Nina's Pursuit Of Happiness

There is no doubt that Eugene O'Neill is the greatest playwright in America. Being called "father of modern American drama", he is the only Nobel Prize winner in the field of American drama and the winner of four Pulitzer Prizes. One of his famous plays Strange Interlude won him the third Pulitzer Prize and established him as a popular playwright. It is an insightful play of exploring man's psychological world.Psychoanalysis founded by Sigmund Freud is quite a useful tool to bring insight into human beings'inner world and help psychologists treat and cure their patients' mental trauma. According to Freud, the mental apparatus consists of three interactive parts:the id, the ego and the superego. Comprising all instincts, the id works in keeping with "the pleasure principle", trying its best to satisfy its primitive desires and impulses regardless of any external reason and morality. The superego represents the moral part of the mind and acts in line with "the ideal principle", seeking for perfection and repressing the id. As the rational part of the mind, the ego operates via "the reality principle", and its job is to keep the id's pleasures from hurt of superego and the external world in a realistic way that will benefit in the long run.This thesis tries interpreting the heroine Nina's pursuit of happiness in Strange Interlude from Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. Nina possesses very complicated personality structure. Containing Electra complex towards her father and Marsden, strong libido towards her lover Darrell, Jocasta complex towards her son, and life and death instincts, her powerful id leads her to repeatedly lose and regain happiness in her real life. Possessing such a strong id, Nina is fated to doom but for the mediation of her superego and ego represented by the men around her. Her superego is represented by her late boyfriend Gordon and the paternal character Marsden who set perfectly love and moral standards to repress her strong id. Her ego is embodied by her husband Sam and her child little Gordon. Sam mediates her id and the external world while her son harmonizes the id and the superego. The reason why Nina finally gains her happiness is that she successfully balances her personality structure. In the west or China, few people have formally published a thesis or an essay which interprets the heroine Nina's psychological pilgrimage in Strange Interlude with Freudian psychoanalysis. This thesis is intended to continue this job. By interpreting Nina's pursuit of happiness, the author of this thesis hopes that it may inspire modern people in seeking their own happiness. Human beings'ultimate happiness does not lie in the external wealth and power but in the inner peace and quiet.