Earticle

초록

영어

In order to understand Eugene O'Neill as a man and a playwright it is indispensible to clarify the character and symbolism of the mask as he used in his drama. The mask represents the main theme and technical experiments which he tried to express in his plays. In A Moon for the Misbegotten, his last-written paly, the mask is not actually employed but its symbolism plays an essential role in the plot structure and characters' relations. Outwardly the play is a trick game. In fact it becomes an exercise in the unmasking of hidden truth. Jamie and Jocey, the two main characters, masking their true characters, try to trick each other, and neither is ever quite sure what the true intention of the other is. For that matter, neither is quite sure what his/her own intention is. Each pretends to be something different from what he/she really is, and only at the end is the truth revealed. In this process the conflict between the mask and the face becomes the main action of the play. Inwardly it shows a fierce struggle of Jamie the hero, who is desperately kept in despair and guilty-consciousness caused mainly by his Oedipus complex. He is a victim of the Dionysus-Mephistopheles dynamics. His mask shows the influence of the Mephistophelian side of the dynamics. Under the mask he is suffering from his hopeless hope to be freed from the mask. With the plot proceeding in the moonlight Jamie and Jocey find their true faces and realize their love for each other. Jamie's mask is taken off by Jocey who turns from a pretended prostitute to a virgin Earth Mother. But his mask, governed by Mephistopheles, has already changed his face to a mask of death. Jocey tries to free him from death but fails because she, as a virgin, has not any Dionysian life force. Man can be freed from the mask only to death. A Moon for the Misbegotten is O'Neill's final answer to his life-long quest for the root of existence and the significance of life.

목차

인용문헌
 Abstract

키워드

저자

• 김세근 [ Kim, Sekeun | 전남대학교 ]

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학21 [English21]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1738-4052

• 수록기간

  1967~2025

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 820