Multigenerational Transmission Process in Tracy Letts’s August:  Osage County (2008)

Md Joynul Abedin; Suzana Muhammad

Multigenerational Transmission Process in Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County (2008)

Md Joynul Abedin, Suzana Muhammad

Abstract

August: Osage County (2008) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American drama by Tracy Letts that offers a deep portrayal of family dynamics within the contemporary American cultural milieu. The literary criticism currently existing in analysing the play generally engages the themes of family deterioration, incest, trauma, child abuse, and social decay. This study, alternatively, contributes a distinct interpretive perspective of dysfunctional family patterns through the lens of American psychiatrist Dr Murray Bowen’s family system theory (FST). By situating the play within debates on the evolution of the American family drama in late postmodern literature, it employed Bowen’s concept of the multigenerational transmission process to manifest how the parental anxiety, impaired selfhood, and relational conflict are passed down through generations instead of confined to the conventional focuses of psychoanalysis. Using a qualitative approach based on close reading and the interpretive method, the analysis examines three generations of the fictional Weston family from present-day Oklahoma. FST is thus operationalised as an analytic framework to interpret different actions and expressions of the individuals in the family. The concepts of anxiety, togetherness, differentiation of self, marital conflict, and undifferentiated marriage are used comparatively to explore the multigenerational patterns within the family, shedding light on the declining family bonds in the play. This approach thus reveals how August: Osage County (2008) dramatises the complexities of life, which can lead to the erosion of family relationships marked by social instability and cultural shifts.

Keywords: anxiety; FST; marital conflict; projected child; undifferentiated marriage

ABSTRAK

August: Osage County (2008) merupakan drama Amerika pemenang Hadiah Pulitzer karya Tracy Letts yang menawarkan gambaran mendalam tentang dinamik keluarga dalam persekitaran budaya Amerika kontemporari. Kritikan sastera sedia ada dalam menganalisis naskah ini secara umumnya menyentuh tema kemerosotan keluarga, sumbang mahram, trauma, penderaan kanak-kanak, dan kerosakan sosial. Sebagai alternatif, kajian ini menyumbangkan perspektif interpretatif yang berbeza mengenai corak keluarga disfungsional melalui lensa Teori Sistem Keluarga (FST) oleh pakar psikiatri Amerika, Dr. Murray Bowen. Dengan meletakkan drama ini dalam perdebatan mengenai evolusi drama keluarga Amerika dalam sastera pascamoden lewat, kajian ini menggunakan konsep proses transmisi berbilang generasi oleh Bowen untuk menunjukkan bagaimana kebimbangan ibu bapa, kendiri yang terjejas, dan konflik perhubungan diwariskan merentas generasi, berbanding hanya terhad kepada fokus psikoanalisis konvensional. Menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif berasaskan pembacaan rapi dan kaedah interpretatif, analisis ini meneliti tiga generasi keluarga fiksyen Weston dari Oklahoma era moden. FST dioperasikan sebagai kerangka analitik untuk mentafsir pelbagai tindakan dan ekspresi individu dalam keluarga tersebut. Konsep kebimbangan, kebersamaan, pembezaan kendiri (differentiation of self), konflik perkahwinan, dan perkahwinan tidak terbeza (undifferentiated marriage) digunakan secara perbandingan untuk meneroka corak berbilang generasi dalam keluarga tersebut, seterusnya menjelaskan tentang kemerosotan ikatan kekeluargaan dalam drama ini. Pendekatan ini mendedahkan bagaimana August: Osage County (2008) mendramatisasikan kerumitan hidup yang boleh membawa kepada penghakisan hubungan kekeluargaan yang ditandai oleh ketidakstabilan sosial dan anjakan budaya.

Kata Kunci: kebimbangan; FST; konflik perkahwinan; unjuran anak (projected child); perkahwinan tidak terbeza (undifferentiated marriage)

Keywords

undifferentiated marriage, anxiety, marital conflict, projected child, FST

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