한국영상문화학회

This paper studies grief and comfort in Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire. Each character in the play works through the four phases of grief by Bowlby. Mainly, the plot revolves around a couple who are grieving the loss of their young son, Danny, after a car accident. The mother, Becca, apparently, copes with grief by packing away all of Danny’s belongings, while Howie, the father, chooses to keep his son’s memory with him by playing home movies. However, Becca is in freefall, as she can’t resist her grief and is only really suppressing it. In this paper, Becca’s grief is understood by applying several theoretical lenses. We examine her grief in the context of what Freud terms “the normal work of mourning” and “interiorizing memorization” and how she fails to engage in this to overcome her state of grief. Through Derrida’s concept of ‘Impossible Mourning’ we take this a step further and suggest that her state of mourning is such that she herself becomes a crypt for her deceased son. Becca is confronted by the story of the teenage driver who struck her son. Through his story, in which the driver escapes through a rabbit hole to a parallel universe in which his deceased father still lives, Rabbit Hole presents a unique perspective on how to find comfort in death. Also, with the helpful advice from her mother, Nat, Becca perhaps tries to go on her journey to take the tiny first step into the healing process.