiritual dilemma is in fact a reflection of the spiritual dilemmas of American people at that time.Combined with Horney's theory of neurosis,this thesis tries to dig up the underlying causes of his abnormal behaviors through analyzing a series of representations of his neurotic personality,and finally reveals the root of his tragedy.