回忆的困境-浅析《长日漫漫入夜来》中的悲剧_英语论文

Mire in the Recess of Past: Analysis of the Tragedy in Long Day’s Journey into Night

摘要

作为美国戏剧史上颇具重要意义的作家，尤金·奥尼尔用杰出作品展示了悲剧的力量，其自身经历也充满悲剧性。当我们欣赏尤金·奥尼尔的作品时，总能感受到一种超越故事本身，直达心灵的力量，这是现实与艺术结合的产物。回顾奥尼尔的坎坷经历，不难发现，他的一生本就是一幕悲剧。他波折的人生经历影响了自身的创作，这表现在他各个时期的作品总是与他的生活经历紧密结合，从而成为半自传性的写照。《长日漫漫入夜来》是尤金·奥尼尔后期创作高峰的代表作品。作为一部极具自传性、饱含爱恨的家庭作品，许多学者从不同角度解析这部作品。本文从奥尼尔自身创伤记忆和创作经历入手，挖掘作品诞生的深层次背景，结合文本，着重借创伤理论来分析剧中人物矛盾的心理状态及生活状态，以小见大，分析现代人的挣扎和悲剧。

关键词：《长日漫漫入夜来》 创伤记忆 家庭悲剧 生存困境

Abstract

As one of the important dramatists in the American drama history, Eugene O'Neil revealed the power of tragedy through his outstanding works as well as his life experiences. When appreciating the plays of him, we can notice some special power that surpasses the plot itself and gets into our deep heart, which is the combination of reality and art. Looking back on the rough life of Eugene O'Neil, it’s not difficult to find that his life experience was exactly a tragedy. And the twists and turns in life of Eugene O'Neil had great impact on his literature creation, which can find expression in that the works in different stages were always closely interwoven with his real experiences, thus forming the semi-real heart portrayal of him. Long Day’s Journey into Night, as a representative works of later period was a semi-biographical work interwoven with love and hate and has attracted many scholars’ interests. The author is going to start the paper with the traumatic memory and creation experience of Eugene O'Neil to dig out the background behind the work. And based on the Long Day’s Journey into Night, the author mainly focuses on the exploration of the conflicting psychological state and living state of characters with the help of the traumatic theory. Then in view of the tragedy and struggle of the small family, the author naturally extends the topic to the struggle or tragedy of modern people. 

Key words: Long Day’s Journey into Night family tragedy traumatic memory living predicament 

Contents

Introduction 5

1 Background of the Play 8

1.1The Connection between Traumatic Memory and Literature Creation 8

1.2 The Traumatic Family Life of Eugene O’Neil 9

1.3 The Traumatic Memories in Eugene O’Neil’s Writing 12

2 Tragedies in the Play 14

2.1 Traumatic Memories of the Family Members 14

2.1.1 Innocent and Morphine Addicted Mother 14

2.1.2 Rootless and Money-Obsessed Father 16

2.1.3 Inner Conflicting Sons 18

2.2 Conflicts in the Family and the Reasons for Family Tragedy 19

2.2.2 Exploration for the Dysfunctional Family 21

3 Tragedy of Modern People 22

3.1 The Tragedy of Modern People 22

3.2 Solutions for Living Predicament of Modern People 25

Conclusion 26

Bibliography 27

Acknowledgement 28