Obsessive Desire: Human Animality in Miller's A View from the Bridge

Abstract

This thesis is about obsessive desire: human animality in miller's A View from the Bridge. Human animality means human's quality or nature associated with animal. The animal instincts of human as distinct from their spiritual nature and animal side of person opposed to the intellect. This research is sufficient as it helps to understand the human's obsession and what makes people obsessed?. Moreover it helps to know; why do people behave like animal and how do sublimation, displacement and condensation play important role for human civilization? For this research, Freudian model of Psychoanalytic theory has been applied and other's views and opinion have been taken from different online articles. The research find out that human species is rational being with unconscious mind, the origin of all human behavior found in the unconscious which influence human's personal behaviors; as a result people behave like animal. Miller's hero cannot escape from the obsession because of his split personality disorder. He has harbored feelings for his niece and thus, he has been victims of his own instincts and holds an unconscious desire to die. The research proves that essentially human have death instincts and irrational desires get channelized through Freudian notion of sublimation, displacement and condensation. And it concludes that like other animals, human have desires and instincts including denial, revenge, greed, jealously and sexual desires, which threaten human's very existence. But sublimation, displacement and condensation play vital role to transform human's animal nature into socially acceptable activities to solve the problem. So it recommends that man is not being different from animals or superior to them, he himself is the decent animal.