Abstract

In “I Don't Need You Any More” (1959), Miller depicts in minute detail complex family dynamics and their emotional impact on a five-year-old child on one crucial day. The members of the family are so immersed in fraught interactions with each other that they themselves do not understand the dynamics of this patriarchal Jewish family. For the reader to understand the family dynamics, the best approach to the story is that of family systems theory, which assumes that to understand a particular individual one should look at the individual not in isolation but in the context of the individual's family. Supporting my analysis by referring to an early unpublished draft, I explain the complicated family dynamics in the story by utilizing key concepts of the family systems theory of Murray Bowen, especially differentiation of self, emotional fusion, triangles, family projection process, chronic anxiety, and sibling position.

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