Lacanian Reading—the Father-son Relationship and Crises of the Subject in Churchill's A Number
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Kuo, Hung-Ku
Abstract
The thesis analyses the ambivalent feelings between the father and the son and their crises of subject in Caryl Churchill’s A Number with mainly Lacan’s theories about the subject and with other psychoanalytic theories. Salter and Bernard have a complex relation owing to the temper of father and the son’s Oedipus complex, but most of all, the absence of Bernard’s mother. Due to the disclosed secret of cloning, the problem buried under the surface between the father and the son is revealed. Therefore, they are forced to face the unpleasant past, and crises of subject happen. To save their selves, they develop some strategies according to the crises but in vain. Finally, Bernard decides to destroy both of the cloning one and himself, and Salter keeps searching for other cloning sons in order to reconstruct his identity of father. Besides, we would compare to A Number’s theme of self reproduction and father-son relationship with those of two plays: The Ugly One by Marious von Mayenburg and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. We find Lette in The Ugly One also experiences similar identity crises, and he chooses to love one of his reproduced man so as to save his broken self in the end. Willy and Biff, the father and the son in Death of a Salesman, build their relation on some kind of narcissism . Just as the father-son relationship in A Number, Willy and Biff depend on each other so much that their hate toward one another occurs. This thesis would explore further whether it exists the possible solution to the complex feelings between fathers and sons and their difficult construction of subjects.
Subjects
father-son relationship
crises of subject
clone
self-identity
mirror stage
Type
thesis
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