A Tragedy Of Desire In Desire Under The Elms From The Perspective Of Lacan's Theory Of Other/Other

Desire Under the Elms is one of Eugene O'Neill's representative works.O'Neill is a great dramatist in the literature history of America.This drama has three parts including eleven scenes.It is unique in the world of drama field and draws many outstanding literature critics to study on it for its simple but compact plots,rough and unadorned language and fewer characters,especially for its emphasis on O'Neill's tragic thought which is deeply influenced by the tragic integrity of ancient Greek thought.The naked desire is the main reason of characters' tragedy.And the presence of other/Other dominates the self's true desire,which is the root of their tragedy.O'Neill uses a tragedy of desire to indicate human's spirit crisis under the manipulation of other/Other.Through close reading of the drama,it can be summarized as a story about the tragic fates of Eben,Ephraim and Abbie.They play the role of other/Other and influence the behaviors of each other out of “desiring the desire of others”.By torturing each other,they have been heading for the abyss of self-destruction.A farmhouse described with simple languages makes people feel easy and comfortable,but it shows the author's deep thinking for human's spirit weakness.By applying Lacan's theory of other/Other,their psychological factors of desire get the interpretation.The other/Other environment has an pivotal effect on characters' psychological activities,more is a hotbed of breeding desire.Their tragedy is an inevitable result of the self being lost in the desire which comes from the interior and exterior motivations.The thesis has five chapters and the main body is divided into three parts according to Eben,Ephraim and Abbie.Chapter one is introduction.This part has three sections,which demonstrate respectively Eugene O'Neill and his representative drama Desire Under the Elms.Both Jacques Lacan and his theories,literature review and thesis structure are also introduced in this chapter.Chapter two gives an elaborated analysis about Eben's tragedy with the viewpoint of “desiring the desire of others”.Eben's desire will be studied with the help of Lacan's theory of mirror stage and name of father,and his mother is considered as the main other image,which helps study on Eben's Oedipus complex.It shows that his desire is chiefly from his mother's desire of the farmhouse.Chapter three is Ephraim Cabot's tragedy of material desire in big other world.The signifier of the farm implies his desire of accumulating wealth,which shifts from his wives to sons and then to the neighbors.Essentially,Cabot's need for them is driven by his desire for wealth.In addition,Unconscious subject will be used for analyzing his unconscious desire from other things.Chapter four reveals Abbie's tragedy of lack.Desire,as the central concept of subject-other theory,makes human always feel sense of lack.Abbie's sense of lack mainly comes from her early miserable life experience,which leads to her uncontrollable desire of money and sexuality and her lack of a sense of security.Chapter five is conclusion,pointing out the characters' tragedies are the result of their psychological desire.The existence of other/Other makes their inner psychological activities act as exterior desire behaviors.By analyzing the three characters' tragedy of desire,the thesis shows people's living and spirit conditions under the immigrant background of New England,North America.Given that people who have suffered from the inflated material desire in modern society and the empty spirit,it aims to state that human's desire is not really “what I want”,but a desire for the missing object from others.The temptation of other/Other makes the subject lose the self and leads to the self-tragedy.Only being rational to the influence of other/Other can people find the true self and achieve their soul's freedom.