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UniversiV M icixîilm s International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8426465 Roof, Judith Ann OEDIPUS IN THE CAVE: METAPHORS OF SEEING IN MODERN DRAMA AND FILM The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1984 University Microfilms I nternâtiOnâi so o n . ZeeO Road, Ann Arbor,M l48106 Copyright 1984 by Roof, Judith Ann AN Rights Reserved OEDIPUS IN THE CAVE: METAPHORS OF SEEING IN MODERN DRAMA AND FILM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Judith A. Roof, B.A., M.A., J.D. ***** The Ohio State University 1984 Reading Committee : Approved By Katherine H. Burkman Mark S . Auburn J. Ronald Green ^ Advisor Department of English Copyright by Judith A. Roof 1984 Acknowledgment I would like to thank Professor Katherine H. Burkman, who, sitting in that little room so long ago opened the world of drama for me and who since has aided me with care­ ful reading, astute criticism, and a large measure of the spirit of scholarship, inquiry, and humanity. I also thank Professor Mark S. Auburn for suggesting that I continue and for the scrutiny and humor that forced me to consider even more carefully anything I said. I am also grateful to Professor Ron Green for his helpful commentary and re­ sources as well as for his open mind. I would like to thank Michelle Citron for talking to me about her film and for explaining its genesis. I ap­ preciate the care and time of my other "readers" Professor Les Tannenbaum, Marianne Conroy, and Diane Shoos, and the support of my friends Pamela Maggied and Anne Marie Drew. Finally, I am grateful to Brenda Adams for her typing and help. 11 Vita August 28, 1951. , Born - Columbus, Ohio 1972 ............. B.A., The Ohio State University 1973 ............. M.A., University of Toronto 1973-197 5........ Teaching Associate, Department of Romance Languages, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1974-197 4 ........ Research Associate, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1979 ............. J.D., The Ohio State University 1980 ............. M.A., The Ohio State University 1979-1984......... Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Publications "Speaking From the Body : Godard's British Sounds," Helicon, 7, No. 1 (1982), pp. 55-59. Fields of Study Major Field : English Studies in Drama. Professor Katherine H. Burkman Studies in Film. Professor J. Ronald Green. Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT.......................................... i i VITA.................................................... iii INTRODUCTION............................................ 1 CHAPTER 1. Play............................................ 20 2. La Chinoise.................................... 64 3. The Killer...................................... 112 4. B l o w - U p ........................................ 158 5. Betrayal........................................ 186 6. Daughter R i t e ................................. 225 7. Conclusion...................................... 253 NOTES .................................................. 267 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................ 282 IV Introduction The metaphor of Oedipus in the cave is a conflation of two models of perception. The figure of Oedipus, whose tragic predicament in Sophocles’ play was identified by Sigmund Freud as the pattern of the conflict which he also called Oedipal, is a figure who represents the process of perceiving the self. He is both an archetypal dramatic figure and the prototypical son in the psychological processes outlined by Freud and Jacques Lacan. Plato's cave is a model for the relationship between human percep­ tion and reality; its emphasis on the structure and arrangement of the cave, an arrangement uncannily like the apparatus of cinema, suggests the barrier the apparatus of cinema or theatre places between the spectators and their perception of reality. The point of conjunction of these two models is the process of coming to perceive the self. The metaphor of Oedipus in the cave also suggests the pos­ sibility that drama and film borrow from each other and come closer to the same vision since the figure of Oedipus is associated, though not exclusively, with drama and the cave with cinema. Both are concerned with the search for self and both manifest an awareness of their own apparatus and have begun to borrow the apparatus of the other as a way of explaining their own process. The apparatus sug­ gested by the cave model becomes both the barrier and the means by which the self is perceived in modern drama and film. The first half of the metaphor, the figure of Oedipus, functions as the model for self-perception. Oedipus, the tragic king-son who killed his father and married his mother in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, has lent his name not only to Aristotle's idea of tragedy, but also to some of the infantile psychological processes of the male child delineated by Sigmund Freud and by Jacques Lacan. Oedipus' cultural accretions, from the "purpose, passion, percep­ tion" pattern identified in Oedipus Rex by Francis Fergusson in The Idea of a Theater^ to the infant male's desire for the mother curtailed by his fear of castration in Freud's analysis of the Oedipus complex, to Lacan's situating of the infant male's Oedipal process in the structure of the "minor stage," reflect the importance of perception, of coming to see self. The character Oedipus in Oedipus Rex is one who de­ mands to know the identity of the murderer whose presence in Thebes threatens the well-being of the community. The play presents the paradoxical revelation of Oedipus' identity as that of the murderer, a revelation which simultaneously solves the question, relieves the threat to the city, and reveals to Oedipus his own real identity. From a fabric of circumstances and ignorance, Oedipus is forced to recognize that he himself is the incestuous murderer. He comes to see self.^ As a character, Oedipus has become the archetype of a tragic figure, and perhaps by extension the archetype of drama. As Francis Fergusson states : "I suppose there can be little doubt that Oedipus Rex is a crucial instance of drama, if not the play which best exemplifies this art in its essential nature and its completeness. Oedipus Rex embodies the "spiritual" struggle of drama. As Fergusson later states: "The spiritual content of the play is the tragic action which Sophocles directly presents; and this action is in its essence zweideutig: triumph and destruc­ tion, darkness and enlightenment, mourning and rejoicing, at any moment we care to consider. Fergusson also emphasizes the importance of Oedipus Rex as a ritual: ". the element which distinguishes this theater, giving it its unique directness and depth, is the ritual ex­ pectancy which Sophocles assumed in his audience. Freud's characterization of the psychological develop­ ment of the infant male is based upon a family configura­ tion which recreates the original Oedipus predicament. The figure of Oedipus represents the repressed desire of the son to kill his father who prevents any union with the mother by means of a threat of castration and the son's wish to possess the mother. In the Oedipus complex the son is trapped in a conflict whose only resolution is the re­ moval of the threat of the son either by his castration or by his ejection from the triangle. The son's ejection from the triangle, accomplished by the threat of castration, re­ sults in the son's assumption of an identity separate from that