Chapter One Quests for the Self:Theoretical and Dramatic Contexts 1
Language and the Self:Negotiating the Subject between Taylor and Lacan 1
Modern Drama in Quest of the Self 37
Chapter Two Fluidity and Uncertainty:Selfhood in Beyond the Horizon,Desire under the Elms,and Strange Interlude 57
Multiple Goods and Impossible Integrity 57
Oscillation Between Two Voices 60
Transformation in Love 74
Lost in Synthesis 86
Chapter Three Resistance and Dissolution:Selfhood in The Hairy Ape,All God's Chillun Got Wings,The Great God Brown 101
Lacan,the Self and the mOther 101
Shattered in the Mirror 104
Resisting the Law 118
Alienation beneath the Mask 128
Chapter Four Displacement and Disintegration:Selfhood in A Touch of the Poet,The Iceman Cometh,and Long Day's Journey into Night 143
The Fractured Moral Framework and the Homeless Self 143
Fragmentation in Transition 147
Living on Lies 161
Seeking in the Past 182
Chapter Five O'Neill's Quest for Modern Identity 194
O'Neill,the Playwright and the Self-Seeker 194
O'Neill,a Contributor to Modern Drama 203
O'Neill:Negotiating Selfhood in Dramatic Creation 206
Notes 211
Works Cited 218