Eugene O’Neill’s plays are greatly stirred by psychoanalytical formularisations of the 20th century. They venturesomely denudate people’s sophisticated demeanor and countenance to delve deep into their inner psyches. Particularly, O’Neill’s Desire under the Elms elucidates a continuous motif of varied emotional desires — an enslaving urge of property, an incestuous passion, and a deeply perceptible father-son disputes knitted together with the most intricate patterns incorporated by O’Neill to highlight the association between the members of the damned Cabot family. It was written in the year 1924 when America was concealed under the traditional authoritative, atrocious bitterness of patriarchy and the vicious compulsion for materialistic needs. The dramatist sets the play during the mid-nineteenth century in New England farm life as the setting for a tale that is decimated with tragedy, adultery, incest, and infanticide. The play percolates deep inside the contingency of its dramatic personae to anatomise the spur, stimulus and nature of human beings. “Desire Under the Elms” alludes to the ancient Greek legends and the contemporary Freudian theory of Oedipus complex. “O’Neill’s exploration of the subconscious in his plays, which was inspired by his study of Freud’s theories, is an important aspect of his presentation of human nature and well worthy” (201, qtd in Boni).
Peter Conn in his “Literature in America” draws his perception on that, due to the variety in his experiments, no single play of O’Neill is typical of his works in the 20’s. Desire in its multiple forms, as lust, as will to power, as yearning for beauty — propels the plays’ three characters on their tragic course. “A story of repression, passion, adultery, and murder unfolds within the walls of cheerless nineteenth century New England Farmhouse. The setting is at once starkly realistic and a symbolic stage for the dramatisation of the subconscious.” (368) Conn further elaborates on the characterisation of O’Neill’s dramas and stresses on the evident fact that along with his characteristic interest in the psychology of motivation, the plays also exemplifies O’Neill’s merging of carefully constructed actualities with symbolism.
From a meticulous observation of the play, we can envisage that the internal emotional functioning of all the paramount characters such as Cabot, Eben and Abbie divulge dissimilar and varied patterns of human disposition. A towering concatenation of psychological realism suffuse the play through some conspicuous occurrences like the menacing abhorrence of Cabot and Eben, his craving for revenge upon Cabot, Eben’s oedipal aptitude, Abbie’s incitement in marrying old Cabot and having a son, etc.
The Psychoanalytic Framework
This play is permeated with an inexorable anagogic contour of the dynamic momentum that functions in and through human psyche, the power palpable by itself, which resides in the human psyche and which is ascertainable through the wisdom and technique of psychoanalysis. Eben’s Oedipus complex is one such illustration, nevertheless, it eventually surpasses scientific or perspicacious interpretation. And whether or not O’Neill’s prominence deviates in the advancement of his career from an “external” to an “internal” abstractions of fate.
In Desire, the audience and the readers of the play are concurrently acquitted of the atramentous desires, only energies that are to an extent comprehensible to the individual subconscious, and of an omnipotent cosmic criterion functioning itself out, throughout the operation of the tragedy. The preconscious mind is the portion of the mind that presents the image of common memory. Although we are not consciously knowledgeable of this information at any given time, we can still reacquire it and draw it into consciousness when required. The unconscious mind is a repository of feelings, cogitation, strong desires in the form of compulsions, and memories that are external to our conscious awareness. Most of the subjects of the unconscious are disagreeable or repugnant, such as emotions of affliction, convulsions, or struggle. According to Freud, the unconscious forge ahead to impact our attitude and experience, even though we are incognisant of the sub-stratal influences.
Freud allegorized these levels of mind to an iceberg. The apex of the iceberg that is generally seen above the water symbolizes the conscious mind. The part of the iceberg that is deluged below the water but is still detectable is the preconscious. The aggregate of the iceberg that lies veiled beneath the waterline symbolizes the unconscious. According to Freud, every individual is also endowed with an assured measure of psychological energy that configures the three basic structures of personality: the id, the ego, and the superego. These three structures have distinct roles and functions at different stratum of the mind.
Archetypes establish the structure of the collective unconscious — they are psychic inherited and congenital personal temperament which impersonates basic human behavior and conditions. Thus mother-child association is administered by the mother archetype. Father-child — by the father archetype. Birth, death, power and failure are governed by archetypes. The devotional and mystique experiences are also controlled by archetypes. The most pivotal of all is the Self, which is the archetype of the Centre of the psychic person, his/her totality or wholeness. The Centre is fashioned by the consensus of conscious and unconscious attained through the individuation process. The Anima-Animus concept is also an important aspect of Jungian psychoanalysis.
Jung in his ‘The Structure and Dynamic of the Psyche’ stated “Although our inheritance consists of physiological pathways, it was nevertheless mental processes in our ancestors that traced them. If they come to consciousness again in the individual, they can do so only in the form of other mental processes; and although these processes can become conscious only through individual experience and consequently appear as individual acquisitions, they are nevertheless pre-existent pathways which are merely ‘filled out’ by individual experience. Probably every ‘impressive’ experience is just such a break-through into an old, previously unconscious river-bed.” …
Oedipus Complex in the Play
Desire under the Elms is an amalgamation of the incognizant Oedipus complex projected by Sigmund Freud. It is a quintessential drama depicting the Greek tragedy and myth being much germane to its convulsions on fate. It is also considered as the most paradigmatic masterpiece being symptomatic of O’Neill’s menacing Oedipus complex. This article intends to investigate O’Neill’s inner world of Oedipus complex, and trace the underpinnings behind his conceptions of subconscious drama. In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex implies to the emotions and abstractions that the mind deposits in the subconscious, in preposition to a dynamic suppression, that persistently contemplates upon a boy’s ambition to sexually possess his mother, and exterminate his father. “Examples of psychoanalytic discourse in 1920’s Desire under the Elms suggests that unconscious passions and complexes can easily overtakes conscious control” (385, Bruce).
O’Neill incorporated the concept of Oedipus complex into his dramas in part, due of his own destitution of mother’s affection and love during his childhood. He barely was able to ever recuperate from the deterioration of his mind and heart that generated the sensation of desolation and forlornness, when he was left in the boarding school. According to Freud’s Theory that once instinct is suppressed into the unconscious system, in substitute of disappearing, it introspects other leeway for discharging. Migrating through his personal burden and austerity, O’Neill finally discovered his way of delineating that profound burden of Oedipus complex within his subconscious, into his dramas. The construction of his dramas is predominantly tragic and emotionally penetrable in tone, which seems to be the best leeway for O’Neill without being dishonest. Horst Frenz in his book Eugene O’Neill states that psychiatrist Philip Weissman made the interesting observation that “Desire under the Elms” is an “unconscious autobiography” and indeed O’Neill felt no scruples about portraying his father again in later plays (47).
O’Neill attempted to dispense his Oedipus complex by attaining biological fulfilment through his wife and prostitutes, by eluding the actuality of his existence by undertaking sailing and being inebriated, and even by committing attempted suicide. He was very fond of sea voyages as it took O’Neill aloof, from the reality of the land. It emotionally landed him in a state where he could will, wish and do anything without hindrance. Providentially, he culminated himself into the dramatic world which successfully and explicitly transfused his pain and agony into his dramatizations. During the course of composing his dramas, which are profoundly engrossed in the harsh realities of the world, O’Neill depurates his own Oedipus complex into extraordinary literary classics, cherished by history and the entire world.
Oedipus complex energetically dominated O’Neill’s three marriages. In his first two associations, he treated his wives more as a mother than as a wife. His third wife Charlotta indicated that his husband O’Neill was envisaging for a mother all his life. Interestingly, O’Neill also conceded to his third wife stated by Robert Dowling in O’Neill, ‘A Life In Four Acts’ — “You are my mama now.” (London Review of Books. Lahr)
Steven Bloom states that O’Neill claimed to Kenneth MacGowen, in 1924, that the play that was to become Desire under the Elms, had come to him in a dream, so it is particularly fitting to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of unconscious and dream interpretation to an analysis of this play. In this case, considered as the ‘dream work’, of a man who has recently experienced the loss of his father, mother and brother. Desire under the Elms reveals a great deal about the tormented subconscious of the dramatist at this time (98).
In 1924, and subsequently, the application of the Oedipus story inescapably circumscribed O’Neill’s dramas with Freud’s Oedipal theory, which conjectures that boys of the adolescent age subconsciously appetite to undermine their fathers in their maternal attachment. Many of them characteristically burgeon out of this stage of augmentation, but every now and then these subconscious desires may be dilatory to the state of puberty and further.
When considered from a psychoanalytic perspective, Stevens writes that “the basic situation of Desire under the elms, in which a young man clearly lusts for his father wife, strongly suggests not only that the 25 year old character (Eben) suffers from an Oedipus complex, but also that the 36 year old author might so be diagnosed” (98). O’Neill completed this drama in quite a precise time of just six weeks, starting from its realization to its consummation. The drama is impregnated with emotions: the longing for maternal affection, which has been repressed in the entire drama, blended with detestation and abhorrence towards the paternal, and commiseration towards his own self. All the dramatist’s apprehensions and cogitation about injustice and discrimination towards himself, the grief and desire which he underwent are inter-wreathed together to conclusively produce a passionate masterpiece Desire under the Elms.
Character Analysis
The Oedipus complex embedded in O’Neill’s metaphysical cosmos, is explicitly evident from a varied number of characterizations, in his dramas, and Desire under the Elms is his outstanding one in provision of exhibiting that feeling. Eben, one of the protagonist in this drama, also the avatar of Oedipus, can be regarded as the most convoluted character. His agony towards to his father flows is out poured in every instance, while his affection and desire for his love is obstinate and deep rooted. The farm belonged to his mother, but now that the farm belongs to his father after the death of his mother due to her excessive hard work in the farm, had created within Eben, a dynamic and forceful conception of vengeance towards his father, his asseveration within himself to avenge his father for the death of his mother, may be considered as a true feeling but, when viewed from a psychological lens, it is evidently viewed as a dark and a catastrophic one. The sight of his mother’s dead body created a conflict within his psyche, which repelled against the fact, that he would not get his mother’s love for ever. This discordance erupted a sense of antimony towards his father, and his resolution to get back the farm from his father.
As for his appositeness with Abbie, Eben is not so certain about it but nevertheless, he enjoys it. On one hand he considers it as a source to avenge his father, and on the other, the substitute for his mother’s love. Eben’s subconscious mind, finds an alternate leeway in the form of Abbie, his mixed emotions pertaining to revenge, hatred, and lust which finally evolves into a psychological imbalance between accustomed and the anomaly. Due to his lecherous association with Abbie, his alienation has vanished even before he could apprehend his love for Abbie.
During the commencement of the play, we can discover the estranged relationship Cabot shared with his two sons namely Simeon and Peter. An absolute remnant of emotional and cerebral dispute is evident between the father and sons. Both the sons were absorbed with a belief that their father was deficient in corresponding to any human emotions and his insensitivity lacked to fulfil any filial associations and hence abhorred him. Both the sons were so bedeviled and capsulated by these cerebrations pertaining to Cabot that they desired for his death. The role of subconscious is evident in both the brothers, as they always had a repressed desire to escape from their fathers clutches and go into the city of California. Where they both thought would get rich within a very short span of time. This suppression of the brothers were even more actively coagulating within their subconscious, when their father had imposed extreme hard labor on them on the farm. Even though the brothers use to work on the fathers farm, they were entirely capsulated by the materialistic needs within them. Their repressed thoughts of becoming rich and being freed away from the hard work denotes the dramatist predisposition towards attaining the unattainable subconsciously.
Eben was unreasonably convinced that Cabot deliberately and in a piecemeal manner debilitated and killed his mother by coercing her to excessive labor on the farm. This notion precisely fashioned his psyche to be more determinedly rancorous towards his father. Alternatively, Eben was also occupied with the perception that his step-brothers were also chargeable for the death of his mother, as there was no initiative from them to protect her from the insensitive and torturous clutches of Cabot. Eben was credulous of the fact that the farm actually was the property of his mother and Cabot crookedly captured it from her. Eben’s persistent comprehension, as per his conclusion was that, Cabot not only bamboozled his mother but also dispossessed him as being the rightful suitor of the farm. When his father remarried for the third time and came home with his young wife, Eben’s desire of avenging his father was even more aggravated by the thought that she might in a course of time could make a claim to the farm.
Eben’s sub-conscionable maternal fixation is acknowledged numerous times in the play. Even after the annihilation of his mother, Eben’s subconscious is protuberant many times where Eben was much convinced to feel his mother’s existence near the stove, which he later revealed to his step-brothers. He later proclaimed that his mother is unable to rest harmoniously in her grave as she feels deeply agonized to sight that her son has to undergo the identical painstaking duties which she had been forced to perform formerly. Eben demonstrated to emphasize the presence of his deceased mother’s apparition when Abbie disclosed that she could sense some imperceptible energy inside the parlor room. In this way Eben indiscriminately was of the perception that his deceased mother is stimulating him to acquire fervent, desirous pursuit of Abbie to avenge upon his father.
Just like O’Neill’s anomaly characterizations, his dialogues too are in an aberrant mode. The characters discharge their innate aptitude and impulse. The characters articulate profoundly within their dialogues, which are at times multilayered. They express the most abominable emotion through their dialogue in the drama, whereas the folks in the external world would be closemouthed. The characters speak out their best in comparison to actual human being. They divulge their primeval desires and subconscious cerebrations, rather than indulging into mannerly, conventional confabulations.
In his deliberate and sustained effort to revive Tragedy on the modern stage, Eugene O’Neill, while paying lip service to the modern science of psychology, repeatedly insisted on mystery as the essence of his vision of human destiny.
Collective Unconscious and Archetypal Patterns
O’Neill was probably very aware of Jung’s view of the Collective Unconscious. His persistent curiosity in the “Behind Life force” would almost assure that he was sensitive to the psychologist’s differentiation between a personal unconscious, the residue of personal experience that has drifted out of the authority of conscious exercise, and a collective unconscious, a legacy of requirements, responses, and instincts so common to man through the millennia that they comprise a body of archetypal experiences ingrained in all mankind liberated of any individual experience. This body of unconscious life would constitute the Behind Life energy dragging man on to his destiny. It does not derive from subjective experience; it is purely objective to each individual — a body of psychic luggage having everything to do with the formation of men while man, as he receives it, has nothing to do with the formation of it. Access must be had into this objective dimension of the psyche so that the release of its energy at the conscious level of experience be a positive one. As archetypes of the collective unconscious, the anima and animus mediate to the ego this deeper, collective, objective dimension of the psyche. Access to this objective body is given to the conscious, masculine ego through the anima and to the feminine ego through the animus.
The archetypal opposites dictate how, at the level of image, O’Neill structured the play’s setting. The elms and the rock walls establish, at the subliminal level, the polar contents of the anima and animus. The rocks which enclose the farm within its boundaries symbolize the masculine elements contained in the animus. Desire under the elms is a classic example where O’Neill had incorporated all the above assertions as propounded by Jung. The role of the subconscious is very explicit in the plays of Desire under Elms and Strange Interlude.
Given their universality and their unrestricted requirement to be reconciled, the archetypes comprise the tragic tension between opposites that compels on all individuals to their own structure of resolution. In his employment of them, O’Neill discovered a tragic force that propelled his characters to action, a secular equivalent to the power of the Gods in Sophoclean tragedy. The anima-animus contradistinction constitutes the Behind Life force which, independent of conscious will, drives the Cabot’s and Abbie on to tragic consequences with a pressure nearly as complete as that of the Gods on Oedipus.
Conclusion
O’Neill is one of the most autobiographical artists in modern literature. His resourcefulness customarily evolves around subjective investigation and autobiographical representation in his art. Therefore drama for him includes customarily dramatisation of self and close associations such as mother, father and brother. This factor has exposed the artist to discrete psychoanalytic explorations and analysis. The intense relation between O’Neill’s self attributes and his plays is clear: a depressive and predominantly Oedipal pattern emerges in his writings that could be tracked in the whole range of his plays. However, preoccupations with the self and pervasive obsession to dramatize peculiar relationships and psychic conditions was his fundamental criteria. Desire under Elms protrudes the deepest and subconscious desires of human psyche. Every prime character of this play has his/her own dark spots within the subconscious which led to the damnation of the entire Cabot family. The psychoanalytic propositions of Freud and Jung which included the subconscious mind had motivated Eugene O’Neill to great extent. The deepness of the human mind and the clandestine sheets of the human brain was something that O’Neill chose to delve and successfully investigate throughout his life.
Keywords: Eugene O’Neill, Desire Under the Elms, psychoanalysis, Oedipus complex, Freud, Jung, subconscious, collective unconscious