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Traumatic Disruption of Family Melodrama Tradition: A Rereading of David Rabe's Sticks and Bones

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2014, 27(3), pp.131-164
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

박노출 1

1홍익대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This essay reviews David Rabe’s Sticks and Bones (1971) in the light of family melodrama and trauma theories. It offers an alternative reading of the play in opposition to the dominant view which takes the drama as a social commentary of the 1970s America, particularly of the middles class captivated by capitalistic materialism and manipulative mass media. Such a synchronic perspective enacts top-down approaches to the text only to repeat the preconceived social criticisms in the final analysis. This study proposes a historical or diachronic perspective in conjunction with bottom-up approaches for the interpretation of the narrative and character traits. Featuring the story of conflictual family relationships, Sticks and Bones follows the tradition of American family melodrama. This study initially examines Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (1941) to show that the family melodrama presumes continuities from the past to the present, consciousness to unconsciousness and the individual to the group. Sticks and Bones deviates from the genre convention by replacing the take-for-granted unities with traumatic ruptures. The plot unfolds psychic confrontations between a Vietnam veteran and his families. The returned soldier, David, has experienced in war crimes the shattering of his world upheld by familism and nationalism. However, his parents, Ozzie and Harriet, strive to recuperate their son’s pre-war identity. It is argued that the parents see their son’s war trauma as a curable illness while the latter questions the ideological grounds of human identity such as the family and the nation-state. The dual aspects of psychological trauma, mimetic and diegetic, are introduced to compare the two distinctive positions. The final discussion elaborates on David’s messages to maintain that his spiritual odyssey outside of familism and nationalism presages the global state after 9/11. Wars and terrorisms have nullified state protection, mass-producing prisoners and refugees. David’s trauma in Sticks and Bones has become part of our daily experiences. The conclusion is that David’s flight from the dominant ideologies inspires us to imagine new forms of human relationship and collective identity.

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