CHAPTER II
LITERARY REVIEW, CONCEPTUAL AND THEORITICAL
FRAMEWORKS
2.1 Literary Review
This sub-chapter explain literary review consist of the review of the research. This drama has ever been observed by a student of English literature faculty named Arif Setiawan Kusuma, entitled The Effect of the Gold Rush in America as Reflected in Eugene O'Neill's Desire under the Elms (1925), taking the mimetic theory about the social condition of America in the nineteen century. The study took the characters, Simeon, Peter, and Eben who have the ambition to change their life by going to California for gold raids. The research explained why they move to California and the way they decided to go to California.
For that reason, Eben and Abbie felt in love to each other until finally they suffered from their deeds. The existence of this woman character adds the sense of conflict from the drama. In this drama, the role of Abbie is very important because she causes tragedies for other characters. She creates conflicts among the other characters, especially Eben and his father, Ephraim Cabot.
2.2 Conceptual Frameworks
This sub-chapter the researchers wants to discusses about the definition of ambition and Eugene O’Neil and Desire Under the Elms
2.2.1 The Definition of Ambition
is someone who will take an exam, then he will do like cheating to get the best value.
This ambition is a kind of self-impulse to motivate in achieving goals or aims. It is also one part of dreams, hopes, and obsessions. Those are things that we want to achieve. Everyone wants to get a better life. In Oxford dictionary, ambition means a strong desire to be successful. According to Roy, ambition has an equal meaning with desire. Here is the quote,
“An ardent desire to attain success in life, a desire to achieve personal or professional advancement, a desire to achieve fame, power, money, rank, position, or a desire to achieve any particular end or complete an activity or attain the fruits of an activity. Ambition is thus desire similar to any other kind of desire.” (Roy, http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Psychology-of-Ambition&id=1393654).
Beside that above opinion, here are some opinions, which explain definition of ambition:
“Ambition is an important factor since it is the first step for someone to achieve their success. However, if it is not supported by hardwork and it will be only a dream. Of course, it is easy to plant seeds but we can’t just sit still waiting for harvest since it is impossible. We must work hard to get a best harvest, we need to take care of the plants, water the plants and keep the plants well. We need continuous hard work and patience.” (Septiyan, http://septiyan7. wordpress. com/ 2009/05/25/ambisi-adalah-pemicu-sukses-bag-1/).
(Basically, ambition is a good thing, as long as it is wisely managed; it won’t result on bad things. When someone is ambitious, he will do every single thing to achieve the goal. Most people has ambition, however it is not a mistake since living without ambition will be empty and monotonous. Ambition will be a problem if we can not control it, and we will live in a dreams with blind reality).
According to the quotation above, it can be concluded that someone with ambition in the life will survive. The ambition will give positive results if it can be controlled wisely. On the other side, it can bring negative results if someone can not control his ambition. Ambition equals desire and emotion which appears from one’s childhood and changes during someone’s growth. Therefore, based on the definitions of ambition it is a part of human characters. According to Rahardjo (http://mudjiarahardjo.com/artikel/98-ambisi-dan-ambisius.html), ”Ambition is defined in several definitions: a goal to achieve, a desire to achieve the goal, ambition naturally belongs to everyone.”
This research takes a drama, Desire Under the Elms, written by Eugene O’Neill as an object of the research. It observes the ambition of Abbie Putnam, one of the characters in this drama who has strong ambition to own a land which belongs to her new husband, Ephraim Cabot. However, the land is a heritage from Ephraim’s previous wife, that can not be given to anyone including Abbie and his sons. Abbie has a negative ambition to own the land by tricking her step sons.
2.2.2Eugene O’Neill and Desire Under the Elms
won it out of his four other dramas. He was born in Broadway Hotel, New York City on October 16, 1888. His father’s name was James O’Neill, a successful touring actor in the last quarter of 19th century. Her mother named Ella, who accompanied his husband traveling around the world during his career as an actor. Eugene O’Neill started his career when he wrote one scene in a drama titled Bound East for Cardiff in 1914. Then, in 1916, it was produced for the first time in New York. Later, he produced many others, such as Before Breakfast (1916), the Long Voyage Zone (1917), The Moon of the Carabbees (1917), Ile (1917), The Rope (1918), Beyond the Horizon (1918), The Dreamy Kid (1918), Where the Cross is Made (1918), The Straw (1919), Gold (1920), Anna Christie (1920).
Desire Under the Elms is one of his works which was published in 1924. The setting took place in New England, 1850. It tells about social life in that era. This story starts when there is a family that wants to go to California eagerly to change their lives. Below are some opinions about Eugene O’Neill and Desire Under the Elms.
“This work has ever been published into a movie in 1958. This movie got a lot of critics which thought that it was lack of chemistry. In fact, the review of Under the Elms had combined elements that showed a high cost production due to its location in New England, 1850. Thus, it caused some losses and unexpected responses in many countries.” (Landazuri, http://www.tcm. com/tcmdb/title/ 72865/Desire- Under-the-Elms/articles.html).
“Eugene O’Neill’s work was great and his performance in theater was noticeable. It’s ironic and modern tragedy drama. Eugene O’Neill was a master of tragedian and intrepid explorer of human psyche. He was one of the best drama writers from America in the 20th century. He was also a contemporary interpreter. His work had its own popularity in the
http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/events/6301/desire-under-the-elms-with-brian-dennehy.).
The quotations above are quoted from Landazuri and Falls and Dennehy. According to Landazuri, Desire under the Elms was filmed in 1958 and the film brings about lots of criticism and in fact the film incur unexpected losses in each country shows it. Different with Falls and Dannehy, they think that Eugene O’Neill is one of the master of tragedian who dares to explore the human psyche and one of best drama writer in America in 20th century.
2.3 Theoretical Frameworks
This sub-chapter the researcher discusses and explained about structural analysis, psychoanalytical theory and also the different between id, ego, and superego as the part of structure personalities.
2.3.1Structural Analysis
Besides psychoanalytic approach this research also employs the structural analysis. Structural analysis is an analyzed that attempts to analyze complex system of interrelated parts. The structural analysis is also called as an objective approach. “Objective approach (structural approach) is an approach that based on literary work as a whole also sees a literature as an independent work.” (Giyono, http://teori-sastra.blogspot.com/). According to A Teeuw,
(Structural analysis is an unavoidable step of literature research, because this approach possible an optimal research and to be used in a psychoanalytic theory, history, sociology theory, and such).
The quotes above shows that structural analysis is very important in this research because to get an optimal result in researching the character of Abbie Putnam include with her psychological side. Besides that, structural analysis is an analysis that is related with intrinsic elements of a literature, such as theme, plot, character, setting and many more. Here are other opinions about structural analysis according to Eagleton, “structuralism, as the term suggests, is concerned with structures, and more particularly with examining the general laws by which the work.” (Eagleton, 2005:82) and the other opinion about structural analysis is:
“Structuralism is an approach to literary analysis grounded is structural linguistics, the science of language. By using the techniques, methodologies, and vocabulary of linguistics, structuralism offers a scientific view of how we achieve meaning not only in literary works but also in all forms of communication and social behavior.” (Bressler, 1994:88).
Therefore, the conclusion of the quotations above is that structural analysis is used to analyze the intrinsic of the literature based on its structural analysis; the researcher is aimed to analyze the structure of character of Abbie Putnam in the Desire under the Elms drama.
2.3.2 Psychoanalytic Theory
conflict, neurotical symptom, dreams, and characters. According to Freud (Freud, 1987: xxii), “in Psychoanalytic Theory mentions two instincts in human body, namely eros the instinct of life and thanatos the instinct of death.” Here are the explanations of eros and thanatos:
“Eros (naluri kehidupan) meliputi kecondongan untuk mempertahankan ego maupun kecondongan untuk melangsungkan jenis atau spesies. Lalu thanatos (naluri kematian) yaitu bertujuan untuk menghancurkan dan menceraikan apa yang sudah bersatu.” (Freud, 1987: xxii)
(Eros (the instinct of life) is tendency to maintain the ego and tendency to continue the sustainability of the kind or species. Thanatos (the instinct of death) is aimed to destruct and split anything united).
Dynamic Model Economic Model Topographic Model The rational (conscious)
perceives and records external reality and is she reasoning part of the cious) part of our psyche, the unconscious receives unconscious battle for control of a person’s storehouse of memories that the conscious part of the mind allows to be brought to conscious nest without disguising these memories in some form Because these desires are not housed in the preconscious, they cannot be directly summoned into the conscious state.
Figure 1: Table of Human Psyche
Literature has physiological sides such as in the author's psychology, as well as in works of literature itself as novels, plays, and short story that described in his or her characters. The research focuses to character named Abbie Putnam who is very ambitious person so that she does anything in wrong intentions. According to Freud there are two types of cases in error act:
(The first are those cases in which such errors become main element and purpose to divert intentions. The second are cases in which the actions taken do not make sense or not in accordance with the intended target and the actions called as coincidence).
In Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory there are three structures of personalities; they are Id, Ego, and Superego. Those are needed for human to control their instinct. This is the opinion about that:
“Untuk mengandalikan naluri eros dan thanatos tersebut di butuhkan tiga hal yaitu Id, Ego dan Superego yang disebut struktur kepribadian yang diperlukan untuk mempertahankan kehidupan manusia kedalam lingkungan sosial.” (Freud, 1987: xxii)
(To control eros and thanatos needs three elements; Id, Ego and Superego which is so called as personality to preserve human’s life in social relations).
For the support that opinion below is the sketch of Id, Ego and Superego:
Conscious
Unconscious Iceberg
Figure 2: Sketch of Id, Ego, and Superego
The scheme above explains which human personality structure used in ice berg phenomena, in which id is the biggest personality of the human. Ego and superego are the outer ego, in which the ego and superego functioned as controller in social life.
Ego
Superego
ID
Preconscious
2.3.3 The Difference between Id, Ego, and Superego
According to the theory of Sigmund Freud structures of character is divided into three, namely Id, Ego, and Superego. Each is very essential in the human’s social life. The difference between Id, Ego and superego are mentioned as follow:
2.3.3.1 Id
Id is an original system of personality or basic of the personality. Id itself was taken along by men since they were born which called the innate instinct. Id itself arises because of the pleasure and unwittingly, by the values, ethics and the moral. Id is completely less organized and unconscious. Id is a biological aspect and the original system of personality. Id only pursues carnal lusts and without judging whether it is good or bad. Id is the unconscious part of the primitive in the mind, which was born along with these people.
2.3.3.2 Ego
2.3.3.3 Superego
