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The Distorted Transcendental Desire in Shaffer’s Yonadab

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2008, 21(3), pp.175-203
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Han, Sang-Ok 1

1대구가톨릭대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study is to clarify how the transcendental desire, which each of the four main figures of Yonadab has, is entangled with their other desires and is distorted by those ones. Amnon wants to transcend the human limitation by becoming immortal with divinity, Absalom wants his ideal self, that is, a king of peace to replace his present self, and Tamar wants to be permanently remembered as the apostle of God's justice. Meanwhile Yonadab wants to find the ultimate meaning of life through both experiencing the presence of the god who makes him immortal and believing in the very god, and then wants to live a faithful life. Unfortunately their uncontrollable desires for sex, power, revenge and recognition degenerate their transcendental desires, and make them self-intoxicated. Their self-intoxication drives them to indiscretion by justifying the four self-centered and sordid desires, and paralyzes their sense of guilt. The result is that Amnon and Absalom come to death, Tamar lives a self-intoxicated and self-righteous life, and the will of Yonadab, who wanted to be reborn into a faithful man, becomes paralyzed. The transcendental desire can't die out. The pain from the ever-living transcendental desire has become a torture to Yonadab who is locked in the prison of scepticism. The self-righteous life of Tamar who looks upon herself as the instrument of God prevents him from meeting and believing in the divine being. Truly since to have faith is to make an existential choice of meeting the divine being as both the object of worship and 'absolute You,' Yonadab himself is to blame for his agony and meaningless life. Shaffer is a playwright who lives a transcendental life with the devotion and passion for the drama. His imagination which recreated the four biblical figures gives us the chance to think deeply about what happens when the existential desire, that is, the transcendental one cannot purify other ones, and further invites us to live a fruitful and transcendental life as he himself does.

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