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Cho, Yongjae. “Overcoming the Mother Complex and the Father-Son Conflict in Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms.” Studies in English Language and Literature. 39.4 (2013): 181-197. Three remarkable characteristics of Eugene O’Neill’s plays, especially his autobiographic ones can be summed up as follows. First, they are autobiographical both in a literal and in a spiritual sense. Second, most of the sons in them are caught in Mother Complex. Third, the fathers inflict pain on their wives, which creates a conflict between them and their sons. The Mother Complex in Desire Under the Elms appears between Eben’s dead mother and Eben. It is overcome by the strong maternal instinct and the sacrificial love of his stepmother Abbie, an embodiment of ‘Mother God,’ ‘Earth Mother,’ and ‘Easy God,’ for Eben and their sexual relationships. And the father-son conflict appears as a struggle between Cabot and his son Eben to win the ownership of the farm. It is overcome by Eben’s change as a new man and his transcending both his desire of possession of it and his father-son conflict in virtue of Abbie, especially her sacrificial love, as well as by Cabot’s new recognition of the farm and his turning to his ‘Hard God’ as before. (Wonkwang University)