This thesis aims at examining the structure of American capitalistic desire in the twentieth century in the two naturalistic plays, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire under the Elms and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. O’Neill and Williams criticize American society in their works, showing that t...
This thesis aims at examining the structure of American capitalistic desire in the twentieth century in the two naturalistic plays, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire under the Elms and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. O’Neill and Williams criticize American society in their works, showing that the characters are subjected to capital and ruined so as to be paranoics and schizophrenics in their capitalistic society. After the two world wars, Americans enjoyed material affluence and great power through capital, but at the same time, suffered from its contradictions and social ills. In addition, unlike the previous agricultural society, the capitalistic society regulated not only man’s life but also interactions among people. Therefore, Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex, which interpreted man’s schizophrenics in the pre-capitalistic society, is now insufficient to interpret man’s schizophrenics in the capital society. In other words, though there is room to explain the characters’ desire in Desire under the Elms set in immature capitalistic society in the 1850s, Freud’s Oedipus Complex has nothing to do with the characters’desire in A Streetcar Named Desire set in mature capitalistic society of the 1940s. In Desire under the Elms, O’Neill deals with materialism caused by Gold Rush in the 1850s and with the materialism that results in man’s alienation, family breakdown and paranoic symptoms. O’Neill seems to say that despite the contradictions of capitalism, its society may be able to overcome man’s nature, and to love and understand one another as suggested in the last scene. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams shows materialism, schizophrenia and man’s destruction caused by the mature capitalistic society in the 1940s: it is a lot worse than in the immature capitalistic society in the 1850s. In the play, the characters’schizophrenia and use of sexuality are the reason why man becomes an object in capitalistic society, according to the theory of Deleuze’s‘body without organs.’But Williams seems to show that though man is desperately ruined, she can overcome her ruin by way of man’s nature, kindness, as demonstrated in the last scene of the play. Assuming that both desire for sex and material in the two plays are caused by social system, capitalism, it is possible to interpret these two plays using Deleuze’s theories. Deleuze argues that capitalism urges man’s desire for capital, of all other kinds of desire. Thus, man subjected to desire becomes paranoics and schizophrenics. And man's desire for capital seems to have originated not in man's nature, but in society. So it can be anything to be changed by it. These theories seem to me to be relevant to O’Neill’s and Williams’s critical attitudes to the capitalistic society in their plays.
This thesis aims at examining the structure of American capitalistic desire in the twentieth century in the two naturalistic plays, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire under the Elms and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. O’Neill and Williams criticize American society in their works, showing that the characters are subjected to capital and ruined so as to be paranoics and schizophrenics in their capitalistic society. After the two world wars, Americans enjoyed material affluence and great power through capital, but at the same time, suffered from its contradictions and social ills. In addition, unlike the previous agricultural society, the capitalistic society regulated not only man’s life but also interactions among people. Therefore, Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex, which interpreted man’s schizophrenics in the pre-capitalistic society, is now insufficient to interpret man’s schizophrenics in the capital society. In other words, though there is room to explain the characters’ desire in Desire under the Elms set in immature capitalistic society in the 1850s, Freud’s Oedipus Complex has nothing to do with the characters’desire in A Streetcar Named Desire set in mature capitalistic society of the 1940s. In Desire under the Elms, O’Neill deals with materialism caused by Gold Rush in the 1850s and with the materialism that results in man’s alienation, family breakdown and paranoic symptoms. O’Neill seems to say that despite the contradictions of capitalism, its society may be able to overcome man’s nature, and to love and understand one another as suggested in the last scene. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams shows materialism, schizophrenia and man’s destruction caused by the mature capitalistic society in the 1940s: it is a lot worse than in the immature capitalistic society in the 1850s. In the play, the characters’schizophrenia and use of sexuality are the reason why man becomes an object in capitalistic society, according to the theory of Deleuze’s‘body without organs.’But Williams seems to show that though man is desperately ruined, she can overcome her ruin by way of man’s nature, kindness, as demonstrated in the last scene of the play. Assuming that both desire for sex and material in the two plays are caused by social system, capitalism, it is possible to interpret these two plays using Deleuze’s theories. Deleuze argues that capitalism urges man’s desire for capital, of all other kinds of desire. Thus, man subjected to desire becomes paranoics and schizophrenics. And man's desire for capital seems to have originated not in man's nature, but in society. So it can be anything to be changed by it. These theories seem to me to be relevant to O’Neill’s and Williams’s critical attitudes to the capitalistic society in their plays.
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