현대 문명속에 감금된 인간본성 : Edward Albee의 작품을 중심으로 = Human Nature Confined in Modern Society

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This thesis is the research about the connection between the setting of modern drama and the subject, talking notice of the point, that the image of modern drama setting is the prison which makes human alienation.
To show this, in my thesis, I discuss about the connection between the drama setting and the subject in The Zoo Story and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, so called, the classic of American modern drama mainly.
Those who experienced the failure of civilization - the first and the second World War have seen the destruction of all the values. Human witnessed the reflection the hell in this world.
To exist, they began to grope for something new and naturally. And the theater came to change to contain their acts. The actors of theater. were more unwilling to go out their rooms compared with the age of Elizabethan because of the more increase separation and lost emotion. They tried to perform their peculiar world in the rooms in order to find the security and comfort. Therefore, in their own world, their own peculiar characters were formed, and as a result, it made them more difficulties in being touch with others.
Following this trend of drama, Edward Albee also is blaming the institution which fabricates human and the Society, raised the characters who are imprisoned in the Society. The theater is the reduction of the world, and reflects our images as they are. The setting of Albee includes bench, living-room, hospital, sea-shore, etc., and these all symbolize the separation from the external world. Even though the characters choose the situation and live there, they are confired,'restricted and they love their identities.
In my thesis, about such a situation of characters, I see more closely in The Zoo Story and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Peter and Jerry in The Zoo Story symbolize two extremely different types of characters, which have made by the society. Each of them come to go to the bench in Centural Park of New York City, with his own sufferings and worries. Jerry finds the image of human alienation through the animal separated one another by the bars of the zoo. Jerry is the man of the expulsion from the society, and is the man who has abandoned by society and by other men completely. Based upon the lesson from the experience with the dog of his lodging house, Jerry makes various attempts for the real communication with Peter. Jerry talks to Peter, trickles, and threatens him. Finally, Jerry tells Peter to attack him who tries to break the wall of Peter, which symbols bench. Jerry commits suicide and Peter comes to have an important experience just as Jerry had with the dog. In my thesis, I understand Jerry as a character of existence who is willing to choose the death among complications of worthlessness of life rather than the image of Jesus who sacrificed himself for St. Peter. And I also grasps both Peter and Jerry as the characters who fall into traps, which society sets.
In chapter Ⅲ, I disscuss the setting and subject of Who's afraid Virginia Woolf? and I attempt to show the four characters' illusions and truths in their living room like the image of womb, and to criticize the society which drives us to the world of illusion more and more.
The living-room is the place made by the characters and it reflects the world of martha. Holding the ritual to the death in this place where the four sides are closed, they meet the dawn. Though the illusion which has contined them is broken, and the reality, comes that the characters do not have the certainty of life. This situation is connected with Jung and Fromm's theories and it reflects the characters with the contradiction of social institution more closely.
Albee shows as that the Purpose of modern society has been broken. Human has lost the freedom. We can realize the human problems, sufferings, loneliness, and difficulty of communication in modern society through his works. And we can show that Albee uses the setting to symbolize the society like prison.
Though we cannot say this kind of setting has developed remarkably, we should admit that Albee's has a great effect on reflecting his subject. And while we see the aspect of Albee who criticizes the contradiction of society violently, we should see the other aspect which admits the meaning of the life it-self. He believes that the contradiction of social institution can be solved by "love". So his works finishs by open-ending. In the long run. Albee is sure of the human nature itself, and without giving up, tried to rediscover the real human nature from the imprisonment of society. So, Albee will be remembered for ever as the writer of "hope" by us.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 목차
• Ⅰ. 현대극과 Edward Albee극에 나타나는 현실의 모습 = 1
• Ⅱ. 감금상태 속에서의 절망, 분노 그리고 사랑(The Zoo Story를 중심으로) = 7
• 1. 영원한 이방인 : Jerry = 8
• 2. 조직화한 인간 : Peter = 17
• Ⅲ. 환상세계 속에서의 상실과 고립의 문제점(Who's afraid of virginia woolf?를 중심으로) = 23
• 1. 포기한 자유에의 문제점-Martha와 George를 중심으로 = 25
• 2. 상실한 자아의 문제점-Honey와 Nick를 중심으로 = 40
• Ⅳ. 희망의 작가 : Edward Albee = 48
• SUMMARY = 51
• Bibliography = 55