Graduation Term
2023
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
School of Theatre and Dance: Theatre
Committee Chair
Kee-Yoon Nahm
Abstract
The aims for this thesis are to further investigate the show’s use of Tony’s psychotherapy as a narrative device in building the relationship between the work of art and the spectator. This device, I argue, possesses a Brechtian character: it not only breaks up the narrative action, but it also comments upon it. Most importantly, this device grounds spectators in a psychoanalytic outlook which enables the spectator to analyze the show’s central anti-hero, interpret the series of events around him, as well as the criticize the American climate he is a symbol for. I advance the thesis that The Sopranos, in setting up a Brechtian structure of spectatorship with its audience, raised psychoanalysis into a public philosophy.
Access Type
Thesis-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Brown, Thomas Patrick, "From La Cosa Nostra to La Cultura Del Narcisismo: Psychoanalysis as Public Philosophy in the Sopranos" (2023). Theses and Dissertations. 1724.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/1724
DOI
https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2023.20231004061827648654.999993