This book explores the way in which doubling takes place in several novels, films, and dramas, primarily focusing on modern drama and exploring how five Greek myths - Oedipus, Narcissus, Dionysus, Orestes, and Demeter - inform the literature. Taking a psychological/mythical approach, this book explores the inner divisions that lead to boundary loss and the search for the self that may lead to boundaries found. The contention of the book is that the oedipal search for self has been replaced in modern literature by individuals caught up in a narcissistic culture. Katherine H. Burkman explores plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Marsha Norman, and Will Eno.

Autorentext

Katherine H. Burkman is Professor Emerita in the Department of English at The Ohio State University, USA. She has published eleven books and numerous articles on modern drama, and has also published various plays, poems, and short stories. She founded and served as Artistic Director of Women at Play for twelve years, is presently a member of Wild Women Writing, and continues to act and direct.

Zusammenfassung

In this book, the author interrogates how narcissistic disturbances lead to the fragmentation and duplication that occur in the minds of mythic heroes and the fictional protagonists of modern drama, literature, and film. This examination focuses mostly on modern drama and exploring how Greek myths inform the literature.

Inhalt
Table of Contents
Preface
Prelude: The Stories, by Jeredith Merrin
Acknowledgments

1. The Drama of the Double
2. Narcissus and Doubling: Conrad, Shepard, Mamet
3. Narcissus and Dionysus: The Bacchae and The Crying Game
4. Harold Pinter's Death in Venice and Life in Victoria Station
5. Hedda Gabler, Jules and Jim and Taxi Driver
6. Orestes: Aeschylus and O'Neill
7. Doubling in the Mythic Dreamscapes of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, Not I, and Rockaby
8. More on Demeter: Marsha Norman's 'night Mother
9. Oedipus and Demeter: Pinter's A Slight Ache
   Coda
   Index

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