Tragic Drama and the Family: Psychoanalytic Studies from Aeschylus to Beckett

One of the most important characteristics of tragic drama-as of psychoanalysis- is the focus on the family. Dr. Bennett Simon here provides a psychoanalytic reading of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Euripedes’ Medea, Shakespeare’s King Lear and Macbeth, O'Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Beckett’s Endgame, six plays from ancient to modern times which involve a particular form of intrafamily warfare: the killing of children or of the possibility of children.