Strange Interlude Analysis
Abstract: The objective of the present article is to demonstrate acute psychoanalytical dispositions in Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude. A two tier strategy of delving is involved to delineate that apart from the dramas, it was also the dramatist who was subconsciously self- psychoanalyzing in an attempt to link his conscious and subconscious mind. The first tier includes the characterization, the plot structure, themes and motifs of the drama. The second tier consists of the authors personal background, his idiosyncratic psyche, and his motivation that went through in compiling the dramas. A concurrent juxtaposing is made within the article to prove the impact of psychoanalysis on the dramatist and his dramas.
Keywords: Eugene O’Neill,
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Eugene O’Neill occupies a unique place in the history of American literature by virtue of his monumental contribution to American drama. Being a tragic artist, he was interested in unwinding the bare interior psyche of the human mind. Depicting the raw emotions bereft any cosmetic endeavors were of utmost importance to the dramatist. Freudian formulations of Oedipus Complex, Electra Complex, Impact of repression and Jungian concepts of the Personal Unconscious, Anima animus conflict, the archetypes can be evidently found in the plays like Desire Under the Elms, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Mourning BecomesElectra and Strange …show more content…
Literature has regularly been enriched by philosophers and several literary masterworks have become philosophical treatises. The figure of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) looms large in Twentieth century literature. The influence of Freud is noticeable in all genres of all literatures of the twentieth century all over the world. Accepted by many and questioned by a few, It is indeed outstanding that a man who was principally a psychiatrist and psychologist has impacted literature to such a great extent that Freud has almost become synonymous with modernism in World literature.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory “rested on three bases”, the unconscious, the libido theory, and resistance as the basis of therapy.” (Fine. 35) In his study of the human psyche, Freud divided the human consciousness into three layers, the conscious, the unconscious and the preconscious and
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