A Comparative Study Of Tragic Conflicts In Desire Under The Elms And Thunderstorm

Eugene O'Neill and Cao Yu are the leading playwrights in America and China respectively in the first half of the 20th century. While O'Neill shows immense interest in Taoism of China, his modern dramatic aesthetics and techniques are appealing to the Chinese dramatist, Cao Yu. In his drama, O'Neill always makes efforts to depict the inner nature and the inner conflicts of characters, which restrict their fates, and he tends to include the social concerns in his nice depiction of inner conflicts. Cao Yu discovers in O'Neill's plays a new perspective to reflect modern life, that is, O'Neill likes to dissect realities in the spiritual world. However, while writing his plays, Cao Yu makes a "creative transformation". And Thunderstorm is the outcome of this "creative transformation". Therefore, Thunderstorm and Desire Under the Elms not only have much in common but also differ from each other in some aspects. Though many literary critical schools have tried their theories on the comparison between these two plays, the comparison of tragic conflicts is little mentioned.This thesis attempts to compare Desire Under the Elms and Thunderstorm from a new perspective to reveal their differences and similarities by focusing on the social tragic conflicts, the inner tragic conflicts of the characters, and the deterministic philosophy embodied in the plays.This thesis consists of five parts:The introduction offers (1) a brief survey of the relation between O'Neill's drama and Taoism, and O'Neill's influence on Cao Yu and all the Chinese dramatic circles; (2) a literary review of the studies done so far; (3) a brief introduction to this thesis.Chapter One compares the social conflicts represented in these two plays. While Desire Under the Elms represents the members in a Puritanical family driven hostile to each other by their strong desires for material possession, Thunderstorm reflects the serious social conflicts in China as a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country.Chapter Two gives a detailed analytical comparison of the dual personalitiesand the inner conflicts of these three pairs of the key characters - Abbie Putnam vs Zhou Fanyi, Ephraim Cabot vs Zhou Puyuan, and Eben Cabot vs Zhou Ping, associated with their personalities and the specific dramatic situations. In their inner world there exist two opposing forces, the Dionysian spirit and the Apollonian spirit, both of which strive for domination, thus resulting in various inner conflicts.Chapter Three explores the differences and similarities of the deterministic philosophy held by O'Neill and Cao Yu. In these two plays, no matter how hard they have struggled, the characters cannot avoid their tragic end, which is determined by their own personalities and the social environments instead of the Fates.The concluding part summarizes this thesis, and emphasizes that the tragic sense O'Neill and Cao Yu reflect in these two family dramas is closely related with the unhappy family life in their early years.