美国悲剧作家奥尼尔的创作深受其母亲的影响。同母亲复杂的情感纠葛使其对女性的认识等同于母性:衡量好女人的标准就是她能否像母亲一样给男人以抚慰。难解的“母亲情结”使奥尼尔在婚姻中寻找着母亲,在戏剧中塑造着母亲。在《榆树下的欲望》和《悲悼》中两位母亲身上都可以找到其生母的影子,而其对女性的态度也从最初的抵触发展到理解和同情,并对她们的悲剧赋予了积极意义;剧中的母子关系反映了奥尼尔与众不同的母亲—儿子—妓女的三角母子关系的创作模式,再现了作家痛苦的内心世界,对母亲无望的追寻。 The creation of the American tragic writer O’Neill was greatly influenced by her mother. Complex emotional entanglements with mothers make their perception of women equal to motherhood: the yardstick for measuring a woman is whether she can comfort her as a mother. The indecisive “mother complex” led O’Neill to find her mother in her marriage and her mother in the drama. The mothers’ shadow can be found on both mothers in “Desire under the Elm” and “Mourning”, and their attitudes towards women also develop from understanding and sympathy from the initial conflicts and give positive meaning to their tragedies . The mother-child relationship in the play reflects the mode of creation of the triangle-mother relationship of O’Neill’s distinctive mother-son-prostitute. It reproduces the author’s painful inner world and hopesless pursuit of her mother.