Psychological Realism in 19th Century Fiction: Studies in Turgenev, Tolstoy, Eliot and Brontë [1 ed.] 1527542882, 9781527542884

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction to Psychological Realism
2. Analysis of Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons
3. Analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
4. Analysis of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss
5. Analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Bibliography

Citation preview

Psychological Realism in 19th Century Fiction

Psychological Realism in 19th Century Fiction: Studies in Turgenev, Tolstoy, Eliot and Brontë By

Debashish Sen

Psychological Realism in 19th Century Fiction: Studies in Turgenev, Tolstoy, Eliot and Brontë By Debashish Sen This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Debashish Sen All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4288-2 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4288-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... vi Chapter 1 ..................................................................................................... 1 Introduction to Psychological Realism Chapter 2 ................................................................................................... 68 Analysis of Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons Chapter 3 ................................................................................................... 99 Analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina Chapter 4 ................................................................................................. 189 Analysis of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss Chapter 5 ................................................................................................. 218 Analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre Bibliography ............................................................................................ 246

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, my father Late Churamoni Sen and my mother Krishna Sen, and to my sister Joyshri for supporting and encouraging me throughout the long years that went into the making of this book. Without their interest in my work, this book would not have seen the light of day. I would like to thank Prof. Vijay Prakash Singh, former Head of the Dept. of English & Modern European Languages at the University of Lucknow for his guidance. Many thanks to Prof. Véronique Gély, Director of the Comparative Literature Research Center of the Paris-Sorbonne University for kindly facilitating my short term as a Research Scholar at the University. Heartfelt appreciation to the Cambridge Scholars Publishing team - to Camilla Harding and Rebecca Gladders for their professional handling as well as interest and support of this project, and to the people who worked behind the scenes on the editing and design. Thanks to my wife Sonal and my little son Mrigankashekhar for supporting me in my academic pursuits in spite of the time it takes me away from them.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM

This book is on the literary technique called psychological realism. However, before we start discussing it, a few words on literature in general and on novels, in particular, will be in place. This will be as much for the reader as for myself. I will be honest here – I think before we undertake an exercise, especially an academic exercise, one needs to be very clear about the purpose of the same. In other words, I need to justify to myself and you the purpose of writing this book in the first place. This becomes all the more necessary given the loss of interest in literature and literary activities in the current times, where most people just have sufficient time for activities that bring quick gratification. The art of novel writing dates back many centuries. Life, as we know it now, existed in quite a different mode back then. Let’s just say that in old times people had fewer things to amuse themselves with. Authors, as well as the art of writing, were held in high regard and were looked up to. However, in today’s age and time, I’ve heard people (those who are not naturally drawn to literature) say that literature and novels written a century or centuries ago are now redundant and should be left to die a silent death. The very same people probably do not understand the importance of History; however, we shall not go into that and shall confine our argument to literature and novels. To people who hold this view, I will say this then: classic literature is neither outdated nor can we consign it to the realm of mere amusement. Novels in general deal with the fullness of life and not its emptiness that is why they are read. On the lowest level the reader fills the gaps in his existence by borrowing the imagined experiences described in what he is reading; on a higher level, he finds those experiences a guide, to places, to people, to ideas (O’Gorman 113). As Mark Turner writes in The Material Culture of the Victorian Novel: Now, novels, more often than not, are based on actuality. A writer with a limited experience of life will write a limited book, whereas one who has touched pleasure and pain at many points will have more material, more

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Chapter One memories, on which to draw. (The life of a novelist is always worth reading for its own sake, but it will throw much light on the character of his books.) One reason these novels live on today is because they speak to us, in many different ways, about the present, and the relationship between the past and present, not because they are museum pieces. (O’Gorman 113)

Maybe it will surprise some to know that a novel written in the 18th or 19th century could speak to us “about the present”, but such is the affinity of life, human beings and human relations (and this is what novels deal with) in the past and the present that what applied then cannot help but be identifiable even now, often startlingly so. Also, since this work is not on any one particular author as such but a technique or art form, it will be in place to put in a few words here about Genre and Sub-genre. A genre is a general kind of literary production (for example, novel /fiction, poem/poetry, and play/drama). The idea of a genre is to classify works of literature. We know that novels are recognized as a genre (Williams, Raymond). However, there are “so many different kinds of novel, the genre is so varied, rich and popular, that, as the critic Raymond Williams has remarked, ‘it is almost a literature in itself’” (Walder, Realist 9). The novel as a genre in itself encompasses such varied art forms and it has emerged over the centuries in so many different hues and colours that if we wish to examine it and undertake a serious study of it, there is probably a need to classify it further into sub-genres. Sub-genre can be understood “as a more specific kind of literary production (for example, the Gothic novel, Bildungsroman, Naturalist Fiction)” (Walder, Realist 9). Borderlines between genres “are never clear-cut (we define them in terms of their dominant features)” (Khrapchenko 266). Talking about classification through genres, Dennis Walder says: Nowadays most people would probably say that what is most important is the individual encounter with a particular work, rather than its classification. Nevertheless, literary works are still classified for particular purposes, by or on academic syllabuses, and there have always been people who believe in approaching works of literature (or art) in terms of their shared features. (Walder, Realist 3)

The sub-genre that we will concentrate on is, of course, psychological realism. I have, in this book, chosen works by four great writers: firstly, because (as the analysis of their works done in this book will show) they are masters of psychological realism and secondly because they are ones from whom I’ve derived pleasure and learning.

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On Literature In his book Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature, Bernard J. Paris writes: Because of its concrete, dramatic quality, literature enables us not only to observe people other than ourselves but also to enter into their mental universe, to discover what it feels like to be these people and to confront their life situations. We can gain in this way a phenomenological grasp of experience that cannot be derived from theory alone, and not from case histories either, unless they are also works of art. Because literature provides this kind of knowledge, it has a potentially sensitizing effect, one that is of as much importance to the clinician as it is to the humanist. Literature offers us an opportunity to amplify our experience in a way that can enhance our empathic powers, and because of this, it is a valuable aid to clinical training and personal growth. (Paris, Imagined 8)

Paris here refers to the act of reading (literature) as an experience that broadens our horizons, enabling us to understand (in ways that wouldn’t otherwise be possible) the lives of others in as close a manner as possible, while yet remaining dissociated from those ‘others’. No work of realistic fiction can be drawn from thin air, meaning, that realistic fiction (by the very definition of being ‘realistic’) must be drawn in some way or the other from real-life experiences. And yes, the fact that these experiences may sometime be the ones that are played out in the imagination of a ‘real’ person (the author) makes them no less realistic – they’re after all the products of the mind of another person, carrying to us thoughts, ideas and feelings that wouldn’t be known to us otherwise. Works of literature are products made by creative persons. The usual reason why an author sits down to write literature is that he has something to say and to express. Often, he is looking for an outlet to his feelings and his subconscious desires. Just as the pain, the trials, and tribulations, the misfortunes and disappointments of the author’s life contribute in shaping his or her personality, so also do they impact his or her writing, often profoundly so. Realistic novels, therefore, may potentially be not only ‘real’ representations of events and characters, but also of ‘real’ fears, limitations, prejudices and weaknesses. What Paris refers to as “sensitizing effect” and “empathic powers” is, of course, dependent on reader response, meaning that it depends on what a particular reader can take away from the text of the novel. A group of people who’re given to read Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty or Leo Tolstoy’s Kholstomer: The Story of a Horse will each react to the novel(s) in potentially different ways. While some, in tandem with the author’s intentions will be able to understand the

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story from the perspective of the protagonist (a horse in this case), be able to take a sensitive view of the creature’s life story and conditions and empathize with its circumstances, others may not undergo a “personal growth” to a similar degree. Paris asserts that novels enable the reader to “discover what it feels like to be these people” and Henry James, speaking in a similar vein in the Theory of Fiction says that a reader of a novel “likes to live the life of others” although he doesn’t here touch upon the “humanist” aspect of it or talk about it as “a valuable aid to clinical training or personal growth”: The novel is of all pictures the most comprehensive and the most elastic. It will stretch anywhere - it will take in absolutely anything; all it needs is a subject and a painter. But for its subject, magnificently, it has the whole human consciousness, and if we are pushed a step farther backward, and asked why the representation should be required when the object represented is itself mostly so accessible, the answer to that appears to be that man combines with his eternal desire for more experience an infinite cunning as to getting his experience as cheaply as possible. He will steal it whenever he can. He likes to live the life of others, yet is well aware of the points at which it may too intolerably resemble his own. The vivid fable, more than anything else, gives him this satisfaction on easy terms, gives him knowledge abundant yet vicarious. It enables him to select, to take and to leave; so that to feel he can afford to neglect it he must have a rare faculty, or great opportunities, for the extension of experience - by thought, by emotion, by energy - at first hand. (James, Theory 338)

Aristotle acknowledged this in as many words. One of the “main ways that literature is unique, he said, is that literature ushers us into a larger life; without it, we have not lived enough to escape the confines of our parochial existence” (Barber, Importance). Only in literature, can the reader be “emotionally engaged with the character while being freed from the distortions of reality and the urgency of being required to think, feel and respond simultaneously”: “We can read first about the tension of the facial muscles and then hear what words are said. The vital details are isolated and we learn what the author wants to emphasize. We can get close enough and still retain our comfort level” (Barber, Importance). Proust once said that “it is only in literature that we can fully identify with the other” (Barber, Importance). The reader can thereby “escape the confines” of “parochial existence” while simultaneously getting rewarded with an extension of experience (Barber, Importance). Not all of us can have the fortune (or misfortune) to be cast away on an island like Robinson Crusoe and then have the intelligence to survive the experience; neither can we be engaged in a listless pursuit of pleasure in the beautiful,

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high reaches of the Caucasus Mountains like Lermontov’s Pechorin in A Hero of Our Time. As Susan Barber says in The Importance of Developing the Feeling Function: Too much of life would otherwise pass us by, and without its heightening effect on our awareness, we are not seeing and feeling with enough precision and keenness. Simply put, without literature, we are not as alive as we could be. The effect is both horizontal and vertical; we live through literature more widely and more deeply. (Barber, Importance)

When Thomas Hardy wrote in 1886 that his “‘art is to intensify the expression of things...so that the heart and inner meaning is made vividly visible’, he foreshadowed Conrad’s oft-repeated and justly famous definition of realism, that ‘by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel - it is, before all, to make you see’” (Karl). As Henry James stated in his essay The Art of Fiction: “The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. When it relinquishes this attempt, the same attempt that we see on the canvas or the painter, it will have arrived at a very strange pass” (qtd. in Walder, Nineteenth 137). A novel becomes worth reading when readers around the world begin to identify with its creations and this identification is only possible when the reader feels that he or she ‘knows’ a character. Every novel presents to the writer an opportunity – the opportunity to explore the ‘human type’ and personality. Character types that are more unidimensional and lacking in depth, created for merely arousing the interest of the reader, will simply be stereotypes rather than adding to our knowledge of human nature or even meriting psychological analysis. To quote Alexei Tolstoy: Literature records the path traversed, it unfolds a motley canvas of history in the wake of the moving masses. But there is another, and in my view, more significant side to it which has to do with the major discoveries in the history of art: the study of man as the subject of history. The individual in a literary work is not just a human type but the focus of all the writers’ quests. It is through the individual (human type) that a realist writer investigates the social being of man...Through the human type, the writer gives us an idea of the mentality of people, their moral attitudes, their ideals, and aspirations. (qtd. in Khrapchenko 11)

Novels that enrich our understanding of human nature and psychology are usually written by writers who have not only experienced life intimately and profoundly but through their writing have consciously made an effort to make Life and the study of human nature their quest.

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It was around the 18th-century that “the ‘novel’ came to be increasingly associated with ‘realism’ and truthful depiction of life” (Walder, Realist 10). The 18th-century writer Samuel Richardson “went so far as to refer to his novel Clarissa (1747-8) as ‘the History of a Young Lady’ (in a letter of 1752)” (qtd. in Walder, Realist 10).

Photographic Reality To talk of psychological realism, I must first start from ‘realism’ and how this term was understood and applied initially. The 18th century brought about advancements in science and technology, and this seemed to especially emphasize factual and statistical data and theories that were verifiable and stood the test of time, logic and reasoning. In some ways, it was only natural, that this emphasis on accuracy and legitimacy of presentation should also affect the arts, especially literature. This is not to say that works written before the 18th century did not have realistic portrayals. However, the developments that took place in the 18th century ushered in a trend for accurate and thoughtful writing: ...with the advent of the 18th-century stress came to be laid on the depiction of human life and social circumstances with a precision akin to that provided by photography. It must be understood that the emergence of photography had influenced the masses with its authentic capture and portrayal of Man and the social scene. Now, artists and especially writers strove to bring the same kind of consciousness in their works...The 19thcentury French novelist Stendhal provides a memorable instance of this when he writes of the novel as ‘a mirror travelling along a highway’ (Walder, Realist 99).

The inimitable Henry James also had much to say on this. Of the many images of the artist which James employed, one of his favorites and one that emerged as the most famous is that of the architect. The famous passage about the “house of fiction” develops the photographic image of the ‘camera eye’ more amply, “assigning to the artist a more private position inside a completed building and the ostensibly more restful occupation of a ‘watcher’ whose sole activity is to observe”: the “consciousness of the artist” stands behind the “dead wall” of a building enclosing him, equipped “with a pair of eyes, or at least with a fieldglass,” and scrutinizes life through the window of his particular literary form (Holland). Here James “speaks of the dialectic of the productive conflict between observation and creation, between the relatively passive and relatively active modes, between taking things in (perception) and

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then, after changing their shape, thrusting them out again into something else (penerration)” (Holland). Not all novelists and critics, however, espoused this kind of confidence in realism: “It was increasingly felt by some that the ‘camera eye’ was not equipped to take in all. It had its limitations” (Walder, Realist 99). B. Reizov wrote: “Human and social truth cannot be seen just with the ‘physical’ eye. The surface of life is not the whole truth and it is not the detailing of life that forms the main strength…” (qtd. in Khrapchenko 45). It is not surprising then, that some novelists “should dissent from the conventional methods of realism and express a preference to portray the ‘inner’ or the psychological life of their characters, a fiction of fleeting sensations and impressions, a preference for psychological intensity rather than social comprehensiveness” (Walder, Realist 99).

On Literature and Psychology Since this study will focus on the use and portrayal of psychological realism in novels, it is essential to establish the relationship between literature and psychology at the very outset. “The years between 1800 and 1865 were formative for both psychiatry and fiction” (“Love’s Madness”): “1800 marked the decline of sentimentalism and the advent of medical reform in the treatment of the mad; 1865 saw the establishment of the Medico-Psychological Association at the height of sensation fiction’s popularity” (“Love’s Madness”). Due to these developments in psychology, the “difference between human beings during the nineteenth century was subject to peculiar scrutiny and massively shifting perception” (O’Gorman 202). The complexities of mind and memory were explored by scientists and writers alike (Herbert Spencer, the sociologist and intellectual ally of George Eliot published The Comparative Psychology of Man in 1876), and new journals were launched, devoted to the subject, for example, The Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology and Mind. The “uniqueness of each individual was increasingly recognized, and in keeping with this, the novel opened the way to new subjectivities” (O’Gorman 202). Interestingly, central to the life sciences lie questions of what make us live and develop as individuals and species; central to the novel are questions of how and why we develop as individuals and communities – ‘Man like infusoria (Infusoria is a collective term for minute aquatic creatures like ciliates and unicellular algae) in a drop of water under microscope’, Thomas Hardy noted from Schopenhauer, while George Eliot set up her study of provincial life in Middlemarch as an experiment. (O’Gorman 202)

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One figure who can be said to have changed forever the way human beings were to be studied was Sigmund Freud. Freud’s writings have been subjected to “sceptical scrutiny” in recent times, however, “his influence on the integration of psychology into the art of novel-writing cannot be questioned” (Lodge, Consciousness 22). Even today, there is “considerable respect for him among some of the leading scientific investigators of consciousness” (Lodge, Consciousness 22). The neuroscientist Gerald Edelman wrote that “while perhaps not a scientist in our sense, Freud was a great intellectual pioneer, particularly in his views on the unconscious and its role in behaviour” (Lodge, Consciousness 22). David Lodge in his work Consciousness and the Novel has pointed out how Freud’s revelation of the “model of the mind” enabled writers to “plumb these depths” of psychological reality in the characters they portrayed: The Freudian model of the mind was structured like geological strata: unconscious, ego, superego - in ascending order. It, therefore, encouraged the idea that consciousness had a dimension of depth, which it was the task of literature, as of psychoanalysis, to explore. For modernist writers, the effort to plumb these depths, to get closer to psychological reality, paradoxically entailed an abandonment of the traditional properties and strategies of literary realism. (Lodge, Consciousness 61)

It, therefore, has to be acknowledged that “one of the crucial factors in this shift of emphasis in literary fiction was the development of psychoanalysis, especially the work of Freud and, to a lesser extent, Jung” (Lodge, Consciousness 62). It was Freud who “first produced a plausible and persuasive account of human nature in which behavior was chiefly accounted for by motives that were hidden in the secret recesses of the individual psyche and hidden not just from observers but often from the subject’s own conscious mind” (Lodge, Consciousness 62). Psychoanalysis “is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques related to the study of the unconscious mind” (“Psychoanalysis”). It won’t be wrong to say that Freud himself created psychoanalysis. In fact, for several years he worked on it alone and propounded his thoughts and theories through exhaustive writings. He was also the first person to use the term psychoanalysis (in French) in 1896 and he was the one who set the initial tenets of psychoanalytic theory. In The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Freud wrote: “Even today, when I am no longer the only psychoanalyst, I feel myself justified in assuming that none can know better than myself what psychoanalysis is, (and) wherein it differs from other methods of investigating the psychic life…” (qtd. in Mijolla 1192).

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However, many others went on to contribute to the development of psychoanalysis – notable among these were Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung, both mentored by Freud. Others like Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Erich Fromm, who came to be known as neo-Freudians (they agreed with Freud on some aspects of psychoanalysis, while disagreeing with him on others) went on to develop their own distinct personality theories. For the purpose of the literary analysis that we’ll engage in this book, the basic tenets of psychoanalysis can be said to be the following: -

-

-

-

-

Instincts are the ultimate cause of all behavior. Some mental processes, such as motives, desires, and memories, are not available to awareness or conscious introspection. Many of the irrational drives that occupy the unconscious formulate human behavioral tendencies as well as cognition. While some mental processes are out of our awareness, there is the process of defense mechanism in which people are also motivated to push threatening thoughts or feelings from awareness. Attempts to bring these suppressed thoughts or feelings into awareness are resisted by the defense mechanisms. Any conflicts in the interplay of conscious and unconscious material may give rise to minor or serious mental disturbances and psychopathological conditions (most commonly depression, anxiety, and neurosis). The development perspective states that childhood relationships with caregivers play a role in shaping current and future relationships. The individual’s development may be driven by forgotten incidents of early childhood, instead of being determined by inherited traits alone. The psychodynamic perspective, which emphasizes the importance of individual or personal meaning of events; how a person experiences himself, important others, and the world in general. (Richard 182-183)

David Lodge comments on the influence that Freud and the psychoanalytic movement had on the writers of the era: It wasn’t necessary for writers to have actually read the psychoanalytical writings of Freud and his followers to be influenced by them. His ideas became memes, seeds carried on the winds of the Zeitgeist (a German expression that means ‘the spirit (Geist) of the time (Zeit)’). It denotes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era, propagating themselves in minds that had no first-half knowledge of Freud’s work. But we know, for

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Chapter One instance, that Frieda Lawrence, who had close personal connections with the European psychoanalytical movement, introduced D. H. Lawrence to Freud’s theories, especially the Oedipus complex, and that this influenced the final version of Sons and Lovers. Amongst the later writers, Virginia Woolf had close personal connections with the British psychoanalytical movement, through the Stracheys (James Strachey, brother of Lytton, was Freud’s English translator)”. (Lodge, Consciousness 59)

Freud himself took a deep and serious interest in Literature and recognized how Literature and Psychology could each contribute to an increased understanding of the other. On reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 1929, “he credited Hardy with intuitive knowledge of psychoanalysis” (Martin). Freud himself analysed literary texts with much sophistication. In her interesting work Freud and Fiction, Sarah Kofman presents an “examination of four fictional texts on which Freud himself wrote; a fragmentary poem by Empedocles, Hebbel’s Judith and Holofernes, Jensen’s Gradiva and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman” (“Freud and Fiction”). Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Freud (Wilcox). Psychoanalytic reading “has been practiced since the early development of psychoanalysis itself and has developed into a rich and heterogeneous interpretive tradition” (Gleason). As Celine Surprenant writes: “Psychoanalytic literary criticism does not constitute a unified field...However, all variants endorse, at least to a certain degree, the idea that literature...is fundamentally entwined with the psyche” (Waugh 200). “Literature”, in fact, “can help to reveal Consciousness in ways that Science cannot” (Lodge, Consciousness). Psychologically realistic texts give us “immediate knowledge of how the world is experienced by the individual consciousness and an understanding of the inner life in its own terms” (Paris, Psychological 24). It “enables us to grasp from within the phenomena that psychology and ethics treat from without” (Paris, Psychological 23). Gerald Edelman said that “‘consciousness is a first-person phenomenon’ which science, oriented to impersonal observation and the formulation of general laws, finds difficult to cope with” (Lodge, Consciousness 26). In his book Consciousness and the Novel, David Lodge creates a “fictitious cognitive scientist Ralph Messenger who makes the same point to the novelist Helen Reed” (Lodge, Consciousness 28): “That’s the problem of consciousness in a nutshell,” Ralph says, “How to give an objective, third-person account of a subjective, first-person phenomenon.”

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“Oh, but novelists have been doing that for the last two hundred years,” says Helen airily. (Lodge, Consciousness 28)

Bernard J. Paris says that although “historians of literature have repeatedly addressed the issue of psychological analysis of literary works in connection with the works of individual writers”, in the history of literature, “one cannot find a consistent study of its inception, development, and transformation in various trends and schools or of the work of the great writers” (Paris, Psychological). Probably that is what makes the sceptics nervous. A classic novel is the work of an essential genius; it is an expression “of his magnificent intelligence, of his intense and delicate interest in human nature” (Leavis 23). We go to literature “for many things, and not the least of them is the immediate knowledge that it gives of variously constituted human psyches” (Paris, Psychological 18). Therefore, “there is a need for extensive research of the development of this relationship between literature and psychology” (Paris, Psychological). There have been eminent psychologists like Karen Horney and John Bowlby, who through their work have paved the way for such studies. I shall apply some of their psychological theories to this study.

On Realism and Psychological Realism In the art of novel-writing, realism that deals by-and-large with visual perception (what I would prefer to call as photographic realism) needs to be differentiated from psychological realism. In the former, “the focus lies on events rather than on characters (italics mine)” (Brandt). There is very little if any, character development; psychological realism or characters’ interiority is not a significant concern in these texts. Characters “derive their significance from what they represent and how they contribute to the event in focus” (Brandt). They become “emblems of different aspects of human life: patterns of behaviour, states of mind, universal conditions” (Brandt). Novels using this technique often indulge in the “description of social setting”; “sometimes persons, as well as places, are non-specific”; and “attention is directed at the universal rather than the singular…the point being exposing a theme, generalizing an aspect of human life” (Brandt). On the other hand, supporters of realism in art themselves often characterize its principles and features in a simplified fashion (Khrapchenko 31). Khrapchenko stresses the need to explore realistic portrayals in 19th-century literature: While there is an abundance of critical and historical literature devoted to the general features of realism, various ways and means of realistic

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Chapter One portrayal of reality are not explored sufficiently well. That is why it seems so important to analyze basic types of artistic generalization in realistic literature and primarily in nineteenth-century literature. These artistic generalizations will necessarily show the diversity of the aesthetic assimilation of the world and the role of the individual in it, as portrayed in texts that depict psychological realism. (Khrapchenko 31)

In his critical essay The Art of Fiction (1884), James argues that “fiction should compete with reality, should depict as painting does, and should record as history does” (James, Future 39). On a similar vein, in his book Man as Purpose Alberto Moravia wrote that realism is courage. He noted that the artist is a witness. To “witness means to name things, that is, to determine them and to establish their objective significance for us” (Khrapchenko 19). A novel is an ‘impression of life’ in the author’s mind, that is, through the creative process, conveyed to the reader as a story. Howsoever we may differ in our understanding of what a ‘story’ is or what a story needs to do, it is not difficult to understand that a story that gives ample focus to external events while ignoring the psychological significance of the events on the characters, whatever its other merits may be, cannot be psychologically realistic or psychologically enlightening. As Caro Clarke, discussing (from the writer’s perspective) on how to drive a story from inside a character’s mind, says: You have to show the characters acting, and show why they are acting, or else the story isn’t a story, it’s just one damn thing after another. ‘I, Huck Finn, ran away from home and then I did this and then I did that and then I headed west.’ But that’s not why we read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We read it to share Huck’s inner adventure, how he responds to moral and physical tests. We see him change and grow strong by the choices he makes”. (Clarke)

Novels in which “psychological realism predominates tend to present society from the point of view of the individual; novels of social realism often take a sociological rather than a psychological view of character” (Paris, Psychological 8). Thus, “from Dickens or Jane Austen, where we have the individual concerned with society, to the extent that he or she depends on society for his or her definition, we turn to James, where the individual becomes more and more preoccupied with his or her consciousness, to the extent that his or her alienation from society becomes the gauge of his or her identity” (Bloom). In such works the “inner upheavals of the characters are shown in the light of the new and are related to their attitude to the ongoing change” (Novikov): “The characters respond to the contradictions in their own way and represent

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different types of human behavior. The writer is concerned with the question of a character’s responsibility for his actions, for his choice of his place in life and his allegiances in the midst of sharp contradictions” (Novikov). The “notion of psychological realism, the concept that the reader can place him or herself in someone else’s mind, in this case, the character’s, and see things from his own vantage point, came into existence as a way to bridge the gaps among our respective interiors” (Lollar). James asserted that literature in general and the novel in particular “is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life” (qtd. in Haralson 311). This naturally gives primacy to the role of the author as the creator of the work and its characters. Bernard J.Paris says that “through the novel’s rhetoric we become aware of the meaning which the characters’ experience has for a mind like that of the implied author” and suggests that viewing the implied author as “a fictional persona, as another dramatized consciousness...enlarges our knowledge of experience” (Paris, Psychological 24): What we have, in effect, is a deep inside view of his mind, a view which makes us phenomenologically aware of his experience of the world. When we see him as another consciousness, sometimes the most fascinating one in the book (italics mine), it becomes more difficult to regret the technical devices by which he is revealed, even when they produce aesthetic flaws. (Paris, Psychological 24)

Psychological Realism is the literary genre that delves on the internal life of the characters. Realism is lent to the text through a focus on the thoughts and motivations of the characters rather than on their occupations and external settings alone. The principal aim and characteristic of this genre are that the characters who inhabit a novel should be believable and living, breathing human beings who the readers can readily and inadvertently relate to. Human beings are complex creatures and it is the functioning of their minds (together with their psychological past) that makes them so. Psychologically realistic texts function with the assertion that it is through an in-depth understanding and portrayal of the human mind and personality that the author can hope to make the world depicted in the novel realistic, meaningful and enriching. It is, therefore, “a highly character-driven genre of fiction writing, as it focuses on the motivations and internal thoughts of characters to explain their actions” (Kennedy). Although it was the 19th century which heralded exquisite usage of psychological realism in fiction, psychological fiction as such had existed much earlier. The Tale of Genji or Genji Monogatari is a masterpiece of

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Japanese literature by Murasaki Shikibu, written at the start of the 11th century, and is generally considered to be not only the world’s first psychological novel but possibly the first “mature” novel in world literature. In A History of Japan, Mason and Caiger comment on the uniqueness of this pathbreaking work: Quite apart from its content, the Tale of Genji is significant as perhaps the first mature novel ever written. Earlier “novels” had too closely resembled fairy tales, or else were realistic but had no feeling for the complexity and capacity for development of their characters. Murasaki Shikibu’s book, though imaginative fiction, is both descriptively and psychologically true to life. It deals with society as it was and people as they are. (Mason, R.H.P, 96)

In the western world, the first psychological novel to be written is probably Giovanni Boccaccio’s Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, written in 1344. The novel delves on the “psychological effects of unrequited love” (Todd). What makes the work unique is that Boccaccio “authors the text from the point of view of ‘Fiammetta’” and “there is no omniscient narrator to offer an objective overview of the tale”, so much so that “we must rely solely upon the account of Fiammetta, who quickly proves herself to be a most unreliable witness” (Todd). Madame De La Fayette’s The Princess of Cleves, dating back to the 17th century, is considered by many to be an early example of the quintessential psychological novel, which may have served as a prototype to some of the 19th-century works which were to follow later. As perhaps the “first roman d’analyse (novel of analysis)”, this novel is known for “dissecting emotions and attitudes in a highly intelligent and skillful way” (Brians, “Madame de Lafayette”). Amongst 18th century novels, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa: The History of a Young Lady are prime examples of novels that employed psychological realism. However, it was only in the 19th century that the portrayal of the characters’ rich inner world and broad intellectual horizons became of prime importance and was increasingly explored by writers in their works. The technique flowered in different languages and in the works of some of the greatest novelists that we shall ever know. Psychological realism, an inquisitive investigation of life and man, “discovers deep processes of life and complexity of the inner landscape” (Khrapchenko 19). A cross-section of people read these works as they became increasingly accessible to the reading public. Khrapchenko states that “portrayal of the externalities of life” could not reveal the “psyche and motivation of the characters”:

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Creative investigation of the world presupposes not only exceptional sensitivity to what is going on within it, but also a determination by the artist to penetrate to the root of processes and phenomena, beneath mere appearance, and into the psyche and motivation of the characters. A portrayal of the externalities of life, mere copying or pure formal quests, obviously could not produce such results. (Khrapchenko 19)

When describing a character, writers, like painters, will first consider the exterior. However, it is to be noted that a writer who concentrates primarily on exterior descriptions will only create works that fall short in representing Life. Despite having a plot, narratives, where exterior descriptions of streets, places, even events dominate when they don’t take into account the human element, will not be eminently readable, and far less interesting. For that matter, a writer who concentrates on what his people looked like and how they acted instead of the way in which they thought, or how their feelings worked, will also miss the element of internal life that prompts readers to identify with the characters of a novel. By describing mental as well as physical characteristics the novelist endows his persons with a more convincing life-likeness: “Defoe tells us a great deal about Robinson Crusoe’s ideas and religious beliefs, and Swift allows Gulliver to express himself on political and philosophical affairs” (Walder, Realist 194). Virginia Woolf’s essay Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924) “shows these ideas in action in a witty and quite devastating attack on the work of Arnold Bennett, H.G. Wells, and John Galsworthy, all then at the height of their fame” (Walder, Realist 194). She “imagines that each is trying to write a novel centered on a woman - Mrs. Brown - glimpsed in a railway carriage” (Walder, Realist 194). She proposed that Bennett would: …observe every detail with immense care. He would notice the advertisements; the pictures of Swanage and Portsmouth; the way in which the cushion bulged between the buttons; how Mrs. Brown wore a brooch which had cost three-and-ten-three at Whitworth’s bazaar; and had mended both gloves - indeed the thumb of the left-hand glove had been replaced… [this is just the technique he uses in his novel Hilda Lessways]...he begins to describe, not Hilda Lessways, but the view from her bedroom window...One line of insight would have done more than all those lines of description, but let them pass as the necessary drudgery of the novelist. And now - where is Hilda? Alas. Hilda is still looking out of the window. Passionate and dissatisfied as she was, she was a girl with an eye for houses...Therefore the villas must be described...we cannot hear her mother’s voice or Hilda’s voice; we can only hear Mr. Bennett’s voice telling us facts about rents and freeholds and copyholds and fines (From ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’). (qtd. in Walder, Realist 194)

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In this essay on Modern Fiction, commenting on the “scrupulous descriptions of external appearances” (Lodge, Consciousness 58) that it employs, Virginia Woolf asked rhetorically: “Is life like this…Must novels be like this?” and answered her own question: “Look within and life it seems, is very far from being ‘like this’. Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day...” (Lodge, Consciousness 58) “Look within,” she exhorts. The “heuristic direction of this kind of fiction is, one might say, always from outside to inside, from spoken to unspoken thought, from surface to depth” (Lodge, Consciousness 58). This is not to say that external details have no place in a psychologically realistic text. Paradoxically, the “material details are very often used to impart knowledge of things not usually visible to the human eye. For instance, a character’s state of mind or motivation might be revealed through a detail of clothing, or an aspect of a room” (McDonagh 16). In terms of style, “many psychological novels feature interior monologue and stream of consciousness; these are literary techniques that give the reader direct access to the inner thoughts of characters” (“Genres”). Another merit in these stories is that the characters are not only true portraits, but they are ‘living beings’ (Baker 4). Their feelings and motives are seen to be “part and parcel of their natures and conditions, their talk is individual, belongs strictly to them, and not to the author” (Baker 4). Novels differ in the emphasis they lay on the portrayal of the characters’ inner processes. Even so, one of the great achievements of novels of psychological realism is their “dramatization of complex patterns of feeling, behavior, and interaction” (Paris, Psychological 130). Although characters in a novel need not “embody the full potentialities of human nature”, the ‘character types’ that it portrays should be convincing (Paris, Psychological 130). Commenting on fictional characters, Bernard J. Paris says in his work Imagined Human Beings: “Psychological analysis has shown that they (fictional characters) are complex characters who are portrayed with considerable subtlety” (Paris, Imagined). To understand the intricacies of psychological realism in the 19th-century novel, criticism alone is not sufficient. After all, criticism is by-and-large reductive: “Psychological analysis is our best tool for talking about the intricacies of mimetic characterization. If properly conducted, it is less reductive than any other approach” (Paris, Psychological). Certain literary techniques have come to be associated with psychological realism. These techniques are what make psychological realism possible; however, no specific technique is indispensable in a novel of psychological realism. A novel is the creation of its author and is hence subject to his (or her) innovativeness and literary idiosyncrasies.

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One popular technique that has been employed by authors is known as ‘Stream of Consciousness’. This is a suitable technical device to reveal the mental lives of the characters. This technique renders “the unceasing flux of thoughts and associations, conscious and otherwise” (“Encyclopedia Novel”). In psychology and philosophy stream of consciousness, introduced by William James, is the “set of constantly changing inner thoughts and sensations which an individual has while conscious”, used as a synonym for the stream of thought (Westland 38). In literary criticism, “‘stream of consciousness’ denotes a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes” (“Encyclopedia: Stream”). Stream-of-consciousness writing “is characterized by associative (and at times dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing” as they do “a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings” (“Encyclopedia: Stream”). It is “the direct presentation of a character’s thoughts in the first person” (Warren). It is “a technique in which the writer lets the reader see the thought processes of a character” (Warren). When we think, we don’t think in sentences, with perfect logic: “Our minds jump from place to place with the flimsiest of connections, creating all sorts of images and calling on memories and sensations” (Warren). Intuitively, Virginia Woolf knew this: “In an interesting correspondence her friend Jacques Raverat, a painter, argued that writing’s essential linearity prevented it from representing the complex multiplicity of a mental event, as a painting could. She replied that she was trying to get away from the ‘formal railway line of the sentence...people never did think or feel in that way, but all over the place, in your way’” (Lodge, Consciousness 23). Stream of consciousness attempts to capture and present this flow of thought: “By breaking up the formal railway line of the sentence, by the use of ellipses and parentheses, by blurring the boundaries between what is thought and what is spoken, and by switching point of view and narrative voice with bewildering frequency - by these and similar devices she tried to imitate in her fiction the elusiveness of the phenomenon of consciousness” (Lodge, Consciousness 23). Joyce “perhaps came closer than any writer had done before to representing the extraordinary complexity of the brain activity that goes on just below the surface of the self-conscious mind” (Lodge, Consciousness 24). Interior monologue “is a similar technique, in that it lets the reader see the character’s thoughts. But in this case, the character’s thoughts are not presented chaotically, as in ‘stream of consciousness’, but are arranged logically, as if the character were making a speech (to himself) in his

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mind” (Warren). Inner monologues often “occur at the most dramatic points in the narrative and are in harmony with other artistic devices” (Novikov). These “monologues take various forms and discharge various artistic functions” (Novikov). Their primary function is to reveal deep emotions and the interplay of emotions. Both these devices encourage the reader to empathize with the character. Skillful writers will often present ‘interior monologue’ in association with specific actions and gestures that work to heighten its effect and revelatory power. Psychological realists develop a character through several means. Other than a description of the characters and a narration of their life-history, which works to introduce the characters, they use dialogue and techniques like interior monologue and stream of consciousness to take the reader deeper into an understanding of the characters’ thoughts and psychology. Another technique of psychological realism is Psychonarration. The “narrator reports the character’s thoughts to the reader, representing them in the third person” (“Narrative”). The “narrator remains in the foreground and may add some general observations (comments) not part of the character’s thoughts” (“Narrative”). We hear the narrator’s voice more than the character’s. The fourth technique of psychological realism is Narrated Monologue. This is a mix between psycho narration and interior monologue. The “narrator often sets the scene, but the character’s thoughts are reproduced directly and in a way the character would think”, “though the narrator continues to talk of the character in the third person” (“Narrative”). The “syntax is less formal (incomplete sentences, exclamations, etc.) and the character’s mind style is reproduced more closely” (“Narrative”). We hear a dual voice; “the voices of the narrator and the character are momentarily merged” (“Narrative”). This “can create an impression of immediacy”, “but it can also be used to introduce an element of irony when the reader realizes that a character is misguided without actually being told so by the narrator” (Hecimovich). Some mainstream authors of the 20th century have made advances in their quest to portray their characters accurately, as living, breathing, and thinking human beings. This has come through putting in a great deal of time and effort in the learning. We will analyze how much of a contribution was made by some of the 19th-century writers. George Eliot was an acknowledged genius among the novelists of the 19th century. In his ‘Preface’ to The Princess Casamassima, Henry James observed that it is George Eliot’s attempt to show the histories of her characters “as determined by their feelings and the nature of their minds” that made

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“their emotions, their stirred intelligence, their moral consciousness…our very own adventure” (James, The Princess Casamassima 16). Skilton also comments on how Eliot and other 19th century writers actively involved themselves in such efforts: This two-fold attention to the inner and outer aspects of character led novelists as different as Gaskell, Trollope, George Eliot and Meredith to anticipate many of the findings of psychoanalysis, and to develop for their own use a range of techniques for rendering simultaneous thought and speech or thought and action, such as incorporating ‘submerged speech’ or ‘submerged thought’ in the stream of narrative, as Jane Austen had done before them. (Skilton 156)

This brought into play a novel form of writing. Novels began to be written differently and this also brought about a change in the way they were read, understood and interpreted. While some realists incorporated this “twofold attention” into their narratives in a moderate degree, others tried to “plumb the depths” of the characters’ mind and internal life. Some writers began to break from set traditions in starting to present the narrative through the thoughts and perspectives of a limited number of characters. In his work Consciousness and the Novel, exploring the relationship between consciousness and literature, David Lodge in considering “works of writers ranging from Jane Austen to John Updike, and Virginia Woolf to Philip Roth, examines how the novel represents consciousness and how such representation has changed through time” (“Consciousness”): ‘The world of objective facts has almost completely vanished…almost everything stated appears by way of reflection in the consciousness of the dramatis personae’. This technique implies a belief that reality inheres not in the common phenomenal world but in the perceptions of that world in individual minds. (Lodge, Consciousness 58)

On Truth and Psychological Realism “Fictional characters are more often than not taken from life. Equally the way in which people behave is drawn from life. There is, therefore, always a strain of reality running through fiction” (Khrapchenko 135). Margaret Oliphant put it in a different way when she wrote in 1855: “We feel no art in these remarkable books” (qtd. in Glen 1). As Mikhail Khrapchenko has commented: “The idea of the novel, after all, is that men must see the true essence of life in themselves” (Khrapchenko 135). He goes on to state:

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Chapter One Actually, what we feel is a force which makes everything real…a motion which is irresistible. ‘Truthfulness’ should be defined as the sum of devices designed to give shape to the artist’s perception of reality, lend them harmony and completeness and make characters and situations convincing…Such writing is characterized by truthfulness – truthfulness in describing circumstances (even if they are fantastic they must be truthful in their exclusiveness, as in Lermontov’s Demon), the relevance of the situations in the overall pattern of the work, the correspondence of style to content, etc. (Khrapchenko 19)

The “more talented the artist, the more vivid characters he can draw (characters, that is, which make sense in terms of psychology), the more entertaining the situations and conflicts and the greater their hold on the reader due to the illusion of truthfulness” (Novikov). In his work, A Confession, Tolstoy, who was obsessed with Truth and its depiction, gives several different definitions of ‘truth’. He first sees ‘truth’ as “everyday life”; then as “death”, and finally concludes that ‘truth’ is “faith”. However, in his novels, the reader can only feel the truth, in all its simplicity. A reading of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina doesn’t feel like one is reading a contrived story – it feels as if the omniscient narrator, from whom but little is hidden, and who is privy to the inner life of the characters, has but given a truthful account of people he intimately knows. Commenting on Tolstoy and his gift of writing, Hemmings says: Tolstoy…perhaps more than any other author wrote himself into his works. A lot of his writing is drawn from his own personal experiences…he was for that matter an intensely private person. Also, like his other great Russian contemporaries, he had the gift of feeling life deeply. We can almost visualize him taking long draughts from the Cup of Life, and then pouring it out in his works...Tolstoy’s characters…all distinct, all fascinating, because they were all, in their different ways, utterly human, truer than any biographer could make his subject. (Hemmings)

Tolstoy, in his lifetime, was witness to his works becoming immensely popular in other countries. However, it was Ivan Turgenev who had first enabled an appreciation of Russian Literature in the mind of the Western reader. He started with his thought-provoking work A Sportsman’s Sketches. The stories in this Collection are not only excellent studies of the human type but also present the inconsistencies of human fate in an unsentimental yet touching manner. In his more famous novellas, which were to come later, he lays bare his seething vision of the human psyche and condition. V.G. Belinsky wrote in his work A View on Russian Literature of 1847:

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The main characteristic of his (Turgenev’s) talent is that he would hardly have been able to create precisely a character he had not met in real life. He had always to keep close to reality. Nature endowed him richly for this kind of art: with the gift of observation, the ability to understand and, rapidly and correctly, appreciate every phenomenon - instinctively guessing its causes and effects and thus intuitively supplementing the necessary information. (Esaulov 40)

Impartiality and truth were the hallmarks of Turgenev’s writing. He concurred with “Belinsky’s conviction that literature’s primary aim was to reflect the truth of life” (Augustyn 255). Adopting “a critical attitude toward Life’s injustices became an article of faith for Turgenev” (Augustyn 255). Turgenev preferred to be a secret psychologist in his writings, depicting and interpreting only as much, while encouraging the reader to himself try and understand the internal life of the characters. Towards the end of his novella A Nest of the Gentry, Turgenev concludes that the truth is best left unstated. He ends the novel beautifully by stating that he could not possibly explain what Lavretsky and Liza felt and that it is better to point out these individual tragedies and pass them by. Towards “the end of his life, Turgenev confessed in a letter to Claudine Viardot (August 26, 1878): ‘In my work, I am a realist and I…prefer realism in art, poetic reality, that is, reality so truthful as to become beautiful’” (Khrapchenko 120). Chares Dickens’s contribution to realism is something many critics find difficult to acknowledge. But the characters that he created were not always plain creations of his imagination. In his work The Realist Novel, Walder cites an interesting fact related to one of the settings of Great Expectations to convey that literal copying of reality does not necessarily create the ‘reality effect’ in fiction: The setting of Great Expectations was familiar to Dickens from his childhood, and it was his custom to show friends round the Kent churchyard on which the scene is based, but they would see thirteen little gravestones lying there! He had reduced the number to five for the novel, on the grounds that nobody would believe it if he gave the true number. (Walder, Realist 14)

According to “recent findings of an Australian neurologist, Dickens was so good at describing neurological disease in his characters that the symptoms were used word-for-word in medical textbooks of the day” (“The Times of India”). The 19th-century novelist’s interpretations of diseases of the nervous system even predated formal medical classification, some by more than a

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Chapter One century. His description of the tics, teeth grinding and grimaces of the character Mr. Bell, now known as symptoms of Tourette syndrome, was published more than 40 years before Giles de la Tourette clinically described the disorder in 1885. In The Pickwick Papers, Schoffer notes that Dickens links Parkinson’s disease and dementia in an old man whose “limbs were shaking with disease and the palsy had fastened on his mind” (“The Times of India”).

No wonder then that writers who have excelled at psychological realism and drawing psychological portraits have also been acknowledged stars of the literary world. Some critics believe that “there is a very thin line between truthfulness and verisimilitude; however, to great artists, the difference has always been glaringly evident” (Khrapchenko 20). As Khrapchenko puts it: “All major realists – from Pushkin to Stanislavsky - were against supplanting of truthfulness by verisimilitude. Their hearts were moved by Truth and not by “little truth” (Khrapchenko 20). Pushkin too believed that “real geniuses of tragedy were concerned only with the truth of characters and situations” (Novikov). This definition is somewhat similar to the formula of Engels: “Realism, to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, truth in the reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances” (Novikov). As James had said: “The evolution of a writer often takes place because of a compulsive need to portray the truth” (James, Literary Criticism 34). We also know of George Eliot’s affinity for truthful portraits of characters taken from life. Eliot, like James, “was an avid literary analyst and has left behind a fine body of critical writings that give us her ideas on the art of Fiction as well” (McDonagh 57). Eliot claimed that she aspired to give no more than a faithful account of men and things as they had “mirrored themselves in my mind”: “The mirror is doubtless defective; the outlines will sometimes be disturbed; the reflection faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you, as precisely as I can, what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box narrating my experience on oath” (McDonagh 30). F. R. Leavis tells us that “there is also a personal basis to some of her works, as in The Mill on the Floss” and how “it continues to be one of her most well-known novels”: “The children of whom George Eliot wrote were of her own childhood, Maggie being her child-self. But as we read of Tom and Maggie it does not matter in what period the story is set: the characters are true to life and experience at the present time” (Leavis 52). Leavis further states: But of course, the most striking quality of The Mill on the Floss is that which goes with the strong autobiographical element. It strikes us as an

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emotional tone. We feel an urgency, a resonance, a personal vibration, adverting us of the poignantly immediate presence of the author. Since the vividness, the penetration, and the irresistible truth of the best of the book are clearly bound up with this quality. (Leavis 47)

Another writer, a genius, who almost had the power to make her readers live the life of her novels’ protagonists, was Charlotte Brontë. Margaret Blom says that “deriving great satisfaction from realistic portrayal, Charlotte worked consciously to remodel her fictional world” (Blom 43). In 1836 she invokes her muse to “paint to the life,” “detail with graphic skill,”, “scribe so well that each separate voice shall speak out of the page in changeful tone,” and “shew us even those details that give truest life to the picture,” for all these characteristics have the power to “astonish us” (Blom 43). Her work Jane Eyre “has conventionally been read as a psychologically realistic narrative of an unprecedented kind” (Glen 24). I have tried to impress upon the reader the authenticity of the psychological data that some writers use in their works. However, it is important to reiterate that (as in the case of Jane Eyre), often these very characters are as much a product of the imagination - that is why we refer to them as ‘creations’. Thomas Hardy too made ample use of the real: “New biographical information reiterates how often and closely Hardy dramatised episodes in his personal life” (Butler 88): “Given what we know about Hardy’s use of the real, it seems unlikely that this repetition is without a personal origin” (Butler 105). Hardy “excelled at revealing the inner life of his characters” (Butler 90). He was “opposed to a ‘photographic’ naturalism, favoring instead a kind of ‘analytic” writing which ‘makes strange’ common-sense reality and brings into view other realities obscured precisely by the naturalized version” (Kramer 74). Hardy claimed that “a novel is not an intellectual argument, but an ‘impression,’ that is, a general tone or effect imprinted on the mind, emotions, and eyes of the reader” (Kramer 148). Hardy believed that “Art is a disproportioning (i.e., distorting, throwing out of proportion) of realities, to show more clearly the features that matter in those realities, which, if merely copied or reported inventorially, might possibly be observed, but would more probably be overlooked” (Hardy, Literary 235). More commonly in the 19th century, “the realist selected a single life and made it the subject of the novel” (Hemmings): Characters in the novels of Flaubert, Tolstoy, Zola and other writers of the latter part of the century are invariably ‘people of our sort’, which does not mean of course that we see ourselves necessarily behaving as they do, but

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Chapter One that we can understand only too well what makes them behave as they do. They are never extraordinary (it is precisely because Dostoevsky’s four great novels all embody abnormal heroes that some critics hesitate to claim him among the realists), and so, in general, their fates are never extraordinary. (Hemmings)

Amongst French writers of the 19th-century, Marie-Henri Beyle, who wrote under the pseudonym Stendhal was renowned for his realistic portrayal of the everyday characters he depicted especially his deep understanding of the characters’ psychology. His achievements are all the more noteworthy since all his literary output was delivered in the Romantic period. In fact it was after his passing away that the rich contribution of his novels could be truly recognized. Hippolyte Taine considered the psychological portraits of Stendhal’s characters to be “real because they are complex, many-sided, particular and original, like living human beings” (Pearson 38). Eric Auerbach believed that in Stendhal’s novels “characters, attitudes, and relationships of the dramatis personæ… are woven into the action in a manner more detailed and more real than had been exhibited in any earlier novel, and indeed in any works of literary art” (Pearson 38). Auerbach also considered modern “serious realism” to have begun with Stendhal and his illustrious contemporary Honoré de Balzac. Balzac, widely regarded as one of the founders of realism in literature, was so passionate about the truthful depiction of everyday life in his works, that in order to understand life better he is known to have wandered the streets of Paris incognito with the sole purpose of observing the ways and manners of the people and to familiarize himself with their struggles and tribulations. His art is also distinguished by the fact that even the minor characters depicted are not without their share of complexity, genuineness and moral ambiguity. He took inspiration not only from the events of his own life but also from those of people he interacted with. La Comédie humaine, Balzac’s classic multi-volume collection of novels and stories is one of a kind. The novels and stories in the collection are often linked to each other through recurring characters and life-histories. Because Balzac wrote sans any moral agenda, his characters are brazenly human, with shades of both good and evil. In the preface to Le Lys dans la vallée, he wrote: “To arrive at the truth, writers use whatever literary device seems capable of giving the greatest intensity of life to their characters” (“Info List”). Balzac also had a wonderful sense of perception. Henry James, who was familiar with Balzac and his works, recognized that Balzac both loved and understood the people he portrayed. However, “it was by loving them - as the terms of his subject and the nuggets of his

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mine – that he knew them; it was not by knowing them that he loved” (James, Literary Criticism 132). What he liked was absolutely to get into the constituted consciousness, into all the clothes, gloves and whatever else, into the very skin, bones, of the habited, featured, colored, articulated form of life that he desired to present. How do we know given persons, for any purpose of demonstration, unless we know their situation for themselves…? (James, Literary Criticism 131)

“At the center of a good story are the characters in it” (“Creative”). It has been a well-known and acknowledged practice amongst writers to build their characters on the basis of observed characteristics of people from real life. Mary Gaitskill says of Anna Karenina: “What strikes me about the book is how precisely rendered the characters are, how recognizable they are as people. It was written so many years ago, and yet the characters are descriptions of people I know and see” (Gaitskill). To “depict all in motion, the inner world of people and the life surrounding them is the basic creative method of Tolstoy”: “He sought to reveal the reality underneath by removing the veneer of custom” (“Leo Tolstoy”). To Tolstoy, “every inner thought, sense, and emotion was reflected in some physical detail; the resulting psychophysical method was to have a profound influence on later writers” (“Leo Tolstoy”). The story of Anna Karenina, unlike that of the epic War and Peace, was contemporary with Tolstoy’s time and place, and hence the character types that inhabit the former were derived to a larger extent from Tolstoy’s own experiences and the people he knew. If “a conventional novel is a novel with a linear plot focused on one or two central characters, then War and Peace is a very unconventional novel” (“Leo Tolstoy”). It “has no single plot, and it includes more than 550 characters, some fifty of whom play important roles” (“Leo Tolstoy”). And interestingly, “memorable” and vital though “some of the characters may be, no single character dominates the book” (“Leo Tolstoy”). It is of course beyond doubt that not all characters in such a humongous work would be based on actual people Tolstoy had known or even on traits of people he was intimate with. It, therefore, needs to be understood that gifted realist authors, even in their most appreciated descriptions and portrayals don’t rely solely on experience. James made this amply clear with the following example: I remember an English novelist, a woman of genius, telling me that she was much commended for the impression she had managed to give in one of her tales of the nature and way of life of the French Protestant youth.

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Chapter One She had been asked where she learned so much about this recondite being; she had been congratulated on her peculiar opportunities. These opportunities consisted in her having once, in Paris, as she ascended a staircase, passed an open door where, in the household…, some of the young Protestants were seated at table round a finished meal. The glimpse made a picture; it lasted only a moment, but that moment was experience. She had got her direct personal impression, and she turned out her type. She knew what youth was, and what Protestantism was; she also had the advantage of having seen what it was to be French; so that she converted these ideas into a concrete image and produced a reality. Above all, however, she was blessed with the faculty which when you give it an inch takes an ell, and which for the artist is a much greater source of strength than any accident of residence or of place in the social scale…Therefore, if I should certainly say to a novice, “Write from experience and experience only,” I should feel that this was rather a vague monition if I were not careful immediately to add, “Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!” I am far from intending by this to lessen the importance of exactness - of truth of detail! (James, Literary Criticism)

From what has been stated until now in this chapter, it should be apparent that a good novelist must be an exact writer and a knowledgeable one. It is surprising therefore that novels are often carelessly and thoughtlessly categorized as ‘fiction’, and ‘fiction’ itself is interpreted purely as a ‘feigned or false story’. It must be understood that the so-called ‘imaginary’ characters are often derived from the novelist’s experience. The liberty of creativity that authors do take however is in heightening certain features of personality or unifying aspects of several people into one personality. As Bernard J. Paris has said: However we may judge the author’s views as truths about experience, we immediately recognize his mimetic characters as true to experience and as endowed with the human interest which real people always have. Works which seem rather dated when we study them thematically are quite fresh when we approach them psychologically. (Paris, Psychological 281)

On Fantasy, Romance and Psychological Realism To start with I must surprise some readers by saying that (the technique of) psychological realism is sometimes as much at home with so-called ‘romantic’ novels as with ‘realistic’ novels. As George Landow, speaking on fantasy and the inner world, has said: “Novel and fantasy touch upon each other in the matter of the inner world, and if one envisages a spectrum of fictions with the realistic novels of Eliot and Trollope at one end and the fantasies of Macdonald and Lindsay at the other, the novel of

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psychological realism occupies a middle position and shares qualities of both. Thus, Jane Eyre, which purports to convey both the objective experiences and the inner world of its orphan protagonist, has as much in common with the creations of Macdonald as it does with those of Thackeray, Trollope, and Gaskell” (Landow). Psychological realism portrays the mind, and the mind of individuals is as powerfully moved by the ‘irrational’ as with the ‘rational’. Our dreams (and here I’m referring to ‘dreams’ in both the wakeful and the sleeping states) and desires go a long way in determining our psychological makeup. To quote Khrapchenko: “It is...imperative to acknowledge that our lives are as much irrational as rational. Ignoring the so-called irrational aspects of the individual, we will not have the moral ground to try and claim to understand his psychological make-up” (Khrapchenko 27). If my reader is still sceptical, he might do well to “inscribe on his doorpost this statement by Flaubert: ‘we have too many things and not enough forms’” (Haight 107). It is true that some critics have seen Jane Eyre as a ‘fantastic’ narrative in some of its aspects. This is primarily because of the Gothic elements that are interwoven into the plot, as well as some settings, events, and characters that seem to stretch the imagination a bit. And yet, the novel has won accolades for its psychological realism - seething portrayal of the human psyche and condition almost unparalleled in the effect that it creates on the reader: “Psychological realism reigns supreme in this self-portrait of ‘the first anti-heroine’ in literature, so much so that even the fairy-tale (or mythic?) aspect of that heroine’s origins becomes believable. Jane would not lie to us! We know her…” (“Jane Eyre: With Connections”). As the findings in this study will show, there is much more to the book that needs to be deciphered, understood and appreciated – and which goes a long way in enlarging our understanding of human nature. As Khrapchenko has said: Identification of romanticism with a departure from life’s contradictions is completely unjustifiable. In the romantic literature of the 19th-century, there were trends whose creative principles were not similar to the artistic criteria of realism. Still, they revealed in depth the leading principles of social reality...The reduction of romanticism to rhetoric, false affectation, or stylization of any variety is completely unjustified. (Khrapchenko 22)

Commenting on how symbolism, surrealism and the art of the absurd allow us access to other aspects of reality, Khrapchenko says: “While the symbolists tried to see a different ‘reality’ in the transcendental with the help of revelation, the surrealists viewed the hallucinations, dreams, arbitrary associations and abnormalities of the human psyche as true

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reality. Often these different aspirations in the non-communicative art are drawn together and intertwined” (Khrapchenko 208). Thus, “in the art of the absurd, the inner chaos of the alienated individual is dwelt on” and “objectively significant results appear not only in the social context but also in a depiction of man’s inner world” (Khrapchenko 208). Khrapchenko draws our attention to the fact that “genuine human feelings and conflicts have found their way through the maze of vague and irrational symbols” in the art of novel-writing: “Most sad and tragic motifs of alienation, loneliness, and angst characterize the complex development processes of social and individual psychology” (Khrapchenko). As Samuel Richardson wrote in a letter in 1752: “What a duce, do you think I’m writing a romance? Don’t you see that I’m copying Nature?” (qtd. in Walder, Realist 27).

On Plot and Character The Novel has two unavoidable constituents – the Plot and the Characterdrawing. Critics have argued over the comparative importance of either in the art of novel writing. Novels can even be categorized on the basis of the stress that they lay on Plot or Character, but that would be a rather flimsy and narrow division. As Dennis Walder has pointed out, “division and classification is always to some extent an artificial exercise, and Henry James was neither the first nor the last to attack this” (Walder, Realist 17). In his work The Art of Fiction James had the following to say on the distinction drawn between event and character: People often talk of these things as if they had a kind of internecine distinctness, instead of melting into each other at every breath and being intimately associated parts of one general effort of expression. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is either a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way, or if it be not an incident I think it will be hard to say what it is. (From ‘The art of fiction’, 1884, in Edel, The House of Fiction) (qtd.in Walder, Identities 144)

In the preface to The Portrait of a Lady, wherein James makes a full confession of his ‘point of view’ technique, he states another interesting point. For James, the act of creation begins with the “vision of some person or persons” and never consists in “any conceit of a plot…but altogether in the sense of a single character” in this particular case “the

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character and aspect of a particular engaging woman” (qtd. in Malec). James noted that in the Portrait of A Lady, the character of Isabel (whatever its origin in James’s acquaintanceship or reading) came…alone without involvement in setting or action, an “unattached character” who was “not engaged in the tangle, to which we look for much of the impress that constitutes an identity” (qtd. in Walder, Identities 121). In this, James was influenced by the writer that he admired the most, Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. James “commends Turgenev’s method of first inventing a character which subsequently offered that character’s fate” (“Determining”). Isabel, the protagonist of Portrait of A Lady, was a “single character” given alone, as Turgenev had claimed his own were given, without the “situations” and “complications” which launch novels into “movement” and which identify a hero’s world or “fate” (Holland). The problem for the writer was, later, to “imagine, to invent and select and piece together” the figure’s world and “destiny” (Holland). This strategy was based on the priority of character over plot and consisted in deriving the action “from the qualities of the actors” rather than from a “preconceived” plan (Holland). Its “antithesis, as James then formulated it, was the novel with the imposed form of a story” (Holland). Writers are known to use characters to drive the plot. There are also several ways in which a writer can illuminate the personality of the characters. Comments from the narrator, the dialogic communication between the characters, as well as the depiction of the characters’ thought processes and dilemmas are some of them. Also, as will be seen in the analysis done in this book, characters in a novel may be used to make crucial revelations about the protagonist or other characters. This technique has the advantage of minimizing any disruption in the flow of the narrative by virtue of keeping authorial comments to a minimum. Also, using characters as reflectors enhances the psychological realism of the story and it’s ‘lifelikeness’. In The Portrait of a Lady, James uses Ralph Touchett as a ‘figural consciousness’ to reveal much about Isabel and her inner life. This enriches the character portrayal enabling the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the same. If we think of the plot to be a succession of events, then an event is merely a change from one state of affairs to another; a succession of events we might call a story. Were an author to focus solely on the depiction of the succession of events and ignore character-portrayal, he would never be able to touch upon psychological realism. E.M. Forster, in a witty little book on Aspects of the Novel (1927), preferred to stress the importance of character, but had to admit nonetheless that “Yes – oh dear yes – the novel tells a story” …That is the

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Chapter One fundamental aspect without which it could not exist. The tone of regret is intentional: for Forster, the mere narrative of events arranged in their time sequence had only one merit – that of making the audience want to know what happens next. (Walder, Realist 13)

Novels that have attained the status of a ‘Classic’ generally make ample use of both plot and character-drawing, and this is also true for novels of psychological realism. The reason is not difficult to understand. Marx and Engels wrote that “circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances” (Marx 59). The Plot often evolves and illuminates the character and characters themselves ‘create’ and ‘drive’ the plot. “The diverse qualities of human character cannot be reduced to the direct influence of the social environment. However, besides inborn qualities, there may exist social forces which provoke the hero’s resistance to his environment and even an open struggle against it” (Khrapchenko 73). The “profound impact of the environment on human psychology fascinated both Pushkin and Stendhal” (Khrapchenko 73). Having said that, “realism should not be interpreted as mere adaptation and submission to external circumstances; it includes the human striving to change them. It is often said that realism presupposes the self-development of characters” (Khrapchenko 69). This is true, especially in the sense that their development is complex – they cannot always be maneuvered like mere puppets: “Undeniably, the characters with the psychologically welldefined features are noted for an independence manifested variously, especially in conflict with other humans or circumstances” (Khrapchenko 69). In The Realist Novel Ian Watt, in speaking of the ‘non-traditional plot’, discusses how the characters sometimes drive the plot: The novel’s use of non-traditional plots is an early and probably independent manifestation of this emphasis. When Defoe, for example, began to write fiction he took little notice of the dominant critical theory of the day, which still inclined towards the use of traditional plots; instead, he merely allowed his narrative order to flow spontaneously from his own sense of what his protagonists might plausibly do next. In so doing Defoe initiated an important new tendency in fiction: his total subordination of the plot to the pattern of the autobiographical memoir is as defiant an assertion of the primacy of individual experience (italics mine) in the novel as Descartes’s cogito ergo sum was in philosophy. (Walder, Realist 218)

In this section we discussed the primacy of character over plot; we also saw how authors often use the character(s) as the germinal idea behind driving the plot and writing the novel. However, “although character supersedes and drives the plot in psychologically realistic literature, it is

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important to understand that action is inherent in any novel” (Walder, Realist 13). As Walder has commented in his work The Realist Novel: “Characters can facilitate action. Some theorists have reduced characters to no more than ‘actants’, or the agents of action…Actions can be as much internal to consciousness as external to it” (Walder, Realist 13). What device is used to depict psychological realism is up to the discretion of the writer. Whatever devices are used, ultimately the author should succeed in revealing the consciousness of the character to the reader. I should reiterate that this is the requirement or criteria of a psychologically realistic work rather than the novel in general.

Characterization The “greatest achievement of many realistic novels is their portrayal of character”, but we hardly have a “critical perspective that enables us to appreciate this achievement and to talk about it with sophistication” (Paris, Psychological). The art of characterization is not easy and that is what makes it one of the most fascinating literary phenomena to analyze. Lenin’s profound statement comes to mind: “The whole meaning and the special character of a novel, its focus, is the individual features of character and the analysis of particular situations” (qtd. in Khrapchenko 230). Each author differs in the way he brings his characters alive. The “main character is generally referred to as the protagonist”, and there may be an oppositional figure, the “antagonist” (Morrisey). Character traits are revealed in various ways. Direct characterization “may be offered through a narrator’s description of himself or another character” (“Characterization”). Indirect characterization “is revealed by what the character says and how he (or she) says it; what the character does, in initiating or responding to action; and what others reveal about the character through verbal and nonverbal responses” (“Characterization”). For a literary analyst, it is critical to look for evidence of motivation to explain why the characters behave as they do. In some instances, “it is proper to treat literary characters as real people and that only by doing so can we fully appreciate the distinctive achievement of the genre” (Paris, Psychological). To demand that characters in a novel should set ‘an example’ for the reader is unreasonable. We should not place such constraints on the author’s creativity. However, there have been critics – past and present – who have thought it right to burden the author with this very responsibility. In his important Rambler essay number 4 on prose fiction, “Johnson claimed that mixed characters were dangerous examples for ‘the Young,

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the Ignorant, and the Idle’ for whom novels served ‘as Lectures of Conduct, and Introductions into Life’, because if ‘good and bad Qualities’ were mingled in the ‘principal Personages’ the reader might lose the Abhorrence of their Faults…or, perhaps, regard them with some Kindness for being united with so much Merit” (Harris 913). That “‘vicious’ book Tom Jones was his main unnamed target in this essay” and “he regularly depreciated Fielding, and correspondingly praised Richardson for having enlarged the Knowledge of Human Nature and taught the passions to move at the Command of Virtue” (“Samuel”). I find Johnson contradicting himself here. If novels were designed plainly as ‘Lectures of Conduct’, they could not possibly be accurate ‘Introductions into Life’. Again, if a novel were to teach ‘the passions to move at the Command of Virtue’, they could not possibly enlarge ‘the Knowledge of Human Nature’, for human nature encompasses a range of moral grounds. A true psychological realist will “avoid sacrificing the complexity or richness of character in the interest of moral edification or the representation of abstract qualities” (Davis). Great novelists try and depict (aspects of) Life, and their works come across as eminently readable because they more often than not depict the ‘truth’. Novels of psychological realism should not show a preference for only morally upright ‘character types’ since this narrow vision will restrict our outlook on the human race and also incapacitate the sub-genre (in its attempt to enlighten the consciousness of the mimetic character). Were an author to doctor his narrative to move at the ‘Command of Virtue’, he would have to severely restrict himself in depicting reality. As Virginia Woolf, the author of Mrs. Dalloway (1925) herself declared: ‘I believe that all novels…deal with character and that it is to express character – not to preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose and undramatic, so rich, elastic and alive, has been evolved’. (From ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’) (qtd. in Walder, Realist 12)

Discussing the merits of Representation vis-à-vis Interpretation Bernard J. Paris states that it is but natural that any work of fiction will have the imprints of its creator. However, when the author-narrator is “significantly present as an interpreter of experience, the novel will develop a thematic structure but it will suffer in psychological realism” (Paris, Imagined 32). Moreover, since novels of psychological realism present the individual’s point of view and thinking, they do not easily allow the author-narrator to guide the narrative and the story on moralistic lines. The characters are said to lead a life of their own. They are

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conceived as individualistic creatures. Their independent thought process seems to take the novel on its own free course, where the writer is no more the sole determiner of their destinies. Many “novelists have angrily repudiated the suggestion that their characters are directly based on real people: equally many, often the same writers, have admitted that they derived their characters from contact with individuals they have met or known” (Walder, Realist 13). Turgenev “would insist that his characters, were not invented, but discovered, and that the character of Bazarov (in Fathers and Sons) was derived from a country doctor encountered on a railway train: ‘the novelist was struck by the man’s rough, matter-of-fact candid manner...it flashed upon him that here was a representative of a type, one which was to become known as the Nihilist’” (Walder, Realist 13). If “Bazarov’s character represents a type, then by definition that is drawn from more than one real-life person” (Walder, Realist 13). Some works revolve around the consciousness of the protagonist. In Jane Eyre, “the personality of the heroine holds the novel together, and each separate episode is necessary to establish the singleness of this personality” (Winnifrith 109).

Psychological Theories Used Theory of Neurosis In his book Imagined Human Beings, Bernard J. Paris states: Like most students of literature, I had been taught to analyze literary characters primarily in formal and thematic terms. When I looked at realistically drawn characters from a Horneyan perspective, I came to see that there was an immense amount of psychological detail that literary criticism had simply ignored (italics mine). These characters were not simply functions in a text or encoded messages from the author but were imagined human beings whose thoughts, feelings, and actions made sense in motivational terms. I had not been taught that literature is about human beings, human relationships, and human experiences; but outside of the academy one of the primary appeals of great literature has always been its portrayal of characters who seem to be of the same nature as ourselves. A psychological understanding of these characters makes them all the more fascinating. (Paris, Imagined 6)

When we apply psychoanalytic theory to literature it usually means “applying specific concepts and patterns originating from the work of Freud, and theorists who have followed or diverged from him, to literary

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texts in order to reveal hidden ideas – in this sense we attempt to interpret literary texts as psychic phenomena” (“Virtual Theorist”). Freud is known to have used Oedipus Rex and Hamlet to formulate his theory of the Oedipus complex. In his book, The Literary Freud Perry Meisel argues that Freud was, in fact, a literary critic. Psychoanalytic criticism “adopts the methods of ‘reading’ employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts” (Delahoyde). It can also be the case that “literary texts...express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author and that a literary work is a manifestation of the author’s own neuroses” (Delahoyde). Sometimes the characters in a novel are projections of the psyche of their creator. And like psychoanalysis itself, “psychoanalytic criticism seeks evidence of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilts, ambivalences, and so forth within what may well be a disunified literary work” (Delahoyde). But psychological material “will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded through principles such as ‘symbolism’ (the repressed object represented in disguise), ‘condensation’ (several thoughts or persons represented in a single image), and ‘displacement’ (anxiety located onto another image by means of association)” (Kharbe 218). Unfortunately, psychology hasn’t been applied enough in the analysis of literary characters. Paris rightly sees this as an “enormous critical error”: When I began discussing the psychology of literary characters, I quickly encountered a great deal of resistance to this procedure among my fellow critics. It has become a dogma of modern theory that literary characters do not belong to the real world in which people have internal motivations but to a fictional world in which everything they are and do is part of a larger structure whose logic is determined by purely artistic considerations. I believe that the rejection of the idea that literary characters can be analyzed in ways similar to those in which we analyze real people has been an enormous critical error. (italics mine) (Paris, Imagined 6)

Paris points out that “one of the most frequent objections to motivational analysis is that it takes characters out of the work and tries to understand them in their own right” (Paris, Imagined 7). And he contends that “given the nature of mimetic characterization, this is not an unreasonable procedure” (Paris, Imagined 7): “Mimetic characters are part of the fictional world in which they exist, but they are also autonomous beings with an inner logic of their own. They are, in E. M. Forster’s phrase, ‘creations inside a creation’ who tend to go their own way as the author becomes absorbed in imagining human beings, motivating their behavior,

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and supplying their reactions to the situations in which they have been placed” (Paris, Imagined 7). When we encounter a fully drawn mimetic character, “we are justified in asking questions about his motivations based on our knowledge of the ways in which real people are motivated” (Paris, Imagined 7). Karen Horney and Abraham Maslow’s theories have been applied to study mimetic characters. Horney was born Karen Danielsen on 16 September 1885 in Blankenese, Germany, near Hamburg (Sack). Much “against her parents’ wishes”, Horney “entered medical school” in 1906 at the University of Freiburg and after stints at the University of Göttingen and University of Berlin, graduated with an M.D. in 1913 (Sack). Karen Horney spent her initial professional years in medical practice. After her interest shifted to psychoanalysis, she began to increasingly participate in psychiatric work. The experience that she garnered was put into the formulation of theories related to neurosis and personality. Her most eminent theoretical works include The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937) and New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939), “in which she argued that environmental and social conditions, rather than the instinctual or biological drives described by Freud, determine much of individual personality and are the chief causes of neuroses and personality disorders” (“New Ways”). Horney “looked at neurosis in a different light from other psychoanalysts of the time” and “her expansive interest in the subject led her to compile a detailed theory of neurosis, with data from her patients” (Sack). Horney “believed neurosis to be a continuous process - with neuroses commonly occurring sporadically in one’s lifetime”: “This was in contrast to the opinions of her contemporaries who believed neurosis was, like more severe mental conditions, an adverse malfunction of the mind in response to external stimuli, such as bereavement, divorce or negative experiences during childhood and adolescence” (Sack). Horney acknowledged the importance of influences during childhood. As for the rest of these assumptions, Horney believed that factors that arise from the child’s immediate environment, such as the parents’ indifference towards the child, emotional inadequacy and incompetence in providing nurturing were more important. She was also instrumental in giving rise to the belief that it was the child’s perception of events and incidents (instead of the guardian’s intentions) that would help the psychoanalyst unravel the patient’s neurosis. Horney’s theories especially were found to be appropriate for the study of psychological realism in fiction by Bernard J. Paris. He says:

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Chapter One Maslow is the greatest student of self-actualization; Horney offers the most systematic account of self-alienation. Horney’s main concern is with what happens when, under the pressure of an adverse environment, the individual abandons his real self and develops neurotic strategies for living. Since fictional characters and implied authors are much more frequently self-alienated than self-actualizing, it is Karen Horney’s theories which are most immediately relevant to our study of fiction. (Paris, Psychological 28)

Based on her experiences in clinical and outpatient psychiatry, Horney formulated ten patterns of neurotic needs. These neurotic needs can be corelated to factors that Horney believed every individual needs to develop and have a fruitful life. She was also careful to point out that while a neurotic person could potentially exhibit all of these needs, in practice even having a few of these could be the means of diagnosing a person as neurotic. The ten needs, as set out by Horney, (classified according to her so-called coping strategies) are as follows: “Moving Toward People (Compliance) 1. The need for affection and approval; pleasing others and being liked by them. 2. The need for a partner; one whom they can love and who will solve all problems. Moving Against People (Aggression) 3. The need for power; the ability to bend wills and achieve control over others - while most persons seek strength, the neurotic may be desperate for it. 4. The need to exploit others; to get the better of them. To become manipulative, fostering the belief that people are there merely to be used. 5. The need for social recognition; prestige and limelight. 6. The need for personal admiration; for both inner and outer qualities - to be valued. 7. The need for personal achievement; though virtually all persons wish to make achievements, as with No. 3, the neurotic may be desperate for achievement. Moving Away from People (Withdrawal) 8. The need for self-sufficiency and independence; while most desire some autonomy, the neurotic may simply wish to discard other individuals entirely. 9. The need for perfection; while many are driven to perfect their lives in the form of well-being, the neurotic may display a fear of being slightly flawed. 10. Lastly, the need to restrict life practices to within narrow borders; to live as inconspicuous a life as possible.” (Jones, Jeffrey)

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Upon investigating the ten needs further, Horney found she was able to condense them into three broad categories: 1. Compliance “Two of the needs were assimilated into the compliance category. This category is seen as a process of moving towards people, or self-effacement. Under Horney’s theory children facing difficulties with parents often use this strategy. Fear of helplessness and abandonment occurs - phenomena Horney refers to as basic anxiety. Those within the compliance category “tend to exhibit a need for affection and approval on the part of their peers” (“Horney’s Neurotic”): “They try to overcome their anxiety by gaining affection and approval and by controlling others through their dependency on them...In order to gain the love, approval, and support they need, basically compliant people develop certain qualities, inhibitions, and ways of relating. They seek to attach other people by being good, loving, self-effacing, and weak. They become ‘unselfish, self-sacrificing, overconsiderate, overappreciative, overgreatful, and generous’” (Paris, Imagined 21). Horney believed that compliant personalities may have “a variety of aggressive tendencies strongly repressed” (“Horney’s Neurotic”). 2. Aggression “Secondly, neurotic persons may employ aggression also called the moving against people or the expansive solution. Five of the Needs comprise this category. Neurotic children or adults within this category often exhibit anger or basic hostility to those around them” (“Horney’s Neurotic”). “Arrogant-vindictive children may have had a harsh childhood, though not necessarily so. Such personalities may have no incentive to please and can give free rein to their bitter resentment. The desire for love is replaced by ambition and a drive toward vindictive triumph. They live for the day of reckoning when they will prove their superiority, put their enemies to shame, and show how they have been wronged...Aggressive people regard the world as an arena where, in the Darwinian sense, only the fittest survive and the strong annihilate the weak. Aggressive people are sometimes drawn toward compliant types, however, because of their submissiveness and malleability – and also because of their own repressed self-effacing tendencies” (Paris, Imagined 22). 3. Detachment “Thirdly and lastly, is detachment (or withdrawal). This category encompasses the final three needs that Horney defined and overlaps with the compliance trait. This neurotic trend is often labeled as the moving-away-from or

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resigning solution or a detached personality. As neither aggression nor compliance solves parental indifference, Horney recognized that children might simply try to become self-sufficient” (“Horney’s Neurotic”). “Whereas self-effacing people crave love and expansive people seek mastery, detached people worship freedom and independence. Detached people disdain the pursuit of worldly success and have a profound aversion to effort...They realize their ambition in imagination rather than through actual accomplishments. They make themselves invulnerable by being self-sufficient...In order to avoid being dependent on the environment, they try to subdue their inner cravings and to be content with little” (Paris, Imagined 28). They “suppress or deny all feelings towards others, particularly love and hate” (“Horney’s Neurotic”). It is essential to keep in mind that “we will find neither characters in literature nor people in life who correspond precisely to Horney’s descriptions” (Paris, Psychological 56). As Karen Horney, herself observes, “although people tending toward the same main solution have characteristic similarities they may differ widely with regard to the level of human qualities, gifts, or achievements involved” (Paris, Psychological 42). The advantage of Maslow’s theories is that he has synthesized the findings of many other workers (Paris, Psychological 32). He “is the leading spokesman for Third Force psychology as a whole” (Paris, Psychological 29). Talking of Third Force psychology, Gerard Keegan says: “Third Force psychology is another name for the humanistic approach. Third Force psychology believes that all people are inherently good. And that although personal growth can develop a personality in terms of self-actualization, the fully functioning person has an inner wisdom and confidence to guide his own life in a manner that is personally satisfying and socially constructive” (Keegan). As the basis of his psychological theory, “Maslow takes human needs, which he feels are the determinants of the individual’s psychology” (Paris, Psychological 32). However, “these needs are not always experienced consciously; indeed, they tend to be more unconscious than conscious” (Paris, Psychological 31). The “needs are basic in the sense that they are built into the nature of all men as a function of their biological structure and they must be gratified if the organism is to develop in a healthy way” (Paris, Psychological 31). Maslow called this theory the ‘hierarchy of basic needs’. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the

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needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and selfactualization. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. Since we’re discussing Maslow’s theory, it will be good to mention the needs involved (although it is Horney’s theory and not Maslow’s theory, per se, that has been applied in the analysis done in this book):From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are as follows:1) Basic Needs Physiological needs: food, water, warmth, rest Safety needs: security, safety 2) Psychological Needs Belongingness and love needs: intimate relationships, friends Esteem needs: prestige and feeling of accomplishment 3) Self-fulfillment Needs Self-actualization: achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities. (McLeod, “Maslow’s”)

Elaborating on the ‘hierarchy of basic needs’, Paris sees it as critical to the formative development of each individual: The hierarchy of basic needs…establishes the pattern of psychological evolution. If the individual is not adequately fulfilled in his lower needs, he may become fixated at an early stage of development; or, if he passes beyond, he may be subject to frequent regressions. The frustration of a basic need intensifies it and ensures its persistence; gratification diminishes its strength as a motivating force… (Paris, Psychological 32)

However, it is essential to remind ourselves here that “behavior is not solely determined by inner needs; socio-cultural setting of the individual’s environment and the immediate situation are also important determinants” (Paris, Psychological 33). Because their “instinctoid needs (especially the higher ones) are so weak and the voice of the real self is so faint, it is extremely difficult for human beings to be impulse aware, to know how they really feel and what they really want” (Paris, Psychological 36). Paris contends that “man is by nature a being who is easily self-alienated” (Paris, Psychological 36). Talking of how self-alienated people tend to think, Paris states: …they tend to generalize from their own experience…They then judge the magnitude of the problems by the intensity of their response. Because of

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Chapter One their limited experience, their need to externalize, and their desire to avoid feelings of uncertainty, isolation, and inferiority, they tend to see their personal problems not as belonging to themselves, but as historical or existential in nature. (Paris, Psychological 39)

Fiction is full of characters who would meet this definition of selfalienated people. It was Karen Horney who proposed that “the neurotic person’s values are determined not only by his ungratified basic needs but also by his defensive strategies” (italics mine) (Paris, Psychological 47). Although “neurotic needs result from the frustration of basic needs”, they “are not the same as basic needs” (Paris, Psychological 40). The “neurotic person tends to value not so much what he needs in order to grow as what he needs in order to maintain his system of defense” (Paris, Psychological 40). Paris says that “the child who is not permitted to be himself and who does not live in a safe, relatively transparent world develops a defensiveness which cuts him off both from himself and from external reality” (Paris, Psychological 48). The opposite of defensiveness is “openness to experience” and “the self-actualizing person is characterized above all by his openness to his own inner being and to the world around him” (Paris, Psychological 48). Self-hate “is the end result of the neurotic process” and Horney sees it as “perhaps the greatest tragedy of the human mind” (Paris, Psychological 70). Paris explains why he believes that Horney’s theories would be most suitable for analyzing literary characters: One reason why I find it possible to analyze literary characters psychologically is that I employ the theories of Karen Horney, which explain behavior in terms of its function within the present structure of the psyche rather than in terms of infantile origins. While literature gives little or no information about infancy, it reveals a great deal about the adult. (Paris, Psychological xi)

Here Paris draws our attention to a very valid point. There might be psychoanalysts who would insist on data about the infantile origins of an individual. But as we are aware, literature doesn’t always supply the reader with this kind of biographical data about the mimetic characters involved. Another virtue of Horney’s theory that the literary analyst will appreciate is that it is free of arcane terminology and is readily intelligible. It is not a universal theory, of course (no theory is), but it deals with human needs and defenses that are portrayed in the literature of many periods and cultures. It can help us to understand the behavior of

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characters in literature from the past, to enter into their feelings, and to enrich our knowledge of ourselves and others through an understanding of their inner conflicts and relationships…Each of the major psychological theories tends to focus on some part of the hierarchy of needs rather than upon the whole hierarchy. (Paris, Psychological 34)

Horney “is mainly concerned with the neurotic processes which occur as a result of the frustration of the needs for safety, love, and self-esteem” (Paris, Psychological 35).

Attachment Theory and the Theory of Maternal Deprivation Another theory which I’ve gainfully applied to this study is Attachment Theory. Attachment theory “is a concept in developmental psychology that concerns the importance of ‘attachment’ in regards to personal development” (“Developmental”). Attachment theory has as its starting point the early years of life –the genesis of attachment. Attachment “is characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as seeking proximity to the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969)” (“Attachment”, Simply). Specifically, it “makes the claim that the ability for an individual to form an emotional and physical ‘attachment’ to another person gives a sense of stability and security necessary to take risks, branch out, and grow and develop as a personality” (“Developmental”). Attachment theory “explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development” (“Attachment”, Simply). The “most important tenet of attachment theory is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for the child’s successful social and emotional development” (“Adoptee”). Psychologist John Bowlby “was the first to coin the term” and “attachment theory in psychology originates” with his “seminal work” (“Attachment”, Simply). His “work in the late 60s established the precedent that childhood development depended heavily upon a child’s ability to form a strong relationship with ‘at least one primary caregiver’” (“Developmental”). Bowlby studied psychology and pre-clinical sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, receiving “rigorous scientific training and some instruction in what is now called developmental psychology” (Goldberg, Susan 46) and “winning prizes for outstanding intellectual performance” (“Life Span”). After graduating from Cambridge in 1928, he did “volunteer work at a school with maladjusted” and delinquent children “while reconsidering his career goals” (Goldberg, Susan 46): “His experiences with two children at the school set his professional life on course. One was a very isolated, remote, affectionless teenager who had

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been expelled from his previous school for theft and had had no stable mother figure. The second child was an anxious boy of seven or eight who trailed Bowlby around and who was known as his shadow” (Goldberg, Susan 46). Concurrently with his studies in medicine and psychiatry, Bowlby undertook training at the British Psychoanalytic Institute (Goldberg, Susan 46). Persuaded by this experience of the effects of early family relationships on personality development, Bowlby decided to embark on a career as a child psychiatrist (Goldberg, Susan 46). Thereafter he enrolled at University College Hospital in London and qualified in medicine at the age of twenty-six (“John Bowlby”, newworld). In the 1930s John Bowlby worked as a psychiatrist in a Child Guidance Clinic in London, where he treated many emotionally disturbed children (“Attachment”, Simply). This “experience led Bowlby to consider the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional and cognitive development” (“Attachment”, Simply). Specifically, “it shaped his belief about the link between early infant separations with the mother and later maladjustment and led Bowlby to formulate his attachment theory” (“Attachment”, Simply). Bowlby was exposed to Kleinian ideas through his training analyst, Joan Riviere, a close associate of Klein, and eventually through supervision by Melanie Klein herself. Although he acknowledges Riviere and Klein for grounding him in the object-relations approach to psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on early relationships and the pathogenic potential of loss, he had grave reservations about aspects of the Kleinian approach to child psychoanalysis. Klein held that children’s emotional problems are almost entirely due to fantasies generated from internal conflict between aggressive and libidinal drives, rather than to events in the external world. (Bretherton)

Bowlby, on the other hand, “had come to believe that actual family experiences were a much more important, if not the basic cause of emotional disturbance” (Goldberg, Susan 47). Unlike Melanie Klein, who had stressed on the importance of the internal fantasy world of the child, Bowlby asserted that the key area of study must be the way a child was treated by his parents or guardians in their everyday life as well as the patterns of interaction between them. Bowlby’s “plan to counter Klein’s ideas through research is manifest in an early theoretical paper (1940) in which he proposed that, like nurserymen, psychoanalysts should study the nature of the organism, the properties of the soil, and their interaction” (Bretherton). The “learning/behaviorist theory of attachment (Dollard & Miller)” which was

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dominant then believed that “attachment is a set of learned behaviors”, and the “basis for the learning of attachments is the provision of food”, in effect suggesting that the child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant (“Attachment”, Simply). However, John Bowlby, “working alongside James Robertson (1952) observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers” and “even when such children were fed by other caregivers, this did not diminish the child’s anxiety (“Attachment”, Simply). Instead, Bowlby “found that attachment was characterized by clear behavioral and motivation patterns” (Cherry). These “findings contradicted the behavioral theory of attachment which was shown to underestimate the child’s bond with their mother” (“Attachment”, Simply). Bowlby “viewed attachment as a product of evolutionary processes” (Cherry): “While the behavioral theories of attachment suggested that attachment was a learned process, Bowlby and others proposed that children are born with an innate drive to form attachments with caregivers” (Cherry). The evolutionary theory of attachment (Bowlby, Harlow, Lorenz among its proponents) thus “suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others, because this will help them to survive” (“John Bowlby | Maternal Deprivation Theory”). Psychoanalytic object-relations theories “later proposed by Fairbain (1952) and Winnicott (1965) were congenial to Bowlby, but his thinking had developed independently of them” (Goldberg, Susan 47). Although World War II led to an interruption in Bowlby’s budding career as a practicing child psychiatrist, it laid further groundwork for his career as a researcher. His assignment was to collaborate on officer selection procedures with a group of distinguished colleagues from the Tavistock Clinic in London, an experience that gave Bowlby a level of methodological and statistical expertise then unusual for a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. This training is obvious in the revision of his paper, “FortyFour Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home Lives” (Bowlby, 1944), which includes statistical tests as well as detailed case histories. (Goldberg, Susan 47-48).

Bowlby suggested that “a child would initially form only one primary attachment (monotropy) and that the attachment figure acted as a secure base for exploring the world”: “The attachment relationship acts as a prototype for all future social relationships so disrupting it can have severe consequences” (“Attachment Theory”, Simply). This theory also suggests that “there is a critical period for developing an attachment (about 0 -5

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years)”: If an attachment has not developed during this period, then the child will suffer from irreversible developmental consequences” (“Attachment Theory”, Simply). Bowlby’s initial findings and the announcement of the basic principles of his theory was met with a degree of skepticism especially because of the lack of statistical and empirical data to support the theory. At the very least, however, Bowlby’s theory set the ball rolling in the study of early relationships and led to very interesting and dedicated research in an area that was (and continues to be) extremely challenging. Prior to formulating the attachment theory, Bowlby had proposed the term ‘maternal deprivation’. This was related to the work that Bowlby and other like-minded psychoanalysts were engaged in at that point in time – namely a study of how separation from its primary caregiver (the mother) affects the child. (It must be remembered however that the effect of the loss of the mother had been considered earlier by other theorists including Freud, although they did not develop or lay adequate stress on it.) In the 1930s, David Levy had noted a phenomenon “he called...‘primary affect hunger’ in children removed very early from their mothers and brought up in institutions and multiple foster homes”: “These children, though often pleasant on the surface, seemed indifferent underneath” (Anne-Laure 26). He “proposed that two environmental factors” were paramount in early childhood (Anne-Laure 27). The first was the “death of the mother, or prolonged separation from her” (Anne-Laure 27). The second was “the mother's emotional attitude towards her child” (Anne-Laure 27). In fact, “early life maternal deprivation has been linked to a variety of biological and behavioral disturbances in later life” (“Maternal”, sciencedirect). It has been “less readily apparent”, however, that “among the fundamental needs of the infant are requirements for gentle physical contact, sounds of pleasant and varying tones of the human voice, antigravity play, visual stimuli from the human environment and the more subtle interpersonal communications – in sum, all of those activities ordinarily supplied by a loving mother” (Arinde). It may at first be startling to consider these as “biologic necessities” but the evidence… suggests that “they are hardly less essential than an adequate vitamin and caloric intake for the infant’s survival and, most assuredly so, for normal growth and development” (Glaser). Without attempting an exhaustive catalogue of the mother’s role above and beyond physical care, it can be said that: 1) she transmits to the child emotional warmth and cultivates within him responsiveness and attachment to other human beings, and 2) she provides an endless source, varying with her own adequacy, of stimulation for intellectual growth (Glaser). The effects of maternal deprivation were first recognized in children

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removed from (or abandoned by) their mothers and placed in institutions for long periods (Glaser). Study of these children revealed that the majority failed to thrive and exhibited retardation in social and intellectual development, despite maintenance of physical hygiene and the provision of nourishing foods (Glaser). Spitz found evidence of marked disturbance in the younger child (Glaser). These changes are categorized by his ignoring the environment and resisting the approach of persons by weeping and screaming; the child progressively withdraws from contact with his environment and finally falls into a frozen rigidity with wide-open expressionless eyes and immobile faces (Glaser). He engages in “autoerotic” activities (Glaser). The “emotional changes” in the infant are closely linked to the intellectual and physical changes and can hardly be studied separately (Glaser). While Bowlby worked on formulating his concepts, he also associated with other researchers who were working with disturbed and maladjusted children. He took a deep interest in the case studies of disturbed and delinquent children that were published in 1943 and 1945. (William Goldfarb, who had lead these investigations was to go on to dedicate his career to the study and treatment of childhood schizophrenia). Another researcher Rene Spitz “observed separated children’s grief, proposing that ‘psychotoxic’ results were brought about by inappropriate experiences of early care” (“History of Attachment”). Work carried out by the social worker and psychoanalyst James Robertson (who incidentally, like Bowlby, was associated with the Tavistock Clinic and Institute at London) also influenced Bowlby. Robertson (with the help of grants that he received for the work) filmed the stay of young children in hospitals and the effects of this separation on the mind and behavior of the children. He and Bowlby collaborated in the making of the 1952 documentary film A Two-Year Old Goes to the Hospital (regarded as a classic now and designated as “of national and historic importance”). (In later years Robertson working alongside his wife Joyce conceptualized the terms ‘bonding’ and ‘attachment’ and differentiated between them). Bowlby travelled in Europe and in America, “communicating with social workers, pediatricians and child psychiatrists including those who had already published literature on the issue” (“Adoption”). While these authors and researchers were unaware of each other’s work, it was Bowlby who worked to correlate their findings and pointed out the similarities. This, despite the fact that these researchers were located at different parts of the globe and had inadvertently used a variety of methods (that ranged from direct observation to retrospective analysis to comparison groups). Bowlby also considered the research (spanning from 1936 to 1943)

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undertaken by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham on the study of children separated from their families due to war and children’s reaction to war. (The findings were published in the book War and Children which the two co-authored). Besides these, there was the humongous research material that had resulted from Bowlby’s own, dedicated studies over the years. Bowlby’s first formal statement of attachment theory, building on concepts from ethology and developmental psychology, was presented to the British Psychoanalytic Society in London in three now classic papers: “The Nature of the Child’s Tie to His Mother” (1958), “Separation Anxiety” (1959), and “Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood” (1960)” (Goldberg, Susan 53). The “psychological theory of attachment developed by John Bowlby was expanded upon by Mary Ainsworth” (“Attachment Theory in Children”). It was in 1950 that the two crossed paths “when Ainsworth took a position in Bowlby’s research unit at the Tavistock Clinic in London” (“Attachment Theory in Children”). This was the beginning of a significant association. Through several papers, numerous research studies, and theories discarded, altered, or added together, Bowlby and Ainsworth developed and provided evidence for attachment theory as a more rigorous explanation and description of attachment behavior than any of the other theories on this topic at the time, including those that had grown out of Freud’s work and those that were developed in direct opposition to Freud’s ideas. (“Attachment Theory in Children”)

Ainsworth “contributed the concept of the attachment figure as a secure base from which an infant can explore the world” (Goldberg, Susan 45). In addition, “she formulated the concept of maternal sensitivity to infant signals and its role in the development of infant-mother attachment patterns” (Goldberg, Susan 45). She also “provided the first empirical taxonomy of individual differences in infant attachment patterns” (Fraley). By 1962 Bowlby “had completed two further papers on defensive processes related to mourning” and together, “these five papers represent the first basic blueprint of attachment theory” (Goldberg, Susan 53). Attachment “is an emotional bond with another person” (Cherry), and Bowlby defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (qtd. in Cherry). Bowlby “believed that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have a tremendous impact that continues throughout life” (Cherry), thereby proposing that “attachment characterized human experience from ‘the cradle to the grave’” (Fraley).

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The development of the child’s superego, his conscience, depends on his imitation of, and identification with, loved parents: he desires approval; he wishes to please; and, in order to do so, he has to comply and respect the wishes, rules, demands, and feelings of the loved person (Glaser). Bowlby believed that “the mental representations or working models (i.e., expectations, beliefs, ‘rules’ or ‘scripts’ for behaving and thinking) that a child holds regarding relationships are a function of his or her caregiving experiences” (Fraley). A number of studies since that time have also “supported Ainsworth’s attachment styles and have indicated that attachment styles also have an impact on behaviors later in life” (Cherry). Research suggests that “failure to form secure attachments early in life can have a negative impact on behavior in later childhood and throughout life” (Cherry). As per Attachment theory, parental deficiencies increase the child’s vulnerability to the emergence of later difficulties rather than being a direct cause of later difficulties. Bowlby maintained that several pathways of psychological development were possible from infancy to adulthood, and which pathway was taken by an individual would depend primarily on the interaction of the child with its environment. He also postulated that the most crucial environmental factor that had a direct bearing on the child’s development was the relationship (or lack of it) that it shared with the mother. While “attachment styles displayed in adulthood are not necessarily the same as those seen in infancy, research indicates that early attachments can have a serious impact on later relationships” (Cherry). More recently, “taxometric research published by Fraley and Waller (1998)”, has influenced most researchers to “conceptualize and measure individual differences in attachment dimensionally rather than categorically” (Fraley). What influence does the “lack of ability to develop a love relationship,” this “affectionless” character, as Bowlby termed it, have upon the child’s future life? (Glaser) In the 1980s, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver were able to garner a lot of attention when they turned attachment theory on adult relationships. Research on adult attachment is “guided by the assumption that the same motivational system that gives rise to the close emotional bond between parents and their children is responsible for the bond that develops between adults in emotionally intimate relationships” (Fraley). According to some writers, the “most important proposition of the theory is that the attachment system, a system originally adapted for the ecology of infancy, continues to influence behavior, thought, and feeling in adulthood” (Fraley). A close reading of Bowlby’s works, however, will make it evident that this was a line of research that he was interested in. In fact, this was the central proposition of his research – how

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early experiences influence the later development of human beings. Bowlby also did extensive research on the similarity of mourning patterns between children and adults. In that sense, Hazan and Shaver’s work (exploring Bowlby’s ideas in the context of romantic relationships) and ‘theory’, rather than being pathbreaking, is only a natural extension of Bowlby’s line of research.

Psychological Repression The third theory or concept applied in this study is that of Psychological Repression. Psychological Repression is a “psychological defense mechanism that occurs when a person consistently pushes away a particularly painful or disturbing thought, memory or desire in an attempt to keep his or her mind in a more pleasurable, less anxious state” (Pedersen). Defense mechanisms are “psychological strategies that are unconsciously used to protect a person from anxiety arising from unacceptable thoughts or feelings” (McLeod). Contending that “thoughts that are often repressed are those that would result in feelings of guilt from the superego” McLeod defines Repression as an “unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious” (McLeod). In psychoanalysis, “repression refers to the exclusion of contents from conscious representation” (Hentschel 47). Sigmund Freud was the first person to bring it into sharp focus, although others had touched upon it in the past. The essence of repression, Freud wrote, “consists simply in the act of turning – and keeping – something away from the conscious” (qtd. in Cleveland). In Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud states that when he moved away from hypnosis as a tool and instead urged his patients to recall their past (while being conscious), he faced a lot of resistance, and the difficulty of the process finally led him to a crucial insight: I found confirmation of the fact that the forgotten memories were not lost. They were in the patient’s possession and were ready to emerge in association to what was still known by him; but there was some force that prevented them from becoming conscious and compelled them to remain unconscious. (qtd. in Duiker 538)

Freud gave this hypothetical process the name of ‘repression’. Repression essentially functions at a subconscious level of the mind – when a child or adult discovers that acting out of specific desires may give rise to anxiety, the fear of the anxiety leads to repression of the desire. The theory “holds that although these painful thoughts are out of the conscious

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mind, they inevitably remain in the unconscious mind and often lead to psychological problems” (Pedersen). McLeod points out that “this is not a very successful defense in the long term since it involves forcing disturbing wishes, ideas or memories into the unconscious, where, although hidden, they will create anxiety” (McLeod). According to psychoanalytic theory, repression plays a significant role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person. Theorists, both supporting and criticizing the psychoanalytic theory, have engaged in lengthy debates about how the word ‘repression’ should be properly used (Billig): “Much hinges on the idea whether the term ‘repression’ should be confined to the form of repression, which supposedly occurs unconsciously. According to some theorists, the driving away of a conscious thought should be called ‘suppression’ rather than ‘repression’” (Billig). Freud believed that there are two types or phases of repression. l.

Primal repression: This is the first phase of repression and refers to the denial of entry into the consciousness of the mental presentation of the instinct. 2. Repression proper: This concerns the mental derivatives and associations of the repressed presentation, which are also denied entry into consciousness. The mental energy that belongs to repressed instincts is transformed into effects, especially anxiety, which renders repression an unsuccessful defense. (Kline)

Freud stated that “the mechanism of repression is accessible to us only by inference from its effects” (Freud, The Unconscious). Repression “generates symptoms” and “substitute formations” (Freud, The Unconscious). Interestingly, Freud was also aware that negating the repressed material is like acknowledging it. He stated: “Negation is a way of acknowledging the repressed, indeed it amounts to a lifting of the repression, although not, of course, an acceptance of what is repressed” (qtd. in Dalrymple). Everything in Freud’s theory depends on the radical separation of consciousness and the unconscious. As Freud recognized, this requires an account of how something is removed from the sphere of consciousness and kept away from it. This is the task of repression. The immediate task of repression is precisely to keep unconscious drives away from conscious representation. But this does not account for whence repression comes, and Freud is forced to use a concept of primal repression. Repressed material continues to act and through reorganizations still seeks to gain satisfaction. Deprived of satisfaction the repression may lead to the formation of neurotic symptoms, in which case the repressed material is still kept away

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Freud was also mindful of the fact that “failed repressions” would be “of more interest to us than successful ones, which for the most part” would “elude our scrutiny” (Freud, The Unconscious). Sigmund Freud “noted a number of ego defenses which he refers to throughout his written works” (“Defense Mechanisms”). His daughter Anna “developed these ideas and elaborated on them”, adding many of her own (“Defense Mechanisms”). Psychoanalysts have also identified further types of ego defenses – primary ones being denial, projection, displacement, regression, and sublimation.

Summing-up the Psychoanalytic Approach It is “creative writers who, according to Freud, have shown the deepest intuitive insights into unconscious motivation” (de Berg 37). That is why psychoanalytic theories (like attachment theory, the theory of neurosis, and psychological repression) are relevant to the study of literature. They can “reveal aspects of a literary character that psychologically less sensitive interpretations tend to miss out on” (de Berg 37). There “is a section of literary critics who’re of the view that since fictional characters are not actually alive, breathing human beings the application of psychoanalysis to study their character is hardly meaningful” (Paris, Psychological). In his book, The Idea of a Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism Peter Brooks states that “psychoanalytic literary criticism has always been something of an embarrassment” (Brooks). He also suggests that “we need to worry about the legitimacy and force that psychoanalysis may claim when imported into the study of literary texts” (Brooks). Addressing (or rather, countering) such scepticism, Bernard J. Paris begins his remarkable work Imagined Human Beings with the following words: I have entitled the book Imagined Human Beings because it is largely about mimetic characters who can be understood in motivational terms… Numerous critics have maintained that it is inappropriate or impossible to explain the behavior of fictional characters in motivational terms, but I

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argue…that the rejection of psychological analysis has been a major critical error. (Paris, Imagined)

In his work The Mind and the Book: A Long Look at Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, Norman N. Holland asserts that “the key to understanding…psychoanalytic literary criticism is to recognize that literary criticism is about books and psychoanalysis is about minds” and “the psychoanalytic critic can only talk about the minds associated with the book” (Holland). “Traditional psychoanalytic criticism”, therefore, “tends to fall into three general categories, depending on the object of analysis: the author, the reader, or the fictive persons of the text” (Rimmon-Kenan 2). Holland also alerts the psychoanalytic critic to the dangers of a narrow interpretation of the psychoanalytic theories that are applied for analysis of literature: “There have been many failures of psychoanalytic criticism, mostly as a result of crudity in applying psychoanalytic ideas…And there have been some successes” (Holland). He does go on to accept that “all literary criticism would benefit from psychological wisdom”: “The better the psychology, the better the criticism” (Holland). Holland’s opinion seems to be that the way psychoanalytic literary criticism has been done and presented in most works over the years is neither readily comprehensible to the reader nor effective, enlightening and to-the-point. Talking of how he would like the future of psychoanalytic literary criticism to be, he says: “I hope even more that psychoanalytic literary critics will offer their readers both instruction and delight. No more pathography, no more id-analysis, no more symbol-mongering, no more jargon. I hope instead that psychoanalytic critics will keep open a royal road into the human possibilities offered by great literature” (Holland). Over the years, many literary critics have come to recognize the importance of the psychological approach to fiction. In Freud’s Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies, Henk de Berg states: Of course, the characters in a literary text are not actually alive and in that sense, they are different from the living human beings psychoanalysis is normally concerned with. But no sensible interpretation of literary texts, at least of realistic literary texts, is possible without the assumption that the characters are people like you and me. That is how the author meant them to be; that is the reason we are interested in them; that is the basis for our interpretation of their actions and motivations; and that, precisely, is what makes it possible to apply theories and concepts such as projection and reaction-formation to them. As indicated, this argument holds for realistic texts only. (de Berg 88)

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It is not difficult to see why the psychoanalytic theory has been widely used by analysts like Paris in the study of literature. Psychoanalysis “deals with human beings in conflict with themselves and each other, and literature portrays and is written and read by such people” (Paris, Imagined 3). Maupassant was of the opinion that “psychology should be hidden in a book, as it is hidden in reality” (Reuber). If psychology indeed is hidden in novels, then unearthing it could prove to be a fruitful exercise. As Paris states in his work Imagined Human Beings: We need a wide range of theories to do justice to the richness and diversity of human experience and to the literature that expresses it. Some theories are highly congruent with certain works and some with others, and often several can be employed in studying the same text or aspect of literature. There is a large body of Freudian and Jungian criticism; and the ideas of Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Wilhelm Reich, Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, R. D. Laing, Fritz Perls, Heinz Kohut, Jacques Lacan, and others have also been profitably used in literary studies. (Paris, Imagined 3)

This study will be more a work of psychological analysis of literary texts than criticism. However, criticism is unavoidable in a work of such proportions and scope. Critics come to literature with varying interests and temperaments. As Paris points out: “Not all approaches are equally valid...The most satisfying kind of criticism is that which is somehow congruent with the work and which is faithful to the distribution of interests in the work itself” (Paris, Psychological 4). Criticism “can make literature more accessible to us, but we must use it as a means to rather than as a substitute for the aesthetic encounter” (Paris, Psychological 26). Attempts at half-hearted criticism generally do not succeed. Also, as Paris has pointed out, “some critics hold acknowledged masterpieces in such awe that they find the flaw or limitation in themselves when they cannot make sense of a work” (Paris, Psychological). The methodology of the analysis done in this book will be a scrutinizing and analytical view of psychological realism and its modes in the selected 19th-century works using the aforementioned psychological theories (since these are the theories which I found congruent to the novels studied). It is hoped that this book shall illuminate instances and aspects of psychological realism in these works to which not much attention has been drawn till now. Freud was fond of saying that “the poets” discovered the unconscious before he did: “The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious. What I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied” (Block 19). One “can find versions of almost all psychoanalytic phenomena in the world’s great novels, stories, dramas,

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and poems” (Breger 5). The most profound authors “do more than simply display unconscious material; they are engaged in something analogous to the process of psycho-analysis itself” (Breger 5). Psychoanalysis “deals with motives, especially hidden or disguised motives; as such it helps clarify literature on two levels, the level of the writing itself, and the level of character action within the text” (Kharbe 216). Commenting on the aim of applying the psychological approach to the study of fiction, Bernard J. Paris states: The object of the psychological approach is not to classify characters or to prove the value of the various theories; it is to explain the characters in their complexity and to help us see them better…applying psychological theories permit us to see the significance of many details which we would otherwise ignore. (Paris, Psychological)

Meredith Skura, in her book The Literary Use of the Psychoanalytic Process, argues that the poets not only discovered the unconscious before Freud, but they also discovered psychoanalysis. As she puts it: “It is not the mere presence or expression of primitive and unconsciously apprehended elements but the attempt to come to terms with them and to work them into the texture of conscious experience that makes the poets the predecessors of Freud” (qtd. in Breger 5). Surprisingly, despite Freud himself acknowledging as much, “there has been a great deal of resistance among critics not only to regarding literary characters as imagined human beings but also to using modern psychoanalytic theories to analyze them” (Paris, Imagined 7). In his work, A Psychological Approach to Fiction, referring to 19th century fictional works, Paris states: “If we do justice to their authors’ representations of character…we will see that they were excellent psychologists indeed and that we need all of the resources of modern knowledge to understand and appreciate their achievement” (Paris, Psychological 13). The passage of time does not erode the distinctiveness of great works, but quite the reverse can bring out their inner wealth. In fact, as Paris states, the “psychological approach to fiction has its contribution to make not only to students of art, culture, and biography but also to students of psychology” (Paris, Psychological 289).

A Note on 19th Century Russian Fiction The eighteenth century, particularly the reigns of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96), was a period of strong Western cultural influence (“Literature”). Russian literature was dominated briefly by European classicism before shifting to equally imitative sentimentalism by

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1780 (“Literature”). Secular prose tales - many picaresque or satirical grew in popularity with the middle and lower classes, as the nobility read mainly literature from Western Europe (“Literature”). The rationalist spirit of the 18th century ended with the 1789 French Revolution. By 1800 “Russian literature had an established tradition of representing real-life problems, and its eighteenth-century practitioners had enriched its language with new elements” (“Literature”). Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1812 invasion of Russia and his retreat and defeat seemed to invigorate the nation with new nationalistic zeal. A brilliant period of literary endeavour followed, unparalleled in its excellence with any other period of Russian literary history, before or after. Pride for the Russian nation and the “motherland” produced extensive literature. These were not predominantly on nationalistic themes but encompassed a whole range of human condition, emotion and ways of thinking and living. Against a backdrop of social and political unrest, writers, painters, and composers used their imaginative and emotional powers to develop a powerful realist style. They hoped that their art might serve as a vehicle for reform and help develop a national consciousness. (“Russia’s Golden Age”)

Alexander Pushkin, arguably Russia’s greatest literary genius, was at the forefront of promoting this reform. He introduced European literature and culture to Russia so that the literary world could branch out in a more diverse manner. Within the period of his short lifetime, his range of literary output included poems, narrative poems, dramas, poetic short dramas, verse novels, fairy tales in verse, short stories, and novels. In short, he completed the process of adapting the language as a literary vehicle. His best-known prose works are the novels A Captain’s Daughter and the tale The Queen of Spades. “Two successors of Pushkin were the nature poet Fyodor Tyutchev and Mikhail Lermontov, whose works deal with frustration and isolation” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Literature”). When Lermontov died, “he left an impressive collection of lyrics and longer poems, as well as A Hero of Our Time, Russia’s first psychological novel” (qtd. in Kingsford 142). After Pushkin, emphasis gradually began to shift from poetry to prose. Pushkin’s works influenced the works of all great Russian writers and artists who followed him, none more than the main prose writer Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809 – 1852) who was deeply affected by Pushkin’s death. Gogol, the Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin, was unique and marvellous for his distinctive style amongst all Russian writers. Merging the Romantic style with his own eccentric brand of Realism, he devised

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comical plotlines that often unexpectedly ended morbidly. Gogol “was an inspired and highly original talent” (“Russian Literature”, grolier). He is “best known for such historical short stories as Taras Bulba, about Cossack life; for the satire The Inspector General; for the novel Dead Souls; and for his Saint Petersburg tales, among which The Overcoat is preeminent” (“Russian Literature”, grolier). Gogol is accepted as “the originator of modern realistic Russian prose, although much of his work contains strong elements of fantasy” (“Russia: The Nineteenth Century”). The tremendous “social and political importance of Gogol’s realism lay in its merciless exposure of the social realities of its time and its faithful mirroring of the harsh discordance of life” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”). The “rich language of Gogol was much different from the direct, sparse lexicon of Pushkin” and “significant writers of later generations adopted each of the two approaches to the language of literary prose” (“Literature”). This rich period of literary achievements was preceded by a period when the Russian nation itself was viewed as “backward”: At the beginning of the 19th-century, much of Western Europe viewed Russia as hopelessly backward - even Medieval. It was considered more a part of Asia than an outpost of European thought. During the first half of the century, indeed, peasants (called ‘serfs’) were still treated as the property of their feudal masters and could be bought and sold, though they had a few more rights than slaves. Russian serfs gained their freedom only in 1861, two years before the American Emancipation Proclamation. (Brians)

In the second half of the 19th Century, Russian literature took on an increasingly realistic character. It was, in some ways, a natural outcome of the radical transformation that the nation saw midway through the century. Finally, the 1864 abolishment of serfdom saw the welcome loosening of authoritarian control and enabled more relative freedom in the artistic expression of social and psychological realism. Modernization began and “Russian literature responded to societal tensions caused by the rapid transformations of traditional culture” (“Learn”). This era is often described as the era of Russian Realism, where national writers focused on the lives of the ordinary people. It “was the literary critic Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky (1811–1848) who heralded the reforms: he called upon writers to realistically approach the country’s social problems, such as serfdom and the like, and realize their role as critics of the social order” (“Nineteenth Century Russian

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Realism”). The Russian Realist Literature provided an “‘alternative government’ to tsarist dictates” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”). The “Age of Realism, generally considered the culmination of the literary synthesis of earlier generations, began around 1850” (“Literature”). Thus, it can be said that “the writers of that period owed a great debt to four men of the previous generations: the writers Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Nikolai Gogol, and the critic Vissarion Belinsky, each of whom contributed to new standards for language, subject matter, form, and narrative techniques” (“Russia: The Nineteenth”). At first, termed the natural school, the movement developed into the so-called realist school after Belinsky’s death. “By mid-century, a heated debate was underway on the appropriateness of social questions in literature” (“Literature”). In “the middle of the 1850s, a new upsurge of democratic ideas began in Russia” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”): “The economic, social and political evolution of the country squarely poised the issue of inevitable abolition of serfdom and the general unrest bound up with this had forced the government of the time to grant temporarily a somewhat greater freedom of opinion” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”). The “classical leaders and representatives of this new upsurge of democratic thought were the two great heirs to Belinsky’s life-work: Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828–1889) and Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov (1836–1861)” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”). Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov “were the foremost advocates of social commentary”, and “critics who wrote for the thick journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary) in the late 1850s and early 1860s” (“Literature”). Chernyshevsky “was imprisoned for his beliefs, and his What Is To Be Done? while not an impressive work of art became the century's most influential novel among young Russians” (“Russian Literature”). The 19th century “was a turning point in the world of Russian literature, where despite the social and political disorder, literature and creativity flourished” (“Russian Literature In The Age”). In fact, “the works of Russia’s golden age of prose literature were written against a background of czarist autocracy” (“Russian Literature”, Encyclopedia). The general characteristics of 19th-century Russian realism “include the urge to explore the human condition in a spirit of serious enquiry, although without excluding humor and satire; the tendency to set works of fiction in the Russia of the writer’s own day; the cultivation of a straightforward style, but one also involving factual detail; an emphasis on character and atmosphere rather than on plot and action; and an underlying tolerance of human weakness and wickedness” (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”).

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Russian literature of the nineteenth century “provided a congenial medium for the discussion of political and social issues whose direct presentation was censored” (“Literature”): “The prose writers of this period shared essential qualities: attention to realistic, detailed descriptions of everyday Russian life; the lifting of the taboo on describing the vulgar, unsightly side of life; and a satirical attitude toward mediocrity and routine” (“Literature”). Philosophical questions dogged the writers of this period: The artists of this era were united by an exploration of life’s timeless and profound questions: What does it mean to live a fulfilling life? Is there a God? How can we understand the complex relationships between men and women? What is a just society? How do we balance modernity and tradition? The Russian realists shared a passion for justice and a love for their Russian homeland. (“Russia’s Golden Age”)

Falling generally within the realist framework, “the masterworks of this era exhibit a strong bent toward mysticism, brooding introspection, and melodrama” (“Russian Literature”, Encyclopedia). Many of the best-known literary works were written during the reign of Alexander II - the period from 1855 to 1881. The zenith of Russian realistic prose began in 1855, a year of political significance, in which Nicholas I passed from the scene, but also of literary importance, as the year which saw the publication of Chernyshevsky’s Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality. That essay formulated the principles upon which literary critics, by then quite numerous, would judge and interpret the literary masterpieces shortly to be produced. His critical followers elaborated upon his ideas with such enthusiasm that by 1865 his doctrine had become the dominant critical view. Even those numerous critics and even more numerous writers who rejected Chernyshevsky’s approach had to take it into serious account, and in this sense, his ideas defined the course of the literary discussion in large measure until about 1870...The years from 1855 to 1880 were the time when the Russian realists flourished. A mere listing of names is sufficient to make the point: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Pisemsky, novelist Ivan Goncharov, playwright Alexander Ostrovsky, prose innovator Nikolai Leskov – the literary careers of all these reached their peak during this quarter-century. It was also a stimulating period for criticism, with critics of sufficient stature at least to compare with the writers they interpreted: Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev among the radicals, Grigorev among their opponents. (Moser 248)

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The debut of the modern Russian novel in the nineteenth century “marked a departure in Russian literature from the numbing simplicity of the past: simplicity of plot, the simplicity of style, and perhaps most significantly, the simplicity of character and motivation” (“The RealistRomantic”). “Unlike their predecessors”, “neither Mikhail Lermontov nor Ivan Turgenev celebrated the uncomplicated, idyllic Russian man” (“The Realist-Romantic”). Rather, “each author was interested in presenting a protagonist designed to jolt the audience out of complacent acceptance of damaging personal and societal conditions” (“The Realist-Romantic”). “To accomplish this purpose, the authors required ‘heroes’ as flawed as their adversaries, for perfect characters cannot teach” (“The RealistRomantic”). They also had to invent new literary techniques to enhance the depth of character portrayal in their psychologically realistic texts. Other than their predecessors and contemporary authors and critics, there was also influence from across borders. A significant development in psychological realism had taken place in novels of the English language. By the end of the eighteenth century, Anglophilism had advanced through France and Germany to Russia. The reading public, as well as literary analysts and critics in Russia, were wellaware of developments that were taking place. For example, “within six months to a year of the publication of her (George Eliot’s) novels in England, they appeared in Moscow or St Petersburg either in serial or book form, often in both, in Russian” (Haight 90). This is not surprising, “for Russia has been known as English literature’s second native land” (Haight 90). Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontës had evoked extraordinary enthusiasm in the Russian reading public, particularly Dickens and Thackeray, with whom Eliot is always linked. In 1825, Karamzin, poet, historian, and novelist, described the family’s reading of Walter Scott at night around the tea table. (Haight 90)

This influence was not one-way. If Russian and French literary movements took from the English language, they gave back in equal and perhaps in greater measure. Publications of the translated works of Turgenev gained popularity in the West. In 1876 Turgenev was received at a social gathering where George Henry Lewes proposed the toast to ‘Europe’s greatest living novelist’. The guest, however politely transferred the compliment to George Eliot for whose novels he had great admiration. The introduction to Russian Literature through Turgenev’s works was to be followed by acclaim for the translated works of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoevsky. The “influence of Turgenev on English fiction from George

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Gissing to Virginia Woolf is now an important subject of literary research in universities” (Esaulov 101). Turgenev wrote several short stories and novellas in which he presented the chief political, social, and ideological concerns of his day while also examining human psychology and relationships, and the uncertainty of fate. Amongst his many works, Fathers and Sons has garnered the most critical acclaim although A Nest of the Gentry and A Sportsman’s Sketches are equally noteworthy and enlightening. Turgenev (1818-1883), “who lived and wrote for many years in Europe and was profoundly Western in his outlook first brought Russian literature to the attention of European readers, but at the cost of often being considered an alien in his own land” (Brians). It was because Turgenev was a genuine, serious realist that his work could supply weapons against his own political philosophy. The same argument explains why his epochal work Fathers and Sons got attacked from all sides: liberals, radicals, and conservatives alike. (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”).

I. S. Turgenev “achieved world stature with sophisticated novels that were profoundly critical of Russian society” (“Russian Literature”, Encyclopedia). Turgenev’s novels “present his pet pair of characters: a weak-willed hero and an unbending heroine, the types obviously inspired by Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and Tatiana” (“Great Reforms”). Critics believe that Pushkin had an impact on the realistic representation of landlords’ country life. Other than Turgenev, “it was the twin giants Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky whose work exploded out of Russia in the 1870s to overwhelm Europeans with their imaginative and emotional power” (Brians). To “many readers, it must have seemed as if this distant, obscure country had suddenly leaped to the forefront of contemporary letters”: “Both were profoundly influenced by European Romanticism and Realism, but their fiction offered characters more complex and impassioned than those Europeans were used to” (Brians). In his work ‘Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature’, P. Kropotkin writes: “Only Turgenev and Tolstoy the greatest novelists in Russia and perhaps of the entire century, and partly Dostoyevsky - overcame the difficulty represented by the Russian language which made the works of Russian writers inaccessible to Western Europe. These three made Russian literature known and popular outside Russia” (Esaulov 84). Great critical and popular acclaim was bestowed upon the tormented genius and moral and religious idealism expressed in the works of Feodor Dostoyevsky, and upon the monumental,

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socially penetrating novels of Leo Tolstoy (“Russian Literature”, Encyclopedia). Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Leo Tolstoy “were the best prose writers of the Age of Realism” (“Russia: The Nineteenth Century”). Tolstoy’s works “wrestle with life’s most profound questions and earned him the reputation of perhaps the world’s greatest novelist” (Brians). Tolstoy’s “masterpieces, the long novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina also weave religious and philosophical problems into the fabric of fiction” (“Russian Literature, grolier). The first (War and Peace) is a vast portrait of Russia during the period of the Napoleonic wars, and the second (Anna Karenina) the story of a tormented adulterous woman treated far more seriously than Flaubert’s Emma Bovary. Like the English Victorian novelists, Tolstoy sought to do more than entertain or even move his readers, taking the writing of fiction seriously as a moral enterprise. (Brians)

Dostoyevsky’s major works are his four long novels, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Possessed. They “present a clash between the mind and the heart or between rationality, which Dostoyevsky detested, and intuitiveness”, in which “he discerned (especially in its religious manifestations) the only hope of rescuing Russia and the world from their self-inflicted troubles” (Russian Literature”, grolier). Pointing out that “Dostoyevsky is famous for his complex analyses of the human mind” Paul Brians contends that “unlike Turgenev or Tolstoy, he pays little attention to details of setting or the personal appearance of his characters and instead concentrates on their thoughts and emotions” (Brians). But it is important to note that “though his characters always seem to be undergoing some sort of torment, he creates the extreme situations and emotions in his novels not out of mere sensationalism, but to plumb the depths of human experience” (Brians). In Crime and Punishment (1866), “the student Raskolnikov being embittered by his poverty and dependent on his insane theory that crime is allowed to ‘unusual people’ performs a murder for the sake of money” (“Great Reforms”). The novel “dwells on the inner struggles of his conscience with this immoral theory” (“Great Reforms”). His work and that of Tolstoy “revealed to Europeans that modern fiction could serve ends far more sophisticated than it had in the hands of Zola or even Flaubert” (Brians). “Unlike Dostoevsky”, who was the “creator” of a world “distorted by subjective perception and obsession”, “Leo Tolstoy was an exponent of actual life” (“Great Reforms”): “His picture of life was fresh, vivid and

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vital owing to his rich artistic vision” (“Great Reforms”). Nikolai Leskov, known for his unique writing style, “wrote numerous tales chronicling Russian life of his day in its rich variety” (“Russian”, grolier). His “‘Chronicle’ Cathedral Folk (1872) enriched the fund of Russian classics” (“Great Reforms”). Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov is an in-depth portrait of one of the laziest heroes in fiction, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, the prototype of the superfluous man. Mikhail Saltykov (pen name N.Shchedrin) – was an outstanding satirist whose masterpiece The Golovlyov Family, that encompassed the period of serfdom to its abolition and after, is still relevant to the present times. The central problem around which the thinking of the Russian society revolved at the time of the activities of the aforementioned writers was the issue of the abolition of serfdom. However, there were sharp differences among various progressive camps regarding the method of liberation. The Democrats wanted a radical socio-economic change in the feudal agrarian structure of Russia, whereas the liberals were hesitant to any conflict with the feudal land-owners, bureaucracy and the autocracy. Throughout the fifties, this political division was reflected in literature. Literary criticism was now directed not just towards the despotism of autocracy and feudal reaction regarded as the chief enemy by Belinsky, but also towards the liberal bourgeoisie and their ideological representations. Also, they were engaged in a bitter struggle against the “aesthetic” critics of their time, who advocated ‘art for art’s sake’ and attempted to separate the conception of artistic perfection from the realistic reproduction of social phenomenon, and who regarded art and literature as a phenomenon independent of social strife. In contrast to such ideas, the realist writers laid great emphasis on the connection between literature and society, and in faithfully depicting the everyday destinies of men they demonstrated the great problems agitating Russian society. This period of nineteenth-century realist movement in Russia is often regarded as the ‘Golden Age’ in Russian literature: while in other European countries writers were involved in documenting and analyzing the revolutionary processes, in Russia, it was the realist movement in literature and art itself which initiated the revolutionary wave and carried it forward. (“Nineteenth Century Russian Realism”).

In her work, Consequences of Consciousness, Donna Tussing Orwin states that nineteenth-century Russian authors “seem moral without naiveté or hypocrisy” (qtd. in McLean, “Toronto Slavic”). Orwin’s “basic idea is that the three Russian giants leaped ahead of the European masters of their era, putting the fiction produced in this backward and seemingly benighted country in the absolute first rank among European literature” (McLean, “Toronto Slavic”). Her thesis is that “they did this by learning,

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partly from one another, how to represent interiority, the subjective aspect of human experience: not just what is said and done, but how it feels” (McLean, “Toronto Slavic”). Feeling, of course, had always been the chief focus of lyric poetry, expressive of the experiencing poet. But fiction involves the creation and representation of the other, of non-self characters. Yet how can we know, really, deeply, know, how someone else feels? Perhaps we can’t; we only know ourselves. Orwin, therefore, believes that “the great Russians necessarily began with introspection, self-scrutiny, later learning to project onto invented characters the knowledge thus derived, disguising its source in various ways” (McLean, “Toronto Slavic”).

Indeed, for us, “Russian novels are still revealing the consequences of consciousness in unexpected ways” (Orwin, Consequences 185).

A Note on 19th Century British Fiction Realism began as a recognizable movement in art in the 18th century, and much of its development took place in Britain. The “18th-century works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett are among the earliest examples of realism in English literature” (Hurmatulloevna). However, it was Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel of 1740 called Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, which was one of the first major works to explore psychological realism. Pamela “appeared in two volumes in November 1740 and soon turned into what we nowadays call a ‘best-seller’, the first example of that phenomenon in the history of English fiction...the novel was praised for its psychological veracity and its moral influence on the readers” (“Pamela the Novel”). Richardson adapted the motifs of popular feminine and domestic fiction, using it to a stronger psychological effect. He gave voice to a heroine whose soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess, with whom women readers could identify because she was English (unlike many aristocratic heroines of romance novels), because she came from the working class, and was trying to make her way through the world. (“Pamela the Novel”)

Novels are based on the behavior of human beings as they appear in everyday life. It is therefore interesting and significant that this art-form gained popularity during the eighteenth century when ‘man’ appeared as the agent of his own destiny and began to be regarded as of central importance.

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The nineteenth-century not only saw the growth of psychiatry and fiction but facilitated the confluence of the two disciplines. The nineteenth century was also a “period of political strife, and when social problems came to the fore and revealed their prosaic, material nature...new trends were born in literature” (Diakonova). Preoccupation with public life, a sense of the paramount importance of things social, of the necessity of looking into the way things are and to describe them faithfully so as to redress or at least palliate the evils of a cruel industrial system were the forces that stimulated the growth of realism. Romanticism now seemed too abstract, too aloof, too much relying upon symbolic or fantastic presentation of actuality. It had done its work and played its role; the time had come when the mysterious powers ruling the new era that the romantics had anticipated stood much more clearly revealed. Direct and straightforward consideration of everyday life became an imperative necessity. (Diakonova)

Interestingly, in England, a number of lady novelists were the pioneers of perfecting realism in fiction. It can easily be said that in the absence of these lady novelists, British literature would never have assumed the form and brilliance that it ultimately came to signify. Of these, the art of Jane Austen is the most consummate and therefore representative. Ashley Tauchert states that the “most overwhelming fact” of Austen’s fiction is the “overt indifference at the level of content” to the social, economic, political or material events, with the “gaze” being directed away from the “vivid window” offering a view to these external events and instead turned “towards the microcosmic intensities of the drawing room at its domestic heart” (Tauchert 2). Asserting that there is “something uncanny about Austen’s work” Tauchert draws attention to the “familiarity of her plots and characters” that are “still recognisable as ‘true’ to modern readers” (Tauchert 4). Nina Diakonova comments on the distinctiveness of Austen’s characterization: “With a touch at once delicate and sure Austen introduced a vast variety of characters whose mentality is more or less distorted by false moral and social standards” (Diakonova). Her device of focalizing the narrative through a single character is also commendable: In her work Emma, the story is told almost entirely from her point of view - there are just a couple of scenes at which she is not present - but during most of the action she is mistaken about the true state of affairs, so that, on first reading, the reader shares at least some of her misapprehensions, and the shock of discovery...Other great Victorian novelists...rarely focalised their narrative through a single character in this way. If they wanted to present the action through the consciousness of one character they usually

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Chapter One made him or her narrator, falling back on the model of autobiography, as in Jane Eyre, or Great Expectations. (Lodge, Consciousness).

Charles Dickens, the author of Great Expectations, too made his share of contribution in the realistic movement in British Fiction (although he is one writer whose works are rarely acknowledged for their realistic portrayals). Dickens is not remarkable for a circumstantial motivation of his heroes’ actions, but he excels in the “art of catching their more obvious social characteristics and giving them an infinite variety of individual shapes and forms that were joyously acclaimed as recognizable and memorable types” (Ishi). Dickens is known to have appreciated no literary compliment better than a reader’s admission that he or she had known somebody who was the exact image of one of the novelist’s characters. Dickens’ “closest follower and admirer was Elizabeth Gaskell” whose books “deal with serious problems of domestic life and are fine studies of the mentality of women” (Diakonova). Pointing to her “range of achievement”, Terence Wright applauds Gaskell’s “acutely individual voice and sensibility” (Wright xii). Incidentally, Elizabeth Gaskell is also the author of a biography of the Brontë sisters: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Of the three, it is probably Charlotte who won the most admiration and the greatest recognition. Her art and aesthetic sense had a close affinity with ordinary life and people and their fates, and readers easily identified with the themes in her work even if the representations at times tended to be marvellous. The most popular of her works by far was Jane Eyre. Stating that Charlotte Brontë “was in some ways a disciple of Dickens’s greatest rival, William Makepeace Thackeray”, Diakonova says: “The essential thing they have in common…is their fundamental honesty in carrying out what they conceive to be their moral obligation towards their fellow-men” (Diakonova). They “both saw themselves as in duty bound to tell their readers the unpalatable truth about the social wrongs wringing the body of society, about its narrow and shallow standards, about the hypocritical greed and ruthlessness of the higher classes” (Diakonova). The staunch realism of Dickens and Thackeray, of Gaskell and the Brontë-sisters, “did a great deal to explain their times and to explode the myth of Victorian prosperity” (“Features”). By the fifties and sixties, the worst period in the evolution of classical capitalism in England had ended. But the disparity in the condition of the classes only seemed to have increased. This was a period when natural sciences like geology, biology, and psychology were growing by leaps and bounds. Darwin’s epoch-making The Origin of Species served to further undermine long-held beliefs on the origin and genesis of man and the scientific and rationalistic spirit of the time gave birth to skepticism and

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non-conformism. The advanced men of the 60s and 70s, unlike their predecessors, saw themselves as free-thinkers and agents of change. Herbert Spencer, the noted English philosopher, biologist, and sociologist was possibly the most important ideologist of this new trend. He endeavored to create an all-embracing system of sociology, philosophy, and psychology and attempted to show that the principle of evolution applied to all of them. Calling George Eliot a “social novelist” who “took her duties to her readers seriously”, Ishi tells us how “positivist ways of thinking left a profound impression” on her work (Ishi). The Mill on the Floss, probably Eliot’s best-known work was “largely autobiographical” and a “searching analysis of the heroine’s inner life, of the forces that joined to make her an outcast in the petty-bourgeois community she belonged to” (Diakonova). The novelist’s portrayal of the selfishness and callousness of self-satisfied mediocrity has lasting value. Lodge considers Eliot’s Middlemarch as an exemplification of the “classic Victorian novel” and states that the Victorian novel “usually told its story from several points of view which are often mediated through free indirect style but compared and assessed by an authorial narrator” (Lodge, Consciousness). This was “thoroughly consistent with the Victorian novelist’s aim to present the individual in relation to society and social change” (Lodge, Consciousness). Increasingly, writers began paying two-fold attention to external reality and reality as experienced by the individual, and this outlook invariably enriched the major works of British Fiction in the nineteenth century. Another novelist, George Meredith, though never as popular as his more illustrious contemporaries, did achieve a level of critical acclaim and was a seven-time nominee of the Nobel Prize for Literature. His books marked a critical stage in the development of the psychological novel in the late 19th century. His “art is complex, being an imperfect blend of subtle psychology shot through and through by the critical and scientific tendencies of the period and of a somewhat labored and over-ornamented impressionism in style and language” (Diakonova). MacCallum believed that Meredith’s material “is not only spiritual and intellectual” but it “is mind in the fullest sense of the term” and he commends him for having “persevered at his Shakespearian task of portraying men and women in the whole of their conscious life” (qtd. in Hammerton 161). When we remember that the phenomena of consciousness are just the most complex and intricate of all, we need not wonder that he is often hard; nor, for the most part, does he resemble George Eliot, who may be said to have attempted something of a similar kind, in helping us with explanatory disquisitions on his characters. He studies them in activity, not in repose;

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Chapter One he does not dissect them motionless before him while the narrative is motionless too, but shows us thought following thought in the rapids of the mind. (qtd. in Hammerton 161)

A “consistent upholder of evolution as the central law dominating nature no less than society, Meredith regarded the destiny of man as following and illustrating universal laws” (Diakonova). This was the same philosophy that marks the works of Thomas Hardy, one of the most celebrated novelists to emerge from England and one whom Meredith knew well. Indeed, “the influence of Meredith the novelist on such younger writers as Thomas Hardy was decisive” (Mambrol). Hardy’s “emergence in the literary horizon coincided with the beginning of the crisis of Victorianism” (Diakonova). Towards the mid-seventies and more markedly so towards the eighties a crisis of Victorian England began to make itself felt. There were the first warning symptoms of decay in English economics; there was a general move towards political reaction; a wave of chauvinistic imperialism rose high; British colonial power was greater than ever, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, and the grandeur of the British Empire became the key-phrase to official ideology. At the same time, a steady resistance to the nationalistic and aggressive policy of the ruling classes rapidly gained in scope and intensity. That resistance was stimulated by the nonconformist free thought of the previous period and by pessimistic trends... (Diakonova)

The “beginning of the crisis of Victorianism, of the decay of the English countryside, is reflected in the bleakly pessimistic novels of Thomas Hardy” (Diakonova). In his work Unity In Hardy’s Novels, Peter Casagrande reveals how Hardy’s experiences taught him to “view time, history and consciousness as aspects of a process of irreversible decline” (Casagrande 8). An essential feature of Hardy’s novelistic art is how Nature’s defects “inexorably drive men and women from their early felicity, or make them nearly helpless victims of their characters and circumstances” (Casagrande 8). Hardy saw in nature’s misworkings “a beauty that he wished to convey to his readers” (Casagrande 8). Between 1874 and 1895, Hardy wrote over a dozen novels and collections of stories, including The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) (“People”). After the “adverse reception of the savagely bleak Jude the Obscure (1895), he turned to poetry, which he continued to write and publish throughout the rest of his life” (“People”). In fact, “Thomas

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Hardy’s prolific output as a novelist often overshadows his secondary career as a poet” (“Poetry”). Hardy was an immensely shy person, who surrounded his house, Max Gate in Dorchester, with a dense curtain of trees, shunned publicity and investigative reporters (Norman). For much of his adult life, Hardy laboured under a terrible burden of grief, the details of which he kept very much to himself (Norman). He required an outlet for this grief, a means of expressing his inner torment, and this outlet came through his writings (Norman). In The Man Behind the Mask, Andrew Norman talks of the “phenomenal extent to which” Hardy’s “own personal life was reflected both in his novels and in his poems” (Norman). Those of “his characters that adapt themselves well to their surroundings, that become part of their nature and scenery mostly do well and make good; those that rebel against them in one way or another are generally destroyed or made hopelessly miserable” (Diakonova). The “inhumanity of society causes the tragic death of Hardy’s most attractive heroine Tess”, while “Jude is thoroughly beaten in his quest for inner freedom, for knowledge, for unconventional love” (Diakonova). After the golden period in the 19th century, the development of Psychological Realism continued into the 20th century through the works of writers like DH Lawrence, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. Much credit is due to them for bringing a new era in psychological realism that saw the advent of new techniques to serve the cause of psychologically realistic literature. These techniques were marvellous for their ingenuity and originality and their appropriate application has done much to enhance the effectiveness and beauty of the psychological novel.

CHAPTER TWO ANALYSIS OF IVAN TURGENEV’S FATHERS AND SONS

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was brought up in the immense estate of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo in Oryol, which gave him ample opportunities to observe the life of the family serfs inhabiting it and to develop his outlook and sympathies. Although in childhood he had German and French tutors and “his ear for French or German was remarkable”, his “real education, as was apt to happen to the children of the gentry, was given him by the servants” (Pritchett). (His mother, otherwise known to be unduly harsh with the serfs, made sure that the favourite of her serfs received their share of education.) The young Turgenev listened to their stories – “starved of the despised Russian language in family life, he heard it continually from them” (Pritchett). Turgenev had childhood memories of a serf reading to him verses from the poet Mikhail Kheraskov’s Rossiad. This was to find an interesting depiction in the story of Punin and Baburin, written by Turgenev “in the last years of his life” (Pritchett). Also, right from his early years “Turgenev was already well acquainted with the works of Pushkin” (Schapiro 9). The “library at Spasskoe included some of the early editions of Pushkin’s poems - Ruslan i Liudmila which was published in 1820, and the early chapters of Eugene Onegin” (Schapiro 8). The poetry of Pushkin “was to exercise a profound influence on him throughout his adult life” (Schapiro 8). Even his earliest literary endeavours (which included stories, poems and sketches) were well received by some of the leading critics of the day, including Vissarion Belinsky who was to help “shape the literary and social views of other Russian intellectuals for decades to come” (“Vissarion”) Turgenev also associated with other notable Russian literary critics like Peter Pletnyov, “who discerned a glimmer of talent in the juvenile Steno” (Hocutt, Turgenev). With Belinsky, Turgenev “intensely discussed philosophical principles and ideals” (Hocutt, Turgenev). Turgenev always had the heart of a poet and was romantic to the core, but under the influence of Belinsky he is known to have moved from romantic

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idealism to a preference for depiction of reality. Turgenev’s sense and taste of the art of writing differed from those of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. One manifestation of this was in his preference for writing novellas, far more concise than the epic creations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky that must have seemed ‘loose’ and ‘baggy’ (to use Henry James’s term) to Turgenev. Turgenev’s works are also characterized by an unassuming objectivity. Turgenev wrote in his native Russian but translations of his works became very popular outside his country. The University of Oxford honoured him with a Doctorate during his visit to England in 1879. His “novellas...exhibit Turgenev’s subtle artistry, psychological insight, and moral vision with the utmost effectiveness” (Allen xxviii). The “limited scope of these narratives also gives Turgenev the ideal format in which to concentrate dramatic intensity while still illustrating the virtues of distance and constraint” (Turgenev, Essential xxviii). David Magarshack states that “no prose tale before Turgenev attempts, through sheer technical precision, not merely to tell a story but also to hit on the head a social and moral nail” (Turgenev, Literary). Generations of readers have been left enchanted by the magic of Turgenev’s writing, be it in his short stories or his novellas. During my early years, I didn’t know of a writer who could equal the sublime beauty of Turgenev’s prose. A reading of Turgenev’s novellas can’t help but reveal that the author’s favourite themes revolved around the beauty of early love, its uncertainty, trials, tribulations, and despondencies, as well as its being irretrievable – an overwhelming feeling that only leaves behind memories with the passage of time. In the process, the beauty of Life is revealed in all its shades of joy and sorrow. Turgenev himself was a gentle and sensitive person, the kind of man who could let his entire life go by in the love and memories of a woman who couldn’t be his. Significant influences on his works were “derived from his love of Pauline Viardot and his experiences with his mother, who controlled over 500 serfs at their estate with the same strict demeanor in which she raised him” (“Eulogy”). Many of the great stories he wrote were of a personal nature. His novellas Asya, First Love and Spring Torrents as well as his popular collection of short stories A Sportsman’s Sketches should be read by all. Even in the autumnal years of his life, Turgenev continued to write works which were to go on to be influential. Turgenev sometimes “wrote on themes similar to those found in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but he did not approve of the religious and moral preoccupations that his two great contemporaries brought to their artistic creation” (“Neurology”). He preferred instead to dwell on “memories of the past”, the intricacies of love and human sentiments and

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“evoked the beauty of nature” (“Ivan Sergeyevich”). Donna Tussing Orwin claims that Dostoevsky “may have learned from Turgenev how to distance himself from his characters, keeping the authorial presence carefully hidden” (“Toronto Slavic”). Dostoevsky’s fiction, in its structure and narrative, as well as the meaning of the text and the mental processes of the characters it depicts, is complicated. In fact, the first-time reader cannot even appreciate his fiction without an understanding of the deep and intense psychological processes which runs through it. The principle which guided Turgenev’s writing was quite different. In a “letter to Konstantin Leontiev in 1860”, “he counsels the young author to include less psychological data in his fiction” (Orwin, Consequences 44): “The poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he must know and feel the roots of occurrences, but he presents only the occurrences themselves in their blooming and their fading” (Orwin, Consequences 44). In a review that Turgenev wrote of The Poor Bride (a play by Alexander Ostrovsky), he wrote: “but the psychologist must disappear in the artist, just as the skeleton disappears from the eyes under the living and warm body which it serves with firm but invisible support” (Jackson 171). Turgenev believed that the psychologist must hide and disappear within the writer – he did not approve of the writer psychologizing his text to a degree that seemed to interrupt the flow of the text as a simple narrative. Similarly, he also felt that the writer should never come out too strongly or explicitly as an interpreter of his narrative. It is therefore evident that the literary analyst who sets out to understand Turgenev’s philosophical leanings in his works through an analysis of the text will be unable to do so. This, in a way, is also a measure of Turgenev’s creative talent. Steinbeck comments on the absence of any explicit interpretation by the author-narrator in Fathers and Sons: What really struck me as I wound up the book, was how well balanced the characters were in the book. The protagonist, a nihilist by the name of Bazarov; Arkady, his one time companion and co-conspirator; the older generation of Nikolai and Pavel Petrovich; each gets an equal share of attention from the author and one cannot really judge from the characterizations, the author’s philosophical leanings. (Steinbeck)

It was Turgenev’s artistic purity and perspicacity that made Henry James, Joseph Conrad and other like-minded novelists of the next generation look up to him. James and Conrad both preferred Turgenev to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. James, in his capacity as a literary analyst and with the privilege of having known Turgenev personally, wrote beautifully about Turgenev’s writing and commended his unbiased and unprejudiced view

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of life. In James’s opinion, Turgenev’s allegiance to objective truth makes him “a devoutly attentive observer, and the result of this temper is to make him take a view of the great spectacle of human life more general, more impartial, more unreservedly intelligent, than that of any novelist we know” (Orwin, Consciousness 43). Psychological analysis “reveals Turgenev’s uncanny sensitivity to surfaces and supposedly unimportant detail, and their revelations of meanings in life and character” (Jackson 171). Turgenev’s approach is almost cinematographic: what the reader learns about the characters is almost entirely from what the narrator sees and hears. And yet, owing to the narrator’s genius, what he records faithfully captures the flow and ebb of Life, is pregnant with meaning and drama, and is deeply insightful without being overtly interpretive. The beauty of Turgenev’s work is that although “the narrator, significantly, often emerges as a voyeur, in secretly observing characters or happenings in the stance of an outsider, his unexpected angle of vision permits him to grasp the moment of meaning in all its depths” (Jackson 171). Another interesting facet of Turgenev is that he often gives his characters the kind of attention that is generally reserved for laboratory experiments. One device that Turgenev often applies is introducing a character, his personality, and behaviour, and then dedicating an entire section into delving on his history. He does the same for Lemm in A Nest of the Gentry. He does this to emphasize that there is a deep psychological basis to a person’s behaviour, attitude, even character traits. He was apparently very conscious of what he wanted to achieve. Turgenev’s understanding of the relationship between surfaces and depths in life is relevant to his aesthetic of observation in art. Turgenev’s fourth novel, Fathers and Sons (1862), “is by far his most famous and, many would say, his best” (Turgenev, Essential xxvi). Its “literary values were largely ignored, though, when, upon publication, its political implications aroused a torrent of controversy” (Turgenev, Essential xxvi): The harshest critics of the novel interpreted its characters (Bazarov and Arkady on one hand, Pavel and Nikolai Petrovich on the other) as representatives of specific strata or classes in Russia of the 1850s and 1860s. Russia’s intelligentsia was split between Slavophiles and Westernizers, both of whom believed in enacting sweeping reforms to eliminate the nation’s serfdom-based economy and social structure. The Westernizing camp believed that enacting Western democratic reforms would relieve the burden of serfdom. Slavophiles, on the other hand, felt Alexander II had already westernized the country too much to little avail,

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Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons “traces the course of the summer vacation that its protagonist Yevgeny Bazarov comes to spend in the country with a college friend, and is chiefly occupied with the record of the various trials to which, in this short period, experience subjects his philosophy” (James, Ultimate). They all “foreshadow, of course, the supreme dramatic test” (James, Ultimate). Turgenev “approached his ground on the moral and psychological side, and made, as is usual with him, a profound study of character” (James, Literary 1002). One of “the very few criticisms from a truly artistic standpoint appeared in the Russian Herald during the year 1862” (Phelps 46): Everything in this work bears witness to the ripened power of Turgenev’s wonderful talent; the clearness of ideas, the masterly skill in sketching types, the simplicity of plot and of movement of the action, and moderation and evenness of the work as a whole; the dramatic element which comes up naturally from the most ordinary situations; there is nothing superfluous, nothing retarding, nothing extraneous. (qtd. in Phelps 39)

The instincts of “both the dramatist and the chronicler were strong in Turgenev and his work illustrates particularly well the way in which ‘showing’ and ‘telling’, that is, forwarding the story by means of dialogue or by means of narration, combine in the novelist’s art” (Bloom, Ivan Turgenev). The “conjunction of dialogue and narration occurs most obviously in such moments of revelation, in which characters are made to experience insight, and we as readers to experience a corresponding insight into character” (Walder, Realist). In Fathers and Sons, Turgenev always “proceeds in two’s”, as Catherine Kulesov points out: The structure of the novel is perfectly balanced. It is based on the principle of thesis and antithesis (for and against). In other words, Turgenev always proceeds in two’s. There are two groups of characters which represent the older and the younger generation with their specific ideals and ideas. Within each group there are four pairs of characters, or four sets of two’s: two fathers, two young friends (the sons), two brothers, and two sisters. The two friends, Bazarov and Arkady, are the organizational focus of the novel, for they journey together to the four main settings of the novel, where they (and we) discover the different oppositions (or comparisons). (Kulesov)

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Turgenev “is always fond of contrasts, and he has not failed to give Bazarov a foil in his young comrade, Arkady Kirsanov” (“Henry James: Critical”). The novel “introduces a dual character study, as seen with the gradual breakdown of Bazarov’s and Arkady’s nihilistic opposition to emotional display, especially in the case of Bazarov’s love for Madame Odintsova and Fenichka” (Turgenev, Delphi). This “prominent theme of character duality and deep psychological insight went on to exert an influence on some of the great Russian novels to come, most obviously echoed in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky” (Turgenev, Delphi). However, unlike in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, in Turgenev, “the novelistic orchestration of the theme is concentrated in direct dialogues, the characters do not create around themselves their own extensive or densely saturated zones, and in Turgenev fully developed, complex stylistic hybrids are relatively rare” (Bakhtin 316). As we shall subsequently see in this chapter, in Fathers and Sons, through the exciting interplay of characters that Turgenev weaves, Bazarov reveals Katya’s nature to Arkady and Katya, in turn, gives Arkady an insight into her intelligent assessment and understanding of Bazarov. Another notable aspect of Turgenev’s writing is his characterization of women. Turgenev’s portrayal of women as individuals and in their relationships with men has a maturity that I believe could have set up a precedent in the realistic and sophisticated portrayal of women in 19thcentury Russian fiction. In The Realist Novel, Pam Morris writes: Perhaps what strikes most readers coming to Turgenev from the English tradition of the novel in the nineteenth century is the fullness and maturity of his approach. By comparison, there seems so much English writers leave out of their representation of female characters. In Elizabeth Bennet, Austen offers us a sense of a shrewd and lively intelligence, but a woman with Odintsova’s intellectual concern with the latest thinking in science, politics and the arts is surely unimaginable in an English novel?...What is most striking in the comparison with English writing of the same period is Turgenev’s relative freedom in writing about the sexual relationships between the characters, and about their sexual feelings, attitudes and experiences. It is refreshing to find a woman who is sexually mature, who has already been married, and who is not innocently youthful, considered interesting enough to be the heroine of the work. In most English texts marriage marks the end of the heroine’s story and any evidence of active sexuality in a female character unsanctioned by a firm attachment to the man she is destined to marry carries ominous moral implications. Whereas Odintsova is permitted to go on to a second marriage, which promises her the possibility of happiness and even love, it seems unlikely that any English heroine who behaved with the freedom she does with Bazarov

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Fathers and Sons was the novel which heralded and brought into prominence the fundamental principles of Turgenev’s art and realism: “to reproduce precisely and powerfully, the truth, the reality of life, is the highest happiness for a man of letters, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies” (Hind). Fathers and Sons continues to be relevant in our time and generate interest. This is not due to its local or historical features and significance, which definitely played a part in the adulation and criticism which followed its initial release. Today, if the novel continues to speak intimately to us, it is primarily because the reader is still able to identify with the conflicts that is engendered within the minds of the characters as well as between the characters themselves. Of course, this also includes the eternal conflict between fathers and sons. Readers through the generations identify with the works of such artists and it is this undying power of Turgenev’s writing that still evokes a response even when read more than hundred and fifty years after it was written. One of the reasons behind the power in the works of such authors is that they themselves lived their lives deeply and felt so deeply. In a letter to Y.P Polonsky in 1882 from Bougival (shortly before his death) Turgenev wrote: “When you go to Spasskoe - bow for me to the house, to the garden, to my young oak, bow to my country which I shall probably not see any more” (Esaulov 88). Only after Turgenev’s death in 1883, Henri Troyat observes, did his native country discover “that it had a bad conscience because it had not attached enough value to this stubborn, moderate, tenderhearted liberal who, in his lifetime, had combined a love for the people and a love of culture, faith in Russia, and admiration for the West” (qtd. in Kakutani). Turgenev’s writing stimulates in us an awareness of the significance of ideals, but it goes even further in revealing to us the frailties of the human mind and existence and the significance of human life itself. Indeed, Turgenev’s literary work gives true aesthetic delight.

Character Study through the Horneyan Approach Bazarov-Arkady I shall attempt to show in this section that Turgenev’s conception of Yevgeny Bazarov presents him in the mould of the dominant-aggressive personality that psychologist Karen Horney has expounded. Bazarov is a negative but extremely powerful character, precisely the sort of man

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Turgenev was attracted to: “I prefer Prometheus, I prefer Satan, the type who revolts, who is an individual” (Gillespie 148). In order to understand the peculiar attraction of Bazarov, we must examine his character more fully. Indeed, “Bazarov is one of the most Promethean revolutionaries in modern literature” (Gillespie 148). Turgenev claimed that he “dreamt of a figure that was gloomy, wild, huge, half grown out of the ground, powerful, sardonic” (Gillespie 148). Bazarov declares to Arkady that “a real man is not meant to be thought about, but is someone who must be either obeyed or hated” (italics mine) (Turgenev, Hare 80). When Arkady asks him whether he has a high opinion of himself, Bazarov’s response is characteristic of his proud and dominant nature: “When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me,” he said with slow deliberation, “then I’ll change my opinion of myself (italics mine)” (Turgenev, Hare 80). Bazarov’s “real man” then is clearly one who is obeyed or resisted (hated). The inherently dominant and rebellious nature of Bazarov is highlighted by the contrast presented in the character of his companion and junior at St.Petersburg University, Arkady. When the story begins, we find that Arkady too is a nihilist. Interestingly though, his belief seems to stem from his admiration of Bazarov rather than his own conviction. Rob Vest states that Arkady, Bazarov’s protege, represents the average young Russian intellectual and “seems little more than his mentor’s lapdog” (Vest). Bazarov surely considers himself a real man for he is a dominant personality, whereas he feels Arkady is the very opposite in being “timid”, “listless”, lacking in self-reliance, and thereby incapable of hatred: “It’s odd! I don’t hate anyone,” observed Arkady after a pause. “And I hate so many. You’re a tenderhearted listless creature; how could you hate anyone...? You’re timid; you haven’t much self-reliance”. (italics mine) (Turgenev, Hare 80)

It is little wonder then that we find Bazarov to be rather dry and unsympathetic towards people, an attitude that is more noticeable in his interactions with his own family. His ‘nihilism’ is probably to blame for it. He could have applied more empathy with Paul Kirsanov but Bazarov by nature is a judgmental man. While Arkady feels that his uncle deserves “pity rather than ridicule”, Bazarov is unrelenting in his criticism and open display of insolent behavior towards the elderly man (Turgenev, Hare 19). To Bazarov, the important thing is hate and negation. Bazarov declares: “We want to smash other people!” (Turgenev, Garnett 143). Not surprisingly, this hate is directed at times even against those he gets along with. In the midst of a quarrel with Arkady, Bazarov’s face appears to Arkady to be

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“so vindictive – there was such a menace in grim earnest in the smile that distorted the lips and in his glittering eyes, that he instinctively felt afraid” (Turgenev, Garnett 103). The emotion he feels, we are told is “a passion similar to malice and, perhaps, related to it” (Peace). It is passion containing more than a suggestion of anger with himself. By nature, Arkady is a warm-hearted person who would not ideally shy away from showing his emotions. We are told that he “felt filled with a genuine, almost childish delight at his return” and even ventured to kiss his father and hug him (Turgenev, Kelly 9). However, Bazarov’s nihilistic influence of emotional suppression is ever-present in the young Arkady’s mind and guides his behavior. In spite of the “genuine, almost childish joy which filled him”, he “wanted as soon as possible to turn the conversation from an emotional to a more commonplace level” (Turgenev, Garnett 9). “Won’t it be rather too like a summer villa? … But that’s a minor matter. What air there is here! How wonderful it smells. Really it seems to me no air in the world is so sweetly scented as here! And the sky too…” Arkady suddenly stopped, cast a quick look behind him and did not finish his sentence. “Naturally,” observed Nikolai Petrovich, “you were born here, so everything is bound to strike you with a special----” “Really, Daddy, it makes absolutely no difference where a person is born.” “Still---” “No, it makes no difference at all.” (Turgenev, Hare 8)

Arkady’s false behavior increases the psychological distance between him and his lonely father: “Nikolai Petrovich glanced sideways at his son, and the carriage went on half a mile farther before their conversation was renewed” (Turgenev, Hare 8). Later we find that the submissive Arkady is so heavily under the influence of his mentor, that in adherence to Bazarov’s nihilistic abhorrence to all things romantic, he ventures to take away his father’s ‘Pushkin’ (while he is reading it) and hands him a copy of Buchner’s Staff and Kraft instead. In order to keep up the appearance of being ‘Nihilists’, Bazarov and Arkady denied their own feelings. The young Arkady, however, followed the philosophy of his mentor (Bazarov) blindly: “Katia adored nature, and Arkady too loved it, though he would never have admitted the fact” (Turgenev, Kelly 90). Rob Vest states that Arkady “is very naïve” to begin with and is “easily molded by Bazarov’s strong personality”, but later “begins to form his own opinions and to become his own man as he gains more insight into Bazarov’s character”: “The more time he spends with Bazarov, the more Arkady finds how difficult his friend can be. The more time he spends away from his mentor,

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the fainter those fires ignited by Bazarov burn” (Vest). This is quite true. However, if we are to fully appreciate the dynamics of one-to-one relations that Turgenev has weaved through the structure of the story, we must look into Arkady’s increasing proximity to Katya, for as we shall analyse later in this chapter it is his relationship with Katya that enables his weaning away from his mentor. While Arkady was quick to idealize the dominant Bazarov, the full conceit of Bazarov’s nature is only revealed to him gradually. Bazarov often looks at people as a means to satisfy his own ends. When Arkady laments that Sitnikov had spoiled their stay at the Odintsov’s with his unwelcome presence, Bazarov demurs by saying: “I see you’re still stupid, my boy. Sitnikovs are indispensable to us. For me, don’t you understand--I need such blockheads. In fact, it’s not for the gods to bake bricks...” “Oho!” thought Arkady, and only then he saw in a flash the whole fathomless depth of Bazarov’s conceit. “So you and I are gods, in that case? At least, you’re a god, but I suppose I’m one of the blockheads.” “Yes,” repeated Bazarov gloomily. “You’re still stupid.” (Turgenev, Hare 68)

Turgenev adds to the psychologically realistic portrayals of the characters by giving us multiple views – we come to understand the characters through what others think of them in the course of the narrative. Bazarov’s character is beautifully revealed by what the diminutive Katya thinks of him. When Arkady tells her that he knows that she “never liked him (Bazarov)”, she first says that she is “unable to judge him”, but on Arkady’s insistence, she relents and reveals her judgment of Bazarov (Turgenev, Hare 105): “Well, I’ll tell you then, he is…not because I don’t like him, but I feel he is quite alien to me, and I am alien to him…and you too are alien to him.” “Why is that?” “How can I tell you? He’s a wild beast, while we are both domestic animals. (italics mine)” (Turgenev, Hare 105)

When Arkady expresses the wish that he too could be “powerful” and “energetic”, if not “wild”, Katya comments: “It’s no good wishing to be that...your friend, you see, doesn’t wish for it, but he has it” (Turgenev, Hare 105). Katya here reveals her instinctive and insightful understanding of the difference in their personality types.

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Bazarov-Anna Odintsova Bazarov’s remarks about Sitnikov tell us that he often looks at people as a means to satisfy his own ends. Interestingly, this also sets a pointer to understand his attitude towards women in general. His need to dominate, with women as well as with men, is constantly revealed to us - he does so either through coldness, rudeness, or, one suspects, by “dissecting” the subject (Turgenev, Hare 49). Bazarov “scorns the emancipated woman, Yevdoksia, who, incidentally, is ugly, and sarcastically responds to her rhetoric of ‘rights of women’ with the assertion that ‘a whip is a good thing’” (Mazlish). But right from his first meeting with Anna Odintsova, we get to see aspects of Bazarov’s character which were till then hidden from the reader. He is evidently taken by Anna’s beauty – and that, together with Anna’s socially approachable and psychologically unapproachable nature, her independent stature in life and seeming maturity make her the ideal candidate to fire Bazarov’s imagination and secret propensity to mate, leading to a revelation of his Byronic character. He thinks of her as “a female with brains” and one who has “seen life too” (Turgenev, Hare 54). There’s a definite similarity between the two as well. We are told that “Katya adored nature, and so did Arkady, whereas Madame Odintsova, like Bazarov, was rather indifferent to natural beauties” (Turgenev, Hare 91). Also, both have strongly repressive tendencies and strategies of living. Even as Bazarov expresses his love to Odintsova, his face is almost bestial: Bazarov…seems unable to love. Toward women he appears able to entertain only “bestial” passion, “a passion, strong and oppressive, that was struggling within him – a passion resembling malice, and, perhaps, akin to it.” In such a passion we recognize aggression, not libido in genital form. (Mazlish 40)

But Bazarov soon discovers that Anna’s repressed nature is repelled by his ardent and passionate desire and with her he cannot attain his aim. He can’t conquer her and satisfy his need of her. Brought to the stage that he is in, we suspect that he would even venture to bid adieu to his nihilistic nature (insofar that it enables him to possess Anna), but he finds she is too circumspect to play along in the drama of romantic love. Overwhelmed by the force of his animalistic desire, he proves himself incapable of going through the subtle rituals of winning over his lady. Anna Odintsova herself is a strong and dominant personality who goes about her everyday life maintaining a cold façade. It is not surprising that Katya knows her sister well enough. In her conversation with Arkady, she

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reveals her belief that “no one can hold a rein over her for long”; and also feels that she is too “proud” to not value her independence (Turgenev, Kelly 164): “Hm! So you suppose he had a great influence on Anna Sergeyevna?” “Yes. But no one can keep the upper hand of her for long,” added Katya in a low voice. “Why do you think that?” “She’s very proud...I didn’t mean to say that…she values her independence very much.” (Turgenev, Garnett 132)

No one can “keep the upper hand of her for long” because Anna Sergievna “values her independence too much” and cannot take subversion from anyone (Turgenev, Hare 105). She is a dominant, “proud” personality, and repressed too. Despite her sexual and emotional attraction to Bazarov, she finds herself “unable” to “surrender” to the “wild beast” in him (Turgenev, Hare 105). He is too dominant and passionate for her tastes. Katya mentions to Arkady that her sister had been “under” Bazarov’s “influence”; however, we can’t help seeing that it is Bazarov who gradually comes under Anna Sergievna’s influence (Turgenev, Garnett 132). Bazarov realized that he had allowed Madame Odintsova to gain power over him. He also knew that nothing had come of it – although he had been lured into making a confession of his love, Madame Odintsova, despite all her liking for him and her longing for his company and friendship, had not been forthcoming. Bazarov views this as a defeat and this is extremely distasteful to his strongly dominant-aggressive personality. Bazarov hence found the entire episode “irritable”, and the Nihilist in him could not help laughing cynically at what he views as his folly of succumbing to “romanticism”: “You cannot understand me? Well, mark this: that you had far better go and break stones by the wayside than allow a woman to obtain even the least hold over you. Such a thing is sheer” (he nearly said ‘Romanticism’, but changed his mind) ‘rubbish’” (Turgenev, Kelly 109). Bazarov explains to Arkady that interaction with “feminine society” should be restricted, it should be like “taking a dip in cold water on a hot day”: “You won't believe me now, but I’ll tell you; you and I fell into feminine society and very nice we found it; but we throw off that sort of society - it’s like taking a dip in cold water on a hot day. A man has no time for these trifles. A man must be untamed (italics mine), says an old Spanish proverb” (Turgenev, Hare 69). It is essential to understand that Bazarov was ready to commit himself to Madame Odintsova, he was ready to “surrender”; but he later makes

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these statements as justifications, and because he is ashamed of his folly and of his being turned down. This is what he feels at this moment, after his recent bitter experience. Making an exception to his repressive tendencies, he had opened his heart to this woman, but she had brought him to sorrow. Interestingly, his immediate reaction is to revert to his previous ‘anti-romantic’ notions; he picks up his ‘defensive’ shield again to protect himself from the ensuing emotional hurt. In the aftermath of the rejection of his love proposal, it becomes evident that Bazarov detests being ‘beaten’ or turned down: “Now you, my wise friend,” he added, addressing the peasant on the box. “I suppose you have a wife?” “That’s fine. Well, and does she beat you?” The peasant tugged at the reins. “What things you say, sir. You like a joke.” He was obviously offended. “You hear, Arkady Nikolayevich. But we’ve been properly beaten - that’s what comes of being educated people (italics mine).” (Turgenev, Hare 70)

Soon after, Bazarov views a brave ant dragging along a half-dead fly and calls out: “Take her away, brother, take her! Don’t pay any attention to her resistance; take full advantage of your animal privilege to be without pity not like us self-destructive creatures!” (Turgenev, Hare 79) This is an interesting symbolization, and deciphering it gives a further revelation of Bazarov’s character and his present state of mind. The “brave ant” here stands for the male lover, the “brother” as Bazarov calls it; the half-dead fly stands for the woman being wooed or the love object. Bazarov admires the ant’s capacity to not pay “any attention to” the half-dead fly’s “resistance” (Turgenev, Hare). It is notable that here too Bazarov refers to the ant’s “animal privilege” (Turgenev, Hare). Bazarov obviously would like to fulfill his need to love and satisfy his “animal” desire. He is a man of impulse and of animal instincts. This also explains how he easily surrenders to his animalistic desire to kiss Fenichka. Bazarov pities himself and refers to himself as a “self-destructive” creature (Turgenev, Hare 79). He is ashamed of the pain and hurt that he has led himself into. His statements need to be understood in that context. At the same time, he needs to stand by his instinctive proposal of love because he is a man of action. In this context, Seeley’s assertion that Turgenev’s “central theme is not so much ‘love in all its protean variety’, but the common features of Eros as the ‘testing ground’ of human worth, as a paradoxically creative and destructive force in the human psyche” is enlightening (Friedeberg). Although it is easy to discern that Bazarov is regretful for having made his confession of love, it needs to be understood that the hurt and

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disappointment he feels at his failure in subduing and possessing the object of his love is even greater. This is revealed in his following words: “Ugh! I can see, Arkady Nikolaich, that you regard love like all modern young men; cluck, cluck, cluck, you call to the hen, and the moment the hen comes near, off you run! I’m not like that (italics mine). But enough of it all. It’s a shame to talk about what can’t be helped” (Turgenev, Hare 79). Bazarov had previously held Pavel Petrovitch in contempt because he is against the idea of a woman having an emotional and psychological hold on a man (this also explains his questioning of the peasant about his wife). He now detests the same psychological condition in himself and motivated by his concern to stem this occurrence he says: “That’s the only thing I’m proud of. I have not crushed myself, so a little woman can’t crush me. Amen! It’s all over. You won’t hear another word from me about it” (Turgenev, Hare 79).

Katya-Anna and Arkady-Katya The relationship shared between the two sisters, Anna Odintsova and Katerina Sergeevna Lokteva is psychologically realistic and this is reflected in the text through deep undertones. In contrast to her strongly dominant elder sister, Katya comes across as shy and reticent. Katya lives comfortably with her sister but evidently finds her influence overbearing. Living under the domineering presence of Madame Odintsova, Katya has grown up with a lack of confidence in herself. We are told that “Katya always shrank into herself under her sister’s sharp eyes (italics mine)” (Turgenev, Hare 56). Yes, there is a substantial age difference between Anna and Katya, but that doesn’t explain all. It should be noted that Anna has played the role of a guardian and a ‘mother’ to her younger sister Katya. Katya looks upon Anna as a ‘mother figure’, but not a kind one. Is it possible that the early loss of her mother has endowed Anna with a repressed nature and she is not wholly capable of being a caring, expressive ‘mother’ to Katya? Through our analysis of the cues that the author-narrator has given, we shall try to understand why Katya easily settled into the role of a ‘daughter’, this time to a different ‘mother’. The predominantly compliant role that Katya has played in her upbringing also impacts her relations with her suitor, Arkady. Katya’s “shyness makes her and Arkady’s love slow to realize itself” (“Fathers and Sons”, enacademic): But Katya answered him in monosyllables and withdrew into herself. When this happened, she did not come out again quickly; at such times her face took on an obstinate, almost stupid expression. She was not exactly

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Katya herself leads the reader to an understanding of her submissivecompliant character when she describes Bazarov as ‘predatory’ (khishchnyi - an adjective associated with a bird of prey), whereas she and Arkadii, she claims, are ruchnye – meaning ‘tame’ (Peace). Arkady further adds to this understanding when he prods Katya into talking about Madame Odintsova’s dominant personality and her opinion of her: Arkady smiled, and coming a little closer to Katya, he said in a whisper: “Confess, you are a little afraid of her.” “Of whom?” “Of her,” repeated Arkady significantly. “And how about you?” asked Katya in her turn. “I am also. Please note I said, I am also”. (Turgenev, Hare 106)

Katya confesses to Arkady that she is fed up of a “subordinate existence” under her elder sister’s inconsiderate dominance and has “had enough of that” (Turgenev, Hare 107). Even more interesting is Arkady’s rejoinder to this: “Had enough of that. You’re not Anna Sergeyevna’s sister for nothing; you’re just as independent as she is; but you’re more reserved” (Turgenev, Hare 107). Arkady is aware that Anna Sergievna is a proud woman and feels that Katya too has something of that trait – as he asks her: “Well, but you must admit that even you have something of that pride I spoke of just now” (Turgenev, Hare 107). He also equates this selfsufficient, proud nature with the desire and the need to dominate. As he says to Katya: “Perhaps you want to dominate (italics mine), or...” (Turgenev, Hare 107). Katya confesses that she is willing to be submissive and “obey” her partner in a relationship, provided she is allowed to keep her self-respect; and she knows that such a situation would bring her “happiness” (Turgenev, Hare 107). But she’s “had enough” of a “subordinate” and submissive existence under her dominant sister, Anna Sergievna (Turgenev, Hare 107). She has also been psychologically made to feel her inferiority vis-à-vis her sister who is “beautiful” and “clever”: “Don’t compare me with my sister, please,” interrupted Katya hurriedly; “it puts me too much at a disadvantage. You seem to forget that my sister is beautiful and clever and...” (Turgenev, Hare 108) This also explains (in some ways) her acknowledged dislike of Bazarov, whom she recognizes to be strongly dominant.

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Interestingly, Katya has a subconscious desire to dominate. I shall attempt to show here that one reason why Arkady questions Katya about this trait in her is that he is aware of his own subordination to Katya. However, this is a gentle influence compared to the “sheer despotism” that Arkady feels under Bazarov (Turgenev, Hare 81). Katya consciously attempts to wean away Arkady from Bazarov’s influence and take him under her wing. She censures him for his nihilistic tendencies: “Then still there survives in you a trace of your old satirical tendency. Still your reformation needs to be completed” (Turgenev, Kelly 163). Arkady comes to like Katya’s youthful and loving company and realizes that “she doesn’t reproach” him “for talking poetically” (Turgenev, Hare 105). In fact, it is Katya’s parallel influence that empowers Arkady to overcome Bazarov’s dominance. He even asks Katya: “Have you noticed that I’ve already shaken off his influence?” (Turgenev, Hare 105) It is no wonder then that Arkady finds the courage and the heart to argue vehemently with Bazarov: “That’s enough, Evgeny...listening to you today one would be driven to agree with those who reproach us for absence of principles” (Turgenev, Garnett 101). Here we’re witness to the widening gap between Bazarov and his protégé and the latter’s efforts to break free from Bazarov’s dominance. Arkady, who previously used to shy away from indulging in any emotional talk, now ventures to express his romantic nature directly to his mentor: “Look,” said Arkady suddenly, “a dry maple leaf has broken off and is falling to the ground; its movements are exactly like a butterfly’s flight. Isn’t it strange? Such a gloomy dead thing so like the most care-free and lively one.” “Oh, my friend Arkady Nikolaich,” exclaimed Bazarov, “one thing I implore of you; no beautiful talk.” “I talk as I best know how to...yes, really this is sheer despotism. A thought came into my head; why shouldn’t I express it?” (italics mine) (Turgenev, Hare 81)

They even come to blows. Towards the end of the story, “Arkady realizes that Bazarov is cut from an entirely different type of cloth than he, and no longer aspires to emulate his companion” (“Arkady”). All “the things that Bazarov has no use for - beauty, art, poetry, love - Arkady finds himself reveling in” (“Arkady”). It is the genius of Turgenev that while he reveals Bazarov’s personality through Katya, he also correspondingly unearths Katya’s true character through Bazarov’s opinion of her. We can’t help admiring Bazarov’s acute psychological insight:

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Chapter Two Don’t be offended, please; you probably remember what I always thought of Katerina Sergeyevna. Many a young lady is called intelligent simply because she can sigh intelligently; but yours can hold her own, and indeed she’ll hold it so well that she’ll have you under her thumb--well, and that’s quite as it should be. (Turgenev, Hare 115)

Despite minimal interaction with Katya (and just on the basis of his observation and insight), he is able to predict that Katya will “hold her own” in her relationship with Arkady; and “hold it so well” indeed that she will have him “under her thumb” (Turgenev, Hare 115). He doesn’t condemn this either because he feels it will suit them fine – “that’s quite as it should be”. Katya does have the subconscious desire to “dominate” and Arkady is the appropriate love object to let her fulfill her desired role (Turgenev, Hare 107). It is even possible that Katya subconsciously idolizes her elder, motherly sister in some respects. The narrator acknowledges Bazarov’s insight when he says that Bazarov “spoke the truth”, for, that very evening with Katya, “Arkady had completely forgotten about his former teacher” and had “already begun to follow her lead”: “Bazarov spoke the truth. Talking that evening with Katya, Arkady had completely forgotten about his former teacher. He had already begun to follow her lead, and Katya felt this and was not surprised” (Turgenev, Hare 116). Katya “felt this and was not surprised” because she had all along been aware of Arkady’s submissive and devoted nature and of her capability (and the power of her love) to wean him away from his ill-found nihilistic beliefs and have him “under her thumb” (as Bazarov puts it) (Turgenev, Hare 116). Earlier, she has admitted to herself that she will have him kneeling at her feet. Walder questions whether Turgenev is “implying that even women as apparently guileless as Katya and Fenichka inevitably seek to overpower men, that the female is sinister and deadly to the male?” (Walder, Realist 187) Our interpretation is sufficient to answer such questions. It goes to show that if we ignore the psychological aspect of such brilliant works as Fathers and Sons, it can easily lead to a misreading of the text, or at best, an incomplete and insufficient understanding of it. For all his nonchalance and nihilism, Bazarov does have a perceptive mind. While he may have asserted earlier that human beings are all alike, like “trees in a forest”, he is quick to read some essential differences in the character of the two sisters (Turgenev, Kelly 67). Just as Bazarov is aware of Katya’s ability to dominate Arkady, he also has an understanding of her obvious susceptibility to dominant influence. He rightly observes that of Katya “you could make whatsoever you might desire”, whereas the other

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(Anna Odintsova) is more like “yesterday’s loaf” and has an already formed strong personality (Turgenev, Kelly 86): “But what is wonderful is not her, but her sister.” “What? That little dark creature?” “Yes, the little dark creature - she’s fresh, untouched and shy and silent, anything you want…one could work on her and make something out of her - but the other - she’s an experienced hand”. (Turgenev, Hare 54)

The Expression of Psychological Repression in Fathers and Sons Girls and women (of all ages and dispositions) are an inherent part of the structure of Turgenev’s novels. The reader will appreciate that many of his writings explore the dynamics involved in the relationships of men and women. Turgenev has created quite a few well-delineated female characters in Fathers and Sons, but probably none more intriguing or critical to the structure of the story as Madame Anna Odintsova. However, many critics believe that Turgenev has her in the story mainly to serve a particular function – that of guiding Bazarov’s unenviable destiny: It seems to me that Odintsova’s main importance in the novel is the fatal effect she has upon Bazarov…You might feel that Turgenev provides Odintsova with her own story after Bazarov’s death, with her later marriage and its possibilities. However; this is surely too perfunctory to count as a story. (Walder, Realist 187)

I will attempt to show in this section that Odintsova not only has a story of her own, but Turgenev portrays her with a complexity that can only be appreciated with an in-depth analysis of the cues in the text. Odintsova is introduced to us as a wealthy widow, an “enigmatic”, “beautiful young woman formerly of lowly origin” (“Fathers: Human”). By virtue of “having married well and been widowed young, she has inherited an exceedingly comfortable and insular life on a palatial country estate” (“Fathers: Human”). For Madame Odintsova, “the ultimate concern is to maintain peace and order” (“Russian”, studydroid). She “runs her household and estate in a precise orderly fashion and virtually never strays from the bounds she has imposed upon life” (“Russian”, studydroid). She believes that “without order, life would be too boring” (“Russian”, studydroid). Turgenev portrays Odintsova in a realistic manner. There is ample evidence of her cold temperament, lacking in passionate impulses:

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Chapter Two ...though much was open to her sight, and much interested her, nothing really satisfied her, and she had no wish for such satisfaction, since her intellect was at once enquiring and indifferent, and harboured doubts which never merged into insensibility, and aspirations which never swelled into unrest. (Turgenev, Kelly 86)

She is not presented as a unidimensional, unfeeling character. She often found her life “tedious” (Turgenev, Hare). But Madame Odintsova goes out of her way to ensure orderliness in her life. The everyday routine that she has determined for herself and which she strictly follows actually serves to keep her thoughts away from the tedium and emptiness of her life. Walder senses “something repressively sterile in the rigid routine Odintsova imposes on her household, excluding all traces of spontaneity or vitality” (Walder, Realist 182). As Bazarov tells her later: “You have organized your life with such impeccable regularity that there can’t be any place left in it for boredom or sadness…for any painful emotions” (Turgenev, Hare 59). Anna Sergievna has created a defense mechanism, a veritable fortress, which will help her to deny access to her own inner, subconscious needs and desires. However, at moments she can’t help falling prey to dreams of a more natural, unrestricted life: True, at times rainbow colours gleamed even before her eyes; yet no sooner had they faded than she would draw her breath as before, and in no way regret their disappearance. Again, though, at times, her imagination exceeded the bounds of what is considered permissible by conventional morality, her blood still coursed tranquilly through her lethargic and bewitchingly shaped frame. (Turgenev, Kelly 86)

Turgenev’s description of Madame Odintsova points to a highly repressed nature. The apparent ease with which she suppresses her desires is suggestive of a deeply inhibited personality. As the story unfolds, the reader is forced to recognize that the beautiful Anna is mostly incapable of strong emotions and is afraid of them. She feels no compelling need to learn “the nature of passion”, choosing instead to spend her days in a “deliberate” and “rarely agitated manner” (Turgenev, Kelly 86). She has all the materialistic comforts and luxuries of life, and yet when “issuing in a warm and tender glow from her comfortable bathroom”, she falls to “pondering upon the futility of life, its sorrow and toil and cruelty” (Turgenev, Kelly 86). It is only at such rare moments that her soul begins to “seethe with noble aspirations” (Turgenev, Kelly 86). But here again the narrator exemplifies the ease with which Anna turns away from selfactualizing thoughts and her basic needs:

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Yet even then, let but a draught happen to blow in her direction from an open window, and at once she would shrug her shoulders, commiserate herself, come very near to losing her temper, and become conscious of nothing but the thought that the one thing necessary was to ensure that by hook or by crook that abominable draught should be averted. (Turgenev, Kelly 86)

Madame Odintsova feels uncomfortable and almost disgusted when she feels the draught entering her chamber through the windows, and the fact that she uses this as a pretext to “become conscious of nothing” points to her distancing herself from her own basic needs and healthy desires (Turgenev, Kelly 86). When Madame Odintsova meets Arkady, she asks about Bazarov because she wants to know a person who has had the courage “not to believe in anything” (Turgenev, Hare 18). In her desire to meet Bazarov, there is a reflection of her “cold and austere” personality: “She has decided to remove herself from all the anxieties of life, and in meeting Bazarov, she hopes to see what someone else’s different and unique response is to the problem of living” (“Fathers and Sons: Character Analysis: Anna”). The “‘little speech’ with which she greets Arkady and Bazarov on their arrival at her house is delivered ‘in a particularly precise way as if she had learned it by heart’” (Walder, Realist 186). Still, we do expect something significant to unfold when she meets Bazarov, for she herself “was a strange being” (Turgenev, Kelly 86). Anna makes a strong impression on Bazarov, and Arkady finds the confident and self-declared Nihilist behaving in a strangely self-conscious and school-boyish manner in her presence. This is contrasted with the undisturbed manner in which Anna deals with Bazarov in their first meeting. Bazarov too makes an impression on Anna, but we find that she is incapable of giving much thought to him: …she is shown to be without strong feelings herself. This sense of her lack of passion is reinforced by the image of her in bed, thinking in an intrigued way about Bazarov, yet quickly falling asleep over ‘a silly French novel…all clean and cool in clean and fragrant bed linen’. The implication is that she seeks out Bazarov from motives of curiosity and ennui rather than desire. (Walder, Realist 182)

We are tempted to ask what has led Madame Odintsova to habitually repress her desires. Does the narrator give us any clues to this or are we kept in the dark about it, since (as critics like Walder suggest) Anna apparently doesn’t have a story of her own? More questions arise. Does she do this solely in her relationship with Bazarov? For that matter, is she

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sufficiently attracted to Bazarov to feel the subconscious need to repress any desires? Even before Bazarov arrives at the estate, we are given clear pointers to Anna Odintsova’s repressed lifestyle and tendencies. Not only that, but we are also given sufficient biographical information and what we’re told is significant, to say the least: Anna Sergeyevna had inherited from her father some of his passion for luxury. She had been devoted to him, and he had idolized her, used to joke with her as though she were a friend and equal, confided his secrets to her and asked her advice. Her mother she scarcely remembered. (Turgenev, Hare 55)

Does Anna’s ‘history’ throw any pointers to her massive subconscious urge to repress her emotional and sexual desires? The Lacanian Leclaire believes that “despite the vast body of commentary on repression since Freud’s death, Freud himself never really discovered why repression occurs” (Ragland-Sullivan 113). But Lacan’s epistemology does include such a hypothesis. By “taking Freud’s scanty sketch of primary repression seriously, Lacan upholds Freud’s statement that repression requires the possibility of some prior repression as a foundation” (italics mine) (Ragland-Sullivan 113). What is repressed in the primary instance, then, is “neither sexuality nor affect, but the earliest representations of Desire in their link to the (m)other” (italics mine) (Ragland-Sullivan 113). The lack of a mother is a very serious issue for a growing infant. In the absence of the mother, the desire for this primal bond with her is strongly repressed in the psyche of the child. In the introductory chapter, we have discussed how the lack of a mother in the early, formative years could have an adverse effect on the person’s ability to establish mutually satisfying relations (especially with members of the opposite sex) as an adult. In The Problem of Diagnosis in Parent Loss Cases, Joan Fleming states that in her work with parent loss cases with adults, she has noticed a tendency towards “inhibition of sexual impulses and repression of affect, both loving and hostile” (Fleming). Also significant is Anna’s relationship with her father. With the early loss of his wife, her father looked upon his elder daughter as the female he could relate to for support and understanding. And although Anna was “devoted” to her father, information given in the text suggests that he wasn’t really the ideal father figure: “it was asserted that she had helped her father in his gambling escapades and even that she had gone abroad for a special reason to conceal some unfortunate consequences” (Turgenev, Hare 48). This could also explain why Anna comes across as strangely

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mature for her age and has taken the role of a guardian to Katya in the mantle of a dominant, insensitive mother. In the complete absence of a proper mother figure in her own life, can we expect her to nurture Katya with more love and understanding? Apparently “content at the outset with her unattached life, Anna finds herself increasingly attracted to the blunt, unorthodox, and intelligent Bazarov” (Zhang): “She proceeds almost unwittingly to emotionally seduce the self-declared womanizer” (Zhang). Madame Odintsova “is excited by him and enjoys the combative vigour of his unorthodox opinions when he is her guest at Nikolskoe, yet she retains her self-possession and retires to bed at night ‘a cold spotless figure in spotless, fragrant white’”, while it is Bazarov who finds himself in the throes of passion (Turgenev, Kelly xi). His “self-possession is unnerved by the uncontrollable swell of his feelings for her” (Turgenev, Kelly xi). His “first view of her at the Governor’s ball provokes an expression of cynical sexual opportunism in keeping with his ideological kind as he remarks that ‘she has such a pair of shoulders as I have not seen this many a day’, and later, ‘what a body – the very thing for a dissecting theatre’” (Turgenev, Kelly xi). But “the more he comes to love her the more his pride is stung, and he pours scorn upon everything ‘romantic’” (Turgenev, Kelly xi). Being adamantly opposed to romantic love, Bazarov is disgusted with the romantic tendencies that have surfaced in him. Bazarov is a great lover of women and feminine beauty. Why then this reluctance to love a woman he feels like loving? Why this extreme distaste to the idea of true romantic love? It cannot merely be attributed to his being a follower of the tenets of Nihilism, for his ideas on women and love are much more individualistic and personal in origin. Bruce Mazlish propounds a probable explanation of Bazarov’s inability to love: “Why is Bazarov unable to love? The answer seems to be that he has received too much love from his parents!” (Mazlish 40) Our “first introduction to Bazarov’s parents comes midway through the book when he returns home to them with Arkady” (Mazlish 40). “Yevgeny, my dear little Yevgeny,” a woman’s quivering voice was heard. The door was flung wide open, and on the threshold appeared a round, short, little old woman…She groaned, stumbled, and would certainly have fallen if Bazarov had not supported her. Her swollen little arms were at once wound round his neck, her head nestled against his chest, and there was a silence. Only her convulsive sobbing was to be heard. ...“Well, yes, of course, that’s all in the nature of things,” Vassily Ivanovich said, “only we’d better go into the house. Here’s a guest arrived with Yevgeny. You musn’t mind,” he added, turning to Arkady, and

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Chapter Two slightly scraping one foot, “you understand, it’s just a woman’s weakness and a mother’s heart, you know...” But his own lips and eyebrows were twitching, and his chin was quivering - though he obviously was trying to master himself and to appear all but unconcerned. Arkady bowed. (qtd. in Mazlish 40)

Bazarov’s father is no less guilty of giving excessive love and attention to his son. As Bazarov tells Arkady: “In your house at least one can shut oneself up, but here my father keeps on repeating to me, ‘My study is at your disposal--nobody shall interfere with you,’ and all the time he himself is hardly two steps away” (Turgenev, Hare 84). Mazlish claims that Bazarov finds this excess of love and attention from his parents undesirable: In the face of so much cloying love, which threatens to overwhelm him, Bazarov erects a stony defense. We are given only one hint as to a possible Oedipal connection. When Bazarov temporarily, and in spite of himself, becomes involved with Anna Sergeevna, the widowed Mme. Odintsova, he suffers feelings “that tormented and enraged him.” One night, we are told, “he was tormented by disjointed dreams…Mme. Odintsova hovered around him, and she was his mother too”. Love must have seemed terribly threatening and “suffocating” to Bazarov. It was a giving way to “weakness,” to that romanticism which he called “nonsense, an unforgivable stupidity.” Bazarov, then, cannot permit himself to love, because he is afraid of loving too much, and thus losing all control of himself. (Mazlish 40)

Bazarov’s father gives an insight into Bazarov’s repressed nature when he tells Arkady: “I dare not show my feelings in front of him, because he disapproves of that. He is opposed to every demonstration of emotion” (Turgenev, Hare 76). Remarkably for a man “who would rather crush stones than be under the control or influence of a woman, a man who calls a freethinking woman an ‘ugly monster’, Bazarov falls deeply in love with Anna Odintsova” (Hocutt). And “despite his protestations to the contrary and his rationalizations afterward, Bazarov is capable of feeling deep emotions, particularly love” (Hocutt). Unfortunately for Bazarov, the bestial passion and strong sexual desire that he feels for Anna is soon transformed into love, while he remains a hapless spectator: Bazarov was a great lover of women and feminine beauty, but love in the ideal sense, or, as he expressed it, the romantic sense, he called rubbish or unforgivable stupidity; he considered chivalrous feelings somewhat akin to deformity or disease...[Yet] [h]is blood caught fire as soon as he thought about her; he could’ve easily coped with blood, but something else had taken root in him that he’d never be able to admit, something he’d always

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mocked (italics mine), something that irritated his pride. Later, Bazarov reveals that “something”: “Then you should know that I love you, stupidly, madly... now see what you’ve extracted.” (Hocutt)

Bazarov’s confession of love to Anna comes with a bestial force of passion, and his apparent need for her takes him as much by surprise as it does Anna herself. Bazarov’s nihilistic self-sufficiency has created barriers to the flow of his passionate nature and repressed it. When the gates open, the force of his subdued desire comes out rushing with “fury”: Madame Odintsov raised both her hands in front of her, while Bazarov pressed his forehead against the windowpane. He was breathing hard; his whole body trembled visibly. But it was not the trembling of youthful timidity, not the sweet awe of the first declaration that possessed him: it was passion beating within him, a powerful heavy passion not unlike fury and perhaps akin to it…Madame Odintsov began to feel both frightened and sorry for him. (Turgenev, Hare 65)

Daniel Hocutt says that “it is here that Bazarov the romantic reveals himself - though only for a brief moment until he finds that Anna Odintsova does not return that love” (Hocutt). He then “reverts to his former nihilistic self, though not without a corresponding decline in spirit and increase in boredom, as if the experience of falling in love and being rejected deprived him of some aspect of his drastic self-reliance and confidence” (Hocutt). It is psychologically realistic that Bazarov tries to withhold his passion but is unable to do so. It is even more fascinating that while Bazarov suffers all along, Odintsova, whose source of repression and inhibition is much more primal and deeply rooted in her psyche, is unable even to recognize the legitimacy and force of her desire for Bazarov: One day, walking with her in the garden, he abruptly announced in a surly voice that he intended to leave very soon to go to his father’s place…She turned white, as if something had pricked her heart; she was surprised at the sudden pain she felt and pondered long afterwards on what it could mean (italics mine). (Turgenev, Hare 57)

Walder points to the fact that “Odintsova expresses puzzlement about her feelings and turns to Bazarov for explanations of herself and of life, which, by and large, he feels able to supply” (Walder, Realist). Turgenev’s genius for characterization is revealed in his portrayal of Anna. I’ll attempt to show that even Anna’s choice of attire and her body language give us

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crucial leads to understanding her psychological and psychosexual makeup. He glanced at her. Her head had fallen on the back of the armchair and her arms, bare to the elbow, were folded over her bosom (italics mine). She seemed paler in the light of the single lamp covered with a translucent paper shade. A broad white dress covered her completely in its soft folds; even the tips of her feet, also crossed, were hardly visible (italics mine). (Turgenev, Hare 58)

It is to be noted that Turgenev associates Anna with the colour white – is this not significant? Considered from the aspect of symbolism, it suggests ‘purity’, ‘virginity’, ‘coldness’, ‘lack of emotions’ – in the lack of a better term, asexuality to be precise. To further accentuate the effect, we’re told that the broad white dress “covered her completely in its soft folds” so that “even the tips of her feet were hardly visible” (Turgenev, Hare 58). It is evident that there is no hope for Bazarov here! Further, we must note that her arms are “folded over her bosom” and her feet are “also crossed”. In Body Language: What Does the Position of Your Feet Say about You?, we’re told that folded arms and crossed feet “could indicate apprehensiveness” (“Body Language”). If that be true, who or what is Anna apprehensive of? We will return to this question. But it is essential to look more deeply at this crucial scene where Odintsova elicits a confession of love from Bazarov. While Bazarov is struggling here with the force of his passion for Anna, she herself is going through a conflict. In the intimacy of her study, Anna confesses that she is very “unhappy,” that she has no desire to “go on,” that she longs for a “strong attachment” that is “all or nothing” (Turgenev, Hare 61): “A life for a life. You take mine; you give up yours, without regrets, without turning back” (Turgenev, Hare 61). She wants Bazarov to confess his love for her, “luring him step by step in a pair of riveting, back-to-back passages” (“Fathers, Human”). However, the thing that Anna desires subconsciously, is also the very thing that she is fearful of. She is to discover more. In this crucial scene, Bazarov reveals the animalistic aspect of his passion: He quickly turned round, threw a devouring look at her--and seizing both her hands, he suddenly pressed her to him. She did not free herself at once from his embrace, but a moment later she was standing far away in a corner and looking from there at Bazarov. He rushed towards her… “You misunderstood me,” she whispered in hurried alarm. It seemed that if he had made one more step she would have screamed…Bazarov bit his lips and went out. (Turgenev, Hare 65)

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Later Anna “became pensive and blushed when she recalled Bazarov’s almost animal face when he had rushed at her” (Turgenev, Hare 65). This creates in the confession scene what Sona Stephan Hoisington has referred to as “a complicated dance (both verbal and physical) of desire and repression” (Hoisington). Indeed, the narrator’s “authoritative tone and form of words seem to be offering us a comprehensive understanding of her (Anna’s) vague mixture of desires with timid conformism which goes well beyond any self-awareness the character herself might possess” (Walder, Realist 192). Taking a different view of the significance of Anna’s attire in this scene, Walder suggests that “the white linen and drapery so often associated with her…hints at death almost as surely as the more obvious symbolism of Miss Havisham’s bridal decay in Great Expectations” (Walder, Realist 182). However, it is Bazarov who goes on to meet his death, while Odintsova herself remarries and lives on. The two scenes that put Anna Odintsova to a test take place indoors, within the confines of her home (Peace). Bazarov, on the other hand, though he abhors to speak of the beauty of nature, seeks to be with it when alone, striding angrily through the woods when he feels overwhelmed by his passion for Anna and his inability to reconcile with this dependency on a woman or in vainly seeking the consolation of sleep in a haystack. Richard Peace suggests that the scene in the closed space of Odintsova’s study also hint symbolically at the ‘letting in of nature’ (Peace). Odintsova complains of ‘stuffiness’ and asks Bazarov to open a window: Bazarov stood up and pushed at the window. It flew open at once with a bang...He was not expecting it to open so easily; at the same time his hands were trembling. The dark, soft night peered into the room with its sky that was almost black, its gentle noise of trees and the fresh smell of pure, free air. (qtd. in Peace)

The window that lets in the world of nature into Anna’s room opens more “easily” than Bazarov had expected – but what is its effect on Anna? She asks Bazarov to draw the blind. But even the ‘freshness of the night’ seems ‘disturbing’ to her in contrast to the ‘fragrant room’ (Peace). Nature in its force seemingly cannot be an antidote to the stuffiness and dreariness of Madame Odintsova’s existence, but it does have an effect on her. The ‘mysterious’ (tainstvennyi) whispering of nature, produces in her a ‘secret’ (tainyi) emotion and when Bazarov offers to leave, she restrains him (Peace). She is confronted with her repressed desires and her inner prompting to be ‘carried away’. But it seems that this is the farthest that Anna Odintsova will allow herself to come with Bazarov. Woodward argues: “Between herself and nature she too has erected a barrier of

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‘order’, behind which she demonstrates the same ‘confidence’ and the self-sufficiency to which her name (derived from Odin, meaning ‘one’) alludes” (Peace). A moment “after Bazarov capitulates and confesses his love, Odintsova rejects him brutally” (“Fathers, Human”). After Bazarov leaves, Odintsova is revealed to us, sitting alone, deep in thought, only the burning lamp for company, while her plait (which some critics have seen as an imagery of temptation) curves and falls on her shoulders like a dark snake. Yet even more significantly she keeps rubbing her arms “nipped by the cold of the night” (qtd. In Peace). Afterward, “she is tortured, alternately blaming and excusing herself while fearing she may have thrown away a chance for genuine love” (“Fathers, Human”). Finally, she decides, “No. God knows where it might have led; one mustn’t fool around with this kind of thing” (“Fathers, Human”). Anna is profoundly apprehensive of the sexual choice that Bazarov offers her. She cannot help knowing that she herself has led Bazarov to this state. Even prior to meeting him, she was interested in him through what she had heard of him. But he can only be an object of interest to her, a novel experience, something to while away her time with, enlarge her knowledge of human nature, and serve as an intriguing and opposing force to her regular, uneventful existence. She seems to have achieved half of her exercise: she has put Bazarov to the test. After the event, in her solitude, she paces the room between two symbolic ‘frames of reference’ - the window and the mirror, and examines her own actions, behaviour, and the choice she has made. Not surprisingly, it is the mirror which provides her (as well as the reader) the answer to her selfinterrogation and reveals her state of mind: …she caught sight of herself in the mirror; her tossed-back head, with a mysterious smile on the half-closed, half-open eyes and lips, told her, it seemed, in a flash something at which she herself felt confused... “No,” she decided at last. “God alone knows what it would lead to; he couldn't be trifled with; after all, peace is better than anything else in the world.” …Under the influence of various confused impulses, the consciousness that life was passing her by, the craving for novelty, she had forced herself to move on to a certain point, forced herself also to look beyond it––and there she had seen not even an abyss, but only sheer emptiness…or something hideous (italics mine) (Turgenev, Hare 65)

Madame Odintsova vaguely recognizes her own utterly-subdued passionate needs but is afraid to give way to them. Costlow sees the window and the mirror as emblems of Odintsova’s self-revelation and of “what she has repressed” (Peace). Although attached to Bazarov and fond

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of him, she could not bring herself to be passionate about him and the idea of a “surrender”. She did have the “consciousness that life was passing her by” and the “craving for novelty” as well, but hardly felt an “irresistible desire” for anything beyond it (Turgenev, Hare 65). She cannot surrender to Bazarov’s animal desire, possessive sexuality and dominant nature - the “something hideous” that she sees refer to this (Turgenev, Hare 65). The narrator has made no secret of Bazarov’s strongly passionate and sexual nature. We are given a foretaste of it early on in his ‘courtship’ of Anna when he is still struggling to suppress his desire for her but is unable to: …he would go into the hayloft in the barn, and obstinately closing his eyes, force himself to sleep, in which, of course, he did not always succeed. Suddenly he would imagine those chaste hands twining themselves around his neck, those proud lips responding to his kisses, those intelligent eyes looking with tenderness--yes, with tenderness--into his, and his head went round, and he forgot himself for a moment, till indignation boiled up again within him. He caught himself indulging in all sorts of “shameful thoughts”, as though a devil were mocking at him. It seemed to him sometimes that a change was also taking place in Madame Odintsova, that her face expressed something unusual, that perhaps...but at that point he would stamp on the ground, grind his teeth or clench his fist. (Turgenev, Hare 56)

Bazarov’s uncontrolled animal desire is manifested later in the story after the apparent closure of his entanglement with Madame Odintsova. In the aftermath of his disappointment in his love for Anna, he brings himself to kiss Fenichka, and can only shake his head after the folly and congratulate himself at his “formal assumption of the role of a Don Juan” (Turgenev, Hare). In a “shattering denouement, the ‘nothing’ of Bazarov’s ideological nihilism mirrors the erotic ‘nothing’ offered to him by Anna Odintsova” (Kaye 45). Her “reluctance to become attached to Bazarov is actually based upon the fear of being taken away from her ordered existence and led into unknown seas” (“Fathers and Sons: Character Analysis: Anna”). A close reading of the text suggests that Anna falls in love with Bazarov but is unable to admit to it because of her fear of the emotional chaos it could bring. For her, “peace is after all the best thing in life” (“Fathers and Sons: Character Analysis: Anna”). Thus, she remains cold and austere even to the end. Critics have drawn attention to the scene of Bazarov’s confession of love and the events leading to it. However, when we carefully examine the events that occur after the confession, we discover further evidence of the extent of Anna’s repressive tendencies. At first, “Anna Sergeyevna was

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afraid that the sight of Arkady and Katya’s happiness would prove rather upsetting to herself, but it turned out to be the contrary; it not only did not upset her to see their happiness, but it also occupied her mind, and in the end, it even soothed her heart” (Turgenev, Hare). This “outcome both gladdened and grieved Anna Sergeyevna” (Turgenev, Hare): “Children,” she said aloud, “do you think love is an imaginary feeling?” But neither Katya nor Arkady even understood her. They were shy with her; the fragment of conversation which they had accidentally overheard haunted their minds. But Anna Sergeyevna soon relieved their anxieties, and that was not difficult for her; she had set her own mind at rest (italics here). (Turgenev, Hare 116)

Anna manages to go back to her repressed mode and shell. The morning after she has rejected Bazarov’s proposal of love, he comes to take leave of her. Madame Odintsova received him, not in the room where he had so unexpectedly declared his love to her, but in the drawing room. Her apprehensiveness is evident: “She held her fingertips out to him amiably, but her face showed signs of involuntary tension (italics mine)” (Turgenev, Hare 110). She responds: “Are you going away? Why shouldn’t you stay now? Do stay…it’s such fun talking to you” (Turgenev, Hare 115). Anna had always looked on Bazarov as a curious subject, and it is a definite element of her interest in him. What she says next is revealing: “one seems to be walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gets somehow exhilarated as one goes along” (Turgenev, Hare 115) Anna feels as if she is walking “on the edge of a precipice” because Bazarov’s very presence and the feelings that it evokes in her present to her the constant possibility and danger of surrender to this dominant and “strange” man she is obviously attracted to (Turgenev, Hare 117). Anna, however, doesn’t realize this since she is distanced from her own subconscious needs and desires. She feels “exhilarated” being with him because there is always the ever-present danger of being taken where she has never allowed herself to be taken before…and never will. Bazarov too senses Anna’s discomfort and hastens to set her “mind at rest” with regard to his intentions: “Anna Sergeyevna,” Bazarov hastened to say, “first of all I must set your mind at rest. Before you stands a simple mortal, who came to his senses long ago, and hopes that other people too have forgotten his follies. I am going away for a long time, and though I’m by no means a soft creature, I should be sorry to carry away with me the thought that you remember me with abhorrence.” (Turgenev, Hare 110)

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On hearing this, Anna Sergeyevna “gave a deep sigh like one who has just climbed to the top of a high mountain, and her face lit up with a smile” (Turgenev, Hare). She does feel a “sigh” of relief on realizing that she won’t be confronted with temptations, expectations, and declarations of love: “Let bygones be bygones,...in a word, let us be friends as we were before. The other was a dream, wasn’t it? And who remembers dreams? (italics mine)” (Turgenev, Hare 110) When Bazarov says that love surely is “an imaginary feeling”, Anna is “very pleased to hear that” (Turgenev, Hare). But she is not able to overcome her apprehensiveness: “She still felt ill at ease with Bazarov (italics mine), though she had both told and assured herself that everything was forgotten” (Turgenev, Hare 111). It is not surprising then that even while “exchanging the simplest remarks with him” she was “conscious of an embarrassed fear” (Turgenev, Hare 111). Ever since Bazarov’s passionate and intense expression of his desire to possess her sexually, in his presence Madame Odintsova had the “constant awareness of constant danger” (Turgenev, Hare 112). Bazarov presents to her a “sphere which is alien” to her, as much as she presents the same to Bazarov (Turgenev, Hare 115). In fact, both Anna and Bazarov at this moment are like “flying fish” that cannot survive long in “air” – because the element that one presents is “alien” to the other. They feel compelled to “splash back into the water” – to be allowed to “flop down” into their “natural element” (Turgenev, Hare 115). Interestingly, at this moment when Anna and Bazarov are intent on deceiving themselves and each other, the narrator feels the need to intervene and provide some insight to the reader about the characters of the story: Anna Sergeyevna expressed herself thus and so did Bazarov; they both thought they were speaking the truth. Was the truth, the whole truth, to be found in their words? They themselves did not know, much less could the author. But a conversation ensued between them, just as if they believed one another completely. (Turgenev, Hare 111)

The narrator almost cautions the reader and makes him aware that the “whole truth” was not to “be found in their words”; and that “they themselves did not know” (Turgenev, Hare 111). He also implies that they did not believe “one another completely” (Turgenev, Hare 111). The author too surrenders his right to be the omniscient all-knowing narrator. Instead, he encourages the reader to delve into his characters’ psyche and try to understand them for himself.

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Despite her apprehensiveness of him, Anna is on talking terms with Bazarov and gives us some interesting information in her conversation with him: “And I,” observed Anna Sergeyevna, “had a fit of depression to start with, goodness knows why; I even planned to go abroad, just fancy! But that passed off; your friend Arkady Nikolaich arrived, and I settled down to my routine again, to my proper function (italics mine).” (Turgenev, Hare 111)

Anna Sergeyevna herself doesn’t realize why she has had a “fit of depression” – “goodness knows why” – she doesn’t understand that her repressed nature has severed her from her own subconscious needs and desires – her depression was caused by her inward agitation and turmoil a natural outcome of the conflict between her (sexual and emotional) desires and the compulsive need to repress those desires, as well as her inability and unwillingness to “surrender” to the dominant, “wild” Yevgeny Bazarov, to whom she is deeply attracted (Turgenev, Hare 112).

CHAPTER THREE ANALYSIS OF LEO TOLSTOY’S ANNA KARENINA

The work of Lev Tolstoy was characterized by an unconventional degree of realism. His works were widely appreciated by the readers when first published in Russia. Later, when they reached a wider audience abroad through translations, it left little doubt that his was the kind of writing that had not been experienced by the West and the literary world before, for here was a writer who could absorb Life in all its hues and colours, and then put it on paper with such lifelikeness that it left the readers mesmerized. What also made his works unique was that he not only “gave a broad picture of reality”, but also “raised the most urgent problems of his time and probed into the depths of man’s emotional world” (Novikov). It can be said that Tolstoy’s novels are a reflection of Life itself, revealing all its vibrant shades to the reader. And this portrayal of Life in a literary form is so beautiful that it still retains its characteristic effervescence. The hallmark of Tolstoy’s realism is its lifelikeness. Never for a moment does the reader feel that the characters in the story are invented or concocted. The narrator himself gives the impression of having known the characters intimately. The narrative, just like the life-stories of the characters, seems to flow gently and naturally like a forest stream, gurgling its way through the bends of life, up and down through mountains and valleys. True – the life and destinies of the characters may have its tragedies, challenges, and pitfalls, even moral and spiritual predicaments but nowhere is their story constrained by artificialities of a plot, style or authorial agenda. This is true at least of the first phase of Tolstoy’s writing which saw novels like Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, The Cossacks, War and Peace, and Anna Karenina. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy brilliantly portrayed “characters’ thoughts and motivations in all of their contradictory, complex truth.” (“Trevor’s Review”). Lisa Appignanesi rightly states that Anna Karenina “in its sprawling flow...may seem as artless as life itself” and “that is the greatness of Tolstoy’s art” (Appignanesi). In the preface to the translated

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version of Anna Karenina, commenting on what makes Tolstoy’s characters lifelike and his “method of presenting characters so as to give them substantiality”, Malcolm Cowley says: I can’t think of a recent book that gives one such a sense of looking at people in the round, so that one can touch them on all sides and know them not merely as striking individuals but as members of a family and a social order…Tolstoy was interested in everything, told everything, and made everything contribute to the roundness of his people. And that is the greatness of Tolstoy’s art. Anna Karenina is a novel of hope. Tolstoy powerfully depicts the harsh truths about human suffering and tragedy, but with an equally strong force he describes the great possibilities for human happiness on earth. (Tolstoy, Carmichael xi)

Anna’s brother Stepan Oblonsky, who happens to be Levin’s friend, is the link between the stories of the two protagonists of Tolstoy’s novel. Tolstoy also seems to draw a contrast between the pleasure-seeking, guiltfree and licentious nature of Stepan and the family-oriented Levin who cannot seem to see beyond his family, land and philosophical concerns. In showing the moral torment of his characters, Tolstoy “is selective, concentrating attention on the high points in their lives marking dramatic changes in their feelings and thoughts” (Novikov). It’s “difficult not to feel the empathy he negotiates for all the characters’ tough situations” (Mandelker). Every character type brings with him (or her) not only characteristic behavioural patterns and attitudes but also a life story, throwing light on some important and characteristic psychological phenomena. This is what “lends epic character to Tolstoy’s types of the common people” (Novikov). They are “portrayed with great insight and are as large as life, facing the winds of history” (Novikov). Tolstoy was, in fact, a great innovator of style and methods. He “pioneered the use of a device that is now commonplace in novels but was radically new in the nineteenth century - the interior monologue” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). In narrative fiction “writers had rarely exploited the interior monologue for extended passages the way Tolstoy does in Anna Karenina” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). By its very nature, interior monologue is a technique that allows the reader to empathise with the character by being privy to their innermost feelings. When we “accompany someone’s thoughts, perceptions, and emotions step by step through an experience, we inevitably come to understand his or her motivations more intimately” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). Tolstoy “turned his attention to the moral world of the individual with all the complex psychological, private, social, and universally human

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qualities of a concrete individual” and that is what “lies at the root of the innovatory features of Tolstoy’s realism and his psychological insights” (Novikov).

Tolstoy and the Woman Question: The Significance of Maternal Deprivation in Anna Karenina The “concept of psychosexual development, as envisioned by Sigmund Freud at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, is a central element in his sexual drive theory, which posits that, from birth, humans have instinctual sexual appetites (libido) which unfold in a series of stages” (Sing): “Each stage is characterized by the erogenous zone that is the source of the libidinal drive during that stage. These stages are, in order: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital” (Sing). Freud believed that “if, during any stage, the child experienced anxiety in relation to that drive, that themes related to this stage would persist into adulthood as neurosis” (Sing). In his work Essence of Leadership, Andrew Kakabadse states that in early infancy for both sexes the primary caregiver and the main source of gratification is the mother. For both sexes, the parents become the focus of drive energy. The oral phase is the period spanning birth to approximately one year. During the oral stage, “the infant becomes increasingly aware of others and attempts to form relationships with his/her primary carers” (Kakabadse 186). During this phase of development, the infant needs attachment, bonding and a need to feel secure. If these needs are met, a baby develops a sense of trust, and the child is enabled to grow positively, confidently facing new experiences. If the baby’s needs are not gratified, trust will not be established. The baby could either become withdrawn and cry, or become needy and clingy. The awareness of the external world of objects develops gradually in infants. Soon after birth, they are primarily aware of physical sensations, such as hunger, cold, and pain, which give rise to tension, and caregivers are regarded primarily as persons who relieve their tension or remove painful stimuli. Recent infant research, however, suggests that awareness of others begins much sooner than Freud originally thought (italics mine). (Kakabadse 186)

Melanie Klein too believed that the Oedipus complex occurred much earlier than Freud had postulated; for her, “the dialectical relationship of pleasure and distress in the oral phase is paradigmatic of later relationships, while the relative resolution of this dialectic during the oral phase predicts

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the fate of all future psychodynamic processes” (Dever 52). The early erotic relationship between mother and child, Klein contended, anticipates the dramas that constitute the later Oedipal-genital phase. It works naturally to prepare the child for object-love and his later functioning as a sexual being capable of a healthy association with a partner. It is thus “orality, not genitality” that “provides the primary template for adult neuroses; and further, the child’s cathexis onto the mother, rather than the father, provides the initial encounter with the superego and predetermines the course of adult behaviors and transferential relationships” (Dever 52). It is through understanding the theory of psychosexual development that we can come to recognize the significance of another phenomenon – maternal deprivation - one that Freud was interested in but did not elaborate on. We shall go into this in some detail, for as I shall subsequently show, it is not possible for us to claim a mature understanding of the characters Tolstoy created in Anna Karenina, without it. Sigmund Freud may have been among the first to hint at the potential impact of the loss of the mother on the developing child. Interestingly, “his concern was less with the actual experience of maternal care than with the anxiety the child might feel about the loss of the nourishing breast” (“Maternal Deprivation”, science). In Volume 2 of Attachment and Loss, John Bowlby draws attention to the fact that it was not until 1926, when Freud had attained the age of seventy, that in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety he “gave systematic attention to separation anxiety” (Bowlby, Separation 282): Prior to this, having paid insufficient attention to the child’s attachment to his mother, as he himself affirms, he had paid correspondingly little attention to the anxiety exhibited on separation from her. Nevertheless, he had been far from blind to it. In both Three Essays (1905) and the Introductory Lectures (1917) he had drawn attention to it and in both had treated it as of much importance. (Bowlby Separation 282)

Although Freud was “on the one hand deeply interested in the pathogenic role of mourning and on the other, especially in his later years, was also aware of the pathogenic role of childhood loss, he seems, none the less, never to have put his finger on childhood mourning and its disposition to take a pathological course as concepts which link these two sets of ideas together” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 35). In the 20th century, a number of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists “sought causal links between psychiatric illness, loss of a loved person, pathological mourning and childhood experience” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 35). Melanie Klein also recognized that “infants and young children mourn

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and go through phases of depression” and their “modes of responding at such times are determinants of the way that in later life they will respond to further loss” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 36). However, no one has provided as much illumination on this phenomenon as psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, John Bowlby. The term maternal deprivation is a “catch-phrase summarizing his early work on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother, although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists” (“Clinical Child”). Unlike Freud, Bowlby regarded psychopathology as arising due to “a person’s psychological development having followed a deviant pathway, and not as due to his suffering a fixation at, or a regression to, some early stage of development” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 39). To put it more clearly, Bowlby’s theory accounts for different adult personality types “in terms of development having taken place along one or other of a number of distinct and divergent developmental pathways than in terms of development having become fixated at one or another of a set of points thought of as occurring at intervals along a single pathway” (Bowlby, Separation 256). Bowlby “drew together such empirical evidence as existed at the time from across Europe and the USA, including Spitz (1946) and Goldfarb (1943, 1945)” (“Clinical Child”). His main conclusions, that “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” and not to do so “may have significant and irreversible mental health consequences, were both controversial and influential” (Price). Bowlby’s work “went beyond the suggestions of Otto Rank and Ian Suttie that mothering care was essential for development and focused on the potential outcomes for children of deprivation of such care” (“Maternal Deprivation”). Bowlby’s major and most quoted statement rings as true today as when he first made it decades ago: “It is submitted that the evidence is now such that it leaves no room for doubt regarding the general proposition - that the prolonged deprivation of the young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character and so on the whole of his future life” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). When it first emerged, Bowlby’s Attachment Theory challenged many basic tenets of the psychoanalytic developmental theory. Although in the early days, “academic psychologists criticized Bowlby and the psychoanalytic community ostracised him, attachment theory has become the dominant approach to understanding early social development and given rise to a significant surge of empirical research into the formation of children’s close relationships” (“Attachment theory”, studylib). He stated: “It is this

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complex rich and rewarding relationship with the mother in the early years, varied in countless ways by relations with the father and with siblings that child psychiatrists and many others now believe to underlie the development of character and mental health” (Kirby 687). Attachment theorists consider children to have a need for a “secure relationship with adult caregivers, without which normal social and emotional development will not occur” (O’Reilly 696). In the Foreword (written in 1999) to Volume 3 of Bowlby’s Attachment and Loss, Daniel N. Stern asserts that “attachment theory has become the paradigm in considering not only early pathology but also our understanding of the human responses to separation and loss” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 10). Attachment theory holds that “no variables...have more far-reaching effects on personality development than have a child’s experiences within his family” for, “starting during his first months in his relations with his mother figure, and extending through the years of childhood and adolescence in his relations with both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations; and on those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life” (Bowlby, Separation 418). The third and final volume of Attachment and Loss (Volume III) is “a work that explores the implications for the psychology and psychopathology of a personality of the ways in which young children respond to a temporary or permanent loss of mother-figure” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 12). However, earlier, in Volume 2, Bowlby’s investigations had already enabled him to reach the following conclusion: Experiences of separation from attachment figures, whether of short or long duration, and experiences of loss or of being threatened with separation or abandonment -- all act, we can now see, to divert development from a pathway that is within optimum limits to one that may lie outside them. (Bowlby, Separation 279)

Throughout the volume Bowlby counters long-standing biases in the psychoanalytical circles laying emphasis on the “long duration of grief, on the difficulties of recovering from its effects”, and on the “adverse consequences for personality functioning that loss so often brings” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 8). Bowlby proposes certain conditions which he believes are of paramount importance if the child suffering from maternal loss is to progress into a healthy personality. These are conditions which can be met, but “it is hardly surprising that all too often they are not” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 245): “Sometimes the shortfall is in only one class of condition, sometimes in two and not infrequently in all three. On the

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type of shortfall, their number and, perhaps especially, their combination turns the form taken by a child’s responses to his loss” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 245). Bowlby rightly recognizes that human psychology and personality development is a complex process encompassing multiple factors and varied conditions and states that “since several forms of pathology can result, and each form can occur in every degree, the field of enquiry is enormous” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 320). Daniel N. Stern states that it seems incredible today that “until Bowlby no one placed attachment at the center of human development, thereby facilitating a satisfying approach to the issue of separation and loss” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 9).

Character Study of Konstantin Levin However, how can our recognition of the importance of Bowlby’s concept of maternal deprivation bring about an appreciation of Tolstoy’s works and character creation? In order to illuminate the underlying uniformity of principle inherent in Tolstoy’s works, and to bring to light the very personal nature of his artistic creations, I will digress here with a reference to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, since it will enable us to approach the point that I’m trying to make here. In ‘The Case of the Missing Mothers’, Hugh McLean wonders about the absent mothers in Tolstoy’s monumental and best-known work ‘War and Peace’: One of my most cherished purposes, if I am lucky enough to encounter Lev Tolstoy in the next world…is to ask him to fill in what has always seemed to me a disturbing lacuna in War and Peace: the two missing mothers. “Dear Lev Nikolaevich,” I shall say, “will you please tell me something about Princess Bolkonskaya, the mother of Prince Andrei and Princess Marya? What was she like, when did she die, and what had been her relations with her difficult and domineering husband?” My second question, even more fascinating, will evoke the mother of Pierre Bezukhov. (McLean 21)

McLean wonders why Tolstoy deliberately refrained from “introducing these two mothers as characters, if only to a ghostly, posthumous existence in the memories of their living relatives” (McLean 22). The almost total absence of these two ladies “does seem to constitute a genuine puzzle, though perhaps not an insoluble one”: “On the one hand, it would seem that they would have provided some very apt narrative or illustrative material...More important, his mother’s story would show us some of the formative influences on Pierre, how he became what he was” (McLean 22). McLean wonders how Tolstoy “could pass up such golden

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opportunities” to enhance his “characterizations and add narrative spice” (McLean 22). Even from the point of view of “realism”, that school of which this novel is usually held up as a shining exemplar: is it ‘realistic’ that not one of three major characters, Prince Andrei, Princess Marya, and Pierre, whose inner consciousness we visit many times, ever in the course of this vast novel has a single thought about his or her mother? The drafts to the novel do provide a little more information about the lost mothers. In the early draft entitled ‘Three Periods’ we are told cursorily (italics mine) of the late wife of Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky that “She died early, he was unhappy with her…She wearied him, and he never loved her.” Limited as the information on the missing mothers found in the drafts may be, it does prove conclusively that Tolstoy in his revisions consciously expunged these references to them (italics mine). We are therefore, it seems to me, entitled to speculate concerning his motives. (McLean 24)

McLean believes that the “fact that there had been two generations of missing mothers in his own family” may have suggested to Tolstoy the idea of repeating the same pattern in this novel that has “so many family echoes” (McLean 24). It is interesting that although Hugh McLean identifies the issue of “missing mothers” in War and Peace, in trying to find the reasons for it, he doesn’t suggest the one that is most plausible psychoanalytically (although he comes very close to doing so). He speculates that by giving negligible space to the “missing mothers”, Tolstoy was trying to ensure economy (to prevent bulk) in his work. He also suggests that by keeping the mothers behind the curtains, he was in fact attempting to create a mystery in the structure of his novel. He doesn’t identify that it was most natural for Tolstoy to conceive of “missing mothers” and anti-mothers because of deep-set psychological reasons. We must not lose sight of the fact that Tolstoy’s major characters have often been autobiographical, representations of his own self, albeit to varying degrees. Amy Mandelker recounts how when Tolstoy was an old man, he discovered a pair of unknown woman’s footprints in his garden: “As he gazed at them, he recounts imagining an “ideal” woman that he envisions as his mother, who had died before he could form a memory of her” (Mandelker). There are passages in his diary “filled with pain and hopeless longing” (Mandelker). Examining Richard Gustafson’s translations of Tolstoy’s Diaries (written four years before Tolstoy died), David Holbrook points to one passage which he feels especially calls for psychoanalytic attention:

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As in childhood I longed to cling to a being who loved me (italics mine), who took pity on me, and to weep tenderly and be consoled. But who is that being to whom I would cling to? I go over all the people I love and none will do. To whom can I cling? I’d like to make myself small and cling to mother as I imagined her to myself. Yes, yes. Mommy, whom I had not even called by that name since I couldn’t speak. Yes, she, my most exalted concept of pure love, not that cold, divine type, but a warm, earthly, motherly love. That’s what my better but tired soul yearns for (italics mine). Yes, Mommy, come cuddle me. All this is insane, but it is all true. (qtd. in Holbrook 22)

So, “at age 76, Tolstoy could still walk alone in his garden”, keenly feeling the absence of motherly love, love as needed by an infant from its mother (Vaillant, The Wisdom 362). In Carl Jung’s words, “Many - far too many - aspects of life which have also been experienced, lie in the lumber room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, there are glowing coals under gray ashes” (Welch 94). The “unconscious does not respect the passage of time” (Vaillant, The Wisdom 362). In the Introduction to The Kreutzer Sonata And Other Stories, Richard Gustafson points out that “Tolstoy was an orphan and most of his major heroes are orphans”, and that in A Confession he sees himself as “a fledgling fallen from the nest” (Holbrook 22). Princess Marya from War and Peace is herself “a creative resurrection of the unremembered ‘missing mother’ about whom Tolstoy was still having tender fantasies even in his old age” (McLean 24). It is true that Tolstoy’s work as a whole was “impelled by this need to find love, which ideal of love was generated in those first months of his life when he had to devise an ideal image of his mother, after her death”, as we shall subsequently see (Holbrook 22). Is it any wonder then, that the character of Constantine Levin, whom the author himself recognized as his portrait, is also an orphan who lost his mother in infancy? Attachment theorists argue for the “significance of an infant’s relations with an adult attachment figure as a prerequisite for the child’s subsequent psychological development” (“The Impacts of Non-Parental Care”). While many attachment theorists “acknowledge that children form attachments to several people during early childhood, including fathers and other caregivers, the mother-infant relationship has been considered at the base of the hierarchy of relationships” (“The Impacts of Non-Parental Care”). Thus, this theory views “separation of the infant from the mother during the early years of life as a risk factor for emotional maladjustment” (“The Impacts of Non-Parental Care”).

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Freud postulated that “each person’s psychosexual development includes the surpassing of previous ‘love-objects’ or ‘object-cathexes’ that are tied to earlier sexual phases (the oral phase, the anal-sadistic phase, etc.)” (Felluga, Critical Theory). He argued that children then “passed through a stage in which they fixated on the mother as a sexual object (known as the Oedipus complex) but that the child eventually overcame and repressed this desire because of its taboo nature” (Russell). The “repressive or dormant latency stage of psychosexual development preceded the sexually mature genital stage of psychosexual development” (“Sigmund Freud: Freud’s Ideas”). The “symptoms of the functional psychoneuroses represent, after a fashion, some of these distorted attempts to find a substitute for the imperative cravings born of the sexual instincts, and their form often depends, in part at least, on the peculiarities of the sexual life in infancy and early childhood” (Freud, Three Contributions 7). Holbrook recognises “Tolstoy’s quest in terms of his need to rectify the serious dislocation of his relationship with his mother, in effect to the whole of reality” (and which in his adulthood was “transmuted into a religious rationalization”) (Holbrook 23). The idealization of the divine image of his mother was so “idealistically spun, it could never find any satisfaction in any reality that was found, so Tolstoy was bound to remain forever frustrated, forever changing tack, in his attempt to find that supreme motherly embrace, that ultimate motherly meaning, of which he was deprived as an infant” (Holbrook 23). In The Wisdom of the Ego, George Vaillant contends that Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina was to be a “masterpiece in which he managed to bring the split internalized images of his mother together” (Vaillant, The Wisdom 360). His “once loving mother and her ghost who filled his ‘soul with despair’ were to become one” (Vaillant 360). It is no wonder therefore that Levin’s idea of the mother (as we shall see) indicates a maternal ideal achieved in absence. Richard Gustafson states that the question that pursued Tolstoy all his life was: “How can I love so that I will be loved and not be abandoned?” Gustafson asserts that Tolstoy, at the same time “found it so difficult to love and to let himself be loved that he retreated into himself and in his self-centeredness alienated others” (qtd. in Holbrook 22). The psychological predicament is surely more primary than the beliefs which came with the conversion...And in deference to his memories of his mother, he devised a sense of the “sacred ideal” of womanhood such as his mother had been. (Holbrook 39)

In Psychoanalysis, this is a known phenomenon. In his biography The Life of Tolstoy, Tolstoy reveals how “elevated” and “pure” the idealized

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image of his divine mother was to him: “Such was the figure of my mother in my imagination. She appeared to me a creature so elevated, pure, and spiritual that often in the middle period of my life, during my struggle with overwhelming temptations, I prayed to her soul, begging her to aid me, and this prayer always helped me much” (Birukoff 24). Discussing object relationships, Freud suggested that “the choice of a love object in adult life, the love relationship itself, and the nature of all other object relationships depend primarily on the nature and quality of children’s relationships during the early years of life” (Sadock 195). In describing the libidinal phases of psychosexual development, “Freud repeatedly referred to the significance of a child’s relationships with parents and other significant persons in the environment” (Sadock 199). This is reflected in particular, in the object choices that the child makes as an adult. Freud distinguished love objects who are chosen “according to the narcissistic type,” in which case the object resembles the subject’s idealized or fantasied self-image, from objects chosen according to the “anaclitic,” in which the love object resembles a caretaker from early life (Sadock 199). Levin’s sense of the “sacred ideal” of womanhood is reflected in its intensity in his memory of his mother, and his love-object must necessarily be a “repetition” of her: “Levin scarcely remembered his mother. His conception of her was for him a sacred memory, and his future wife was bound to be in his imagination a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a woman that his mother had been (italics mine)” (Tolstoy, Garnett 92). As we shall subsequently see, the literary form in Anna Karenina uses (to use Carolyn Dever’s phrase on evaluating Emma) “the structural space of maternal absence as a staging ground for the drama of sexual selection” (Dever 26). Knowing well that Tolstoy had modelled the character of Levin and his Life after his own, we cannot discount the fact that in Tolstoy’s own case his mother’s death must inevitably have been followed by distressing experiences. The substitute mothering provided had been makeshift in nature and there had been several changes. The little infant ended up being posted, like parcels, from one mother-figure to another. Under such trying circumstances, quality of care had evidently suffered. An understanding of the pattern of substitute mothering that an orphaned child has received in its early years becomes imperative here. In Deprivation of Maternal Care: A Reassessment of its Effects, Mary D. Ainsworth provides an understanding of the patterns Bowlby has distinguished between. They are as follows:

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Chapter Three (a) the presence of a major mother-figure who may give sufficient care to the child but who is replaced at frequent intervals by another mothersurrogate, with resulting discontinuity in mother-child relations (this “serial multiplicity” occurs in “home management houses” and can also occur in a family in which the parents turn over the responsibility for child care to a shifting succession of nursemaids or housekeepers); (b) the absence of a major mother figure, and the dispersal of responsibility for the care of the child among a large number of figures, who together give an insufficient amount of opportunity for child-adult interaction (this pattern is characteristic of many hospitals and of some residential nurseries and other children’s institutions); (c) both multiple and discontinuous caretakers (this is the pattern inevitably experienced by a child who has a prolonged stay in a hospital where there is a policy of rotating staff through various services); (d) the dispersal of responsibility for the care of the child among several (not many) figures who together give sufficient care, and who have a high degree of continuity (this pattern exists in many families, even in Western societies, where there is a major mother figure who is chiefly responsible for the child’s care, but whose care is supplemented by that of other members of the household) (Ainsworth 145).

Not surprisingly, these different patterns may have different effects on development according to the degree of insufficiency or discontinuity of maternal care which may accompany them. In Tolstoy’s case, it is known that substitute mothering had been makeshift and often there had been numerous changes – in effect, there had been no stable substitute mother figure and as a consequence, there was no single woman who could take upon herself the role of the mother and fulfill the infant Leo’s needs. In a careful analytical study done by David and Appell on the “differences between the individualized care and the routine care” on a group of healthy infants of under twelve months of age, it was found that “the multiplicity of adults concerned in the care of a child under routine conditions by no means ensured an adequate total amount of care”; on the contrary, “the babies cared for in a routine way had much shorter contacts with each caretaker, and spent a much larger proportion of their waking hours in isolation than did those cared for under individualized care” (Ainsworth 130). What emerged as “most striking” was the “inferior quality and quantity of the interaction between nurse and infant in the control group”: “the nurses were relatively unresponsive to the spontaneous behaviour of the child, and consequently, there was rarely a sequence of interactions between them” (Ainsworth 130). As early as 1842, John Ramsbotham, in discussing the importance of maternal suckling, and referring to the situation that orphans (or children who are willfully given to substitute mothering) generally meet, talks of the “transfer of filial

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affection, gratitude, and obedience, from the mother, to a hireling, who cannot appreciate their value” and wonders: “Who is prepared to say, what may be the future result of this transfer?” (Ramsbotham 72) Attachment theorists believe that “discontinuity of relations has its chief effect on the capacity for affectional ties, especially in instances where separation from mother-figures is repeated” (Field 41). It is evident that “significant trauma to the child may occur as a function of physical separation from the mother” (Ainsworth 24). It is also clear from the evidence presented by researchers that “the breach of a tie once established is in itself disturbing”, and that “even in instances where there has been fairly adequate substitute mothering during separation”, the situation may turn traumatic for the child “because of the breach of the new tie with the substitute-figures” (Ainsworth 140), as in the case of Tolstoy who experienced repeated breaches. Ainsworth also mentions that either prolonged deprivation of interaction with a substitute mother during separation or repetitions of separation “can bring about the impairment of interpersonal relations that seems to be the outstanding long-term effect of severe separation-deprivation experiences” (Ainsworth 141). She asserts that there is much evidence to suggest that “the discontinuity of relations brought about through separation from the mother-figure or surrogatefigure (after an attachment has been established and before the child is old enough to maintain his attachment securely throughout a period of absence) is in itself disturbing to the child regardless of the extent to which the separation ushers in a period of deprivation or insufficiency of interpersonal interaction” (Ainsworth 143). Ainsworth also draws attention to the findings of David & Appell and others who have pointed out that “a multiplicity of mother-figures tends to obviate sufficient adult-child interaction” (Ainsworth 145). Each caretaker has partial responsibility for many children. Under these circumstances “two factors combine to give insufficiency of interaction: the adult does not have time to give much stimulation to any one child; the adult cannot be sensitive to the behaviour of any one child, so that he does not respond to many of the child’s potentially social signals” (Ainsworth 145). Rheingold has demonstrated that “this pattern of caretaking makes for decreased social responsiveness in the infant, even in a situation where the total amount of care given to the child is not grossly and obviously insufficient” (italics mine) (Ainsworth 145). If deprivation of this kind is “extreme or prolonged into the second year of life and beyond, the result can include the grave effects which Bowlby and other researchers have outlined” (Ainsworth 145). Research undertaken has found that some characteristic features of infants cared for by a succession of foster-

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mothers were the “superficiality of...social relationships”, an “incapacity to form attachments” and “lack of emotional responsiveness” (Ainsworth 77). Studies by Skeels and associates suggest that it is not merely “environmental deprivation” (as many detractors of the concept of ‘maternal deprivation’ would like to believe) “that accounts for the depriving effects of an institution, but the absence of interaction with a mother-figure” (Ainsworth 130). There is ample evidence to suggest that, for children over six months of age, throughout the second and third years of life at least, the most significant aspect of deprivation is the lack of opportunity to form an attachment to a mother-figure. Spitz’s findings, based on direct observation of groups of children, statistically analysed and supported by filmed evidence, show that “the crucial period for the establishment of true object relationships occurs in the second half of the first six months of a child’s life” (Ainsworth 85). This very rapid and cursory sketch of the theories of the genesis of object relationships shows clearly that separation from the mother is particularly dangerous at the time when a true object relationship has been established that is, at the end of the first year of life. In the first six months of life the mother is only a functional object, whose presence is essential, or at least so it appears, only in case of need. A whole range of maternal contributions” seems, however, to be necessary to establish the later bases for a valid object relationship (italics mine) (Ainsworth 86).

This theory of “the early aspects of the object relationship is founded not only on direct observation of the child but also on data provided by neurobiological studies of children” (Ainsworth 86). Bowlby submitted as his basic hypothesis the idea that “early separation from the mother constituted a serious and lasting impediment to the establishment of solid and secure object relationships” (italics mine) (Ainsworth 85). Analysis of Levin’s behavior shows that in trying to establish a relationship with Kitty (who he subconsciously sees as a mother substitute) and even after its establishment, the relationship in effect remains insecure. As is discussed in a subsequent section, right at the eve of his wedding to Kitty, Levin panics, and despite his palpating need to unite with her, he finds it difficult to believe that she could possibly love him. Even after the marriage, despite Kitty’s wholehearted devotion to him and their marriage, he is greatly tormented when Veslovsky (who is their guest at the country house) pays particular attention to Kitty. In his thoughts, he blames Kitty for Veslovsky’s misdemeanours. As we know well, even though the novel ends with Levin’s supposed spiritual

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enlightenment as a young married man, the man whose psychobiography it portrays (albeit in a fictionalized manner) goes on to have an increasingly bitter relationship with his wife, despite having all good things that a family man could be blessed with. As the narrator tells us, Levin had lost his mother early. Studying several findings from close analysis of infants, Ainsworth elaborated on the significance she observed of the period of onset of deprivation: Prolonged and severe deprivation beginning early in the first year of life and continuing for as long as three years usually leads to severely adverse effects on both intellectual and personality functioning that do resist reversal. Prolonged and severe deprivation beginning in the second year of life leads to some grave effects on personality that do resist reversal (italics mine), although the effects on general intelligence seem to be fairly completely reversible. (Ainsworth 153)

Tolstoy was one-and-a-half years old when his mother died. It is unlikely that he had any direct memories of his mother. However, from what he mentions in his biography, it does seem that he had faint recollections of the time he spent in his mother’s care. He also provides clear hints to the same in the recollections of Levin in Anna Karenina. Anyone who has read Tolstoy’s semi-autobiographical trilogy Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (which the author himself called a “mixture of fact and fiction”) will vouch for the intensely personal nature of the narrative. A close reading of the text reveals that it is the protagonist Nikolenka’s intense mourning of his mother at the age of eleven that drives the structure of the narrative. It is a fact that Tolstoy grieved for his absent mother and it is equally true that this grief lasted an entire lifetime. To support my thesis, I will take recourse to what Tolstoy himself believed about the significance of those early years when memory is still at a comparatively nascent stage. In his biography, he eloquently reveals: Was I not alive when I learned to look, to listen, to understand, and to speak, when I slept, took the breast, kissed it, and laughed and gladdened my mother? I lived, and lived blissfully! Did I not then acquire all that by which I now live, and acquire it to such an extent and so quickly, that in all the rest of my life I have not acquired a hundredth part of the amount? From a five-year-old child to my present self there is only one step. From a new-born infant to a five-year-old child there is an awesome distance. (Birukoff 38)

It is to be noted that what Tolstoy in effect stresses on is the significance of “early childhood” to the development of the adult human personality.

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He further states: “In a mysterious way, incomprehensible to the human mind, the impressions of early childhood are preserved in one’s memory, and not only are they preserved, but they grow in some unfathomed depth of the soul, like seed thrown on good ground, and after many years all of a sudden thrust their vernal shoots into God’s world” (Birukoff 41). Even though his imagination and nascent memory of those early years when he was close to his mother and “took the breast”, “laughed and gladdened” his mother might seem like a happy one (“When did I originate? When did I begin to live? And why is it joyous to me to imagine myself as at that time” (Birukoff 38), Tolstoy muses), it is in fact also a constant reminder of the primal loss that he suffered subsequently: “Yes, the extinction of memory is a great happiness; with memory one could not live a joyful life. As it is, with the extinction of memory we enter into life with a clean white page upon which we can write afresh good and evil” (Birukoff xi). Owing to the trauma that was brought on by this primal loss, Tolstoy, throughout his lifetime, found it extremely complicated to come to terms with loss and change. As he says in his biography: “Many times later on I had to live through such moments at the parting of the ways in life, when I entered on a new road. I experienced a quiet grief at the irretrievableness of what was being lost (italics mine), I kept disbelieving that it was really happening” (Birukoff 42). Focussing on young infants, several researchers have done extensive studies to identify that loss of the mother beginning before the infant is two makes it especially vulnerable. (“Kellmer, Pringle & Bossio selected from among children who had undergone prolonged separation from their parents before five years of age, a group of eleven judged by all criteria to be severely maladjusted and a group of five judged notably stable. They used the retrospective case study approach to determine what antecedent conditions distinguished the groups from each other. Age at separation seemed important since nine of the severely maladjusted children had been first separated before twelve months of age, while four of the five stable children had been at least two years old when first separated”) (Ainsworth 113). In the process of artistic creation of Levin’s character, the idealization of the long-lost mother - a feature of Tolstoy’s personal life, is transmitted to him. And since in Levin’s own thoughts his love-object is to be a repetition of his long-lost mother, it is not surprising that when Levin falls in love with Kitty, his intense idealization of her is anything but normative: “He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking” (Tolstoy,

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Garnett 32). His associating Kitty with his vague image of the idealized mother as seen in early infancy is also evident: But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood. (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 33)

Identifying the longing for the lost mother as a crucial Tolstoyan pattern, Richard Gustafson states that “the loss of his parents - especially his mother - at an early age deeply affected Tolstoy, who envisioned the search for God as a yearning for parental love, or the despair of a fledgling fallen from its nest, described in his A Confession and expressed in his diaries as a longing for motherly love” (Orwin, Companion 167). Interestingly, Carolyn Dever’s comment about the significance of the absent mother to the narrative of The Woman in White seems strangely applicable to Anna Karenina. Indeed, it may be argued that all patterns of desire in Levin’s story “subtend toward an absent but powerful mother; although structures of erotic desire are elaborately arranged to supplement her absence, the product of these structures is the inevitable exposure of original, formative loss” (Dever 135). Tolstoy himself was shy as a child and as a young man, and it is probable that his lack of close interaction with a mother-figure (which in any case he felt acutely) impaired his ability to associate with women in normal social settings. Tolstoy yearned for close association with women, but his erotic desires were dissipated in his countless visits to brothels as a young man. The narrator of Anna Karenina holds a mirror to Levin’s conscience throughout, but while Kitty is often upheld (in Levin’s mind) as a feminine ideal, nowhere can we find Levin thinking of the beautiful Kitty on sexual terms, neither are there any passing references to her physical attributes. What we discover instead is the sacred image that Levin has built of his long-lost mother being transferred to Kitty. The expression of devotion in his thoughts of her borders religious fervour, and his conception of Kitty as a pure figure without blemish reminds one of the Virgin Mary: She had a smile that made everything radiant round about. Could I go on to the ice, he thought, and go up to her? The place she was standing on seemed to him an unapproachable shrine, and there was a moment when he was on the verge of leaving, he was so filled with fear. (Tolstoy, Carmichael 33)

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More than once in the course of the story, we’re witness to Levin’s conception of Kitty as a figure akin to the sun god(-ess), a figure of love, respect, adoration, and even fear: “He stepped down, avoiding a long look at her, as though she were the sun, but he saw her, just like the sun, even without looking” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 33). In his conception of Kitty as the ideal of everything good that the feminine figure and nature could offer, Levin feels that she is beyond comprehension, a figure so sacred that it defies a definition. When Koznyshev, wanting to congratulate him on his impending betrothal, refers to Kitty as a “fine girl”, Levin rushes to stop the flow of his words: “Koznyshev smiled. I am very glad, she seems a fine gi ...’ he began. Don’t, don’t, don’t speak!' exclaimed Levin, seizing the collar of his brother’s fur-coat and lapping it over his face. ‘She is a fine girl’ were words so ordinary, so insignificant, so inappropriate to his feelings” (Tolstoy, Maude 393). Although the narrator knows that in his imagination Levin expected his future wife to be a repetition of the “holy ideal of a woman that his mother had been”, during the course of the narrative he not infrequently attributes Levin’s adoration of Kitty as stemming from his intense “love” for her (Tolstoy, Garnett 92). Critics, especially those who don’t take a psychoanalytic approach to the study of fictional characters, may similarly argue that Levin’s conception of Kitty as a sacred feminine ideal is nothing more than the intense devotion of a sensitive man in love. However, a close reading of the text indicates that just as Kitty is not, in reality, Levin’s ‘feminine ideal’ (nor can she or any other woman ever be) the idea of feminine ideal is not associated with Kitty alone; for the idea is within Levin, and not within Kitty. In A Confession Tolstoy sees himself as “a fledgling fallen from the nest” (Holbrook 22). Levin, similarly, in being a fledgling fallen from the nest, is bound to miss and crave for the nest that he never knew. Levin’s conception of a nest is quite naturally analogous to that of a family. The narrator tells us that the house that his parents had built “was an entire world for him (Levin)”: “They (Levin’s parents) had lived the life that seemed to Levin the ideal of all perfection, and that he dreamed of renewing together with his own wife and his own family” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 112). The narrator is clearly aware and tells the reader that Levin’s ideas about marriage “did not resemble those of most of the people he knew (italics mine), for whom marriage was just one of the many things in life: for Levin it was the chief thing in life, on which all happiness depended” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 113). It, therefore, emerges that Levin’s idea of the ideal nest is dependent on his idea of a feminine ideal and his search for a woman who embodies it. Levin is the fledgling who is bound

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to be in perpetual search for his lost mother and the nest he never knew, and cannot rest till he thinks he has found or created it. After he is turned down by Kitty, he felt that “however strange it might be he had not abandoned his dreams”, and that “without them he would be unable to go on living”: “Either with her or with someone else - that was what would happen” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 113). The narrator also tells us that even earlier, when Levin was still a student and used to frequent the Scherbatsky household, he had “fallen in love with the entire family”, and had in his mind created an idealized version of the female members in fact: However strange it might seem, he had fallen in love with the house itself and with the Shcherbatsky family, especially the female half (italics mine). Levin himself could not remember his own mother, and his only sister was older than he, so that it was in the Shcherbatsky house that he saw for the first time the home life of an old, noble, cultivated and upright family, which the deaths of his father and mother had deprived him of. All the members of this family, and especially the female half (italics mine), seemed to him to be enveloped in some mysterious, poetic veil; not only did he see no shortcomings in them, but under the poetic veil that covered them he imagined the loftiest feelings and every possible perfection (italics mine). (Tolstoy, Carmichael 25)

We’re also told that Levin had first fallen in love with the eldest daughter (Dolly), and once she got married he began to fall in love with the second: “He seemed to feel that he had to fall in love with one of the sisters; the only thing was, he couldn’t make up his mind which one” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 25). It wasn’t the Shcherbatsky family alone that made such an impression on Levin – whenever he came in contact with a family that seemed to epitomize his concept of the ideal nest, he was deeply affected. While on his way to meet Sviyazhsky, he stops to eat at the home of a wealthy peasant. Again, other than the sense of togetherness in the family that impressed him, he was especially touched by the figure of a beautiful, motherly, homely, young woman – an image which (I believe) reminds him subconsciously of his lost mother: It may very well be that the comely face of the woman in overshoes did a great deal to foster the impression of well-being which this peasant home made on Levin, but this impression was so strong that Levin could not seem to shake it, and all the way from the old man’s to Sviyazhsky’s he found himself recalling this farm again, as if something in this impression demanded his special attention. (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Schwartz 299)

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The image is not a fleeting one, and Levin keeps recalling it time and again. It seems to take Levin to a much-valued and enchanted world of his dreams. (The narrator is also acutely aware of the significance of a nest and a family for Levin). To Levin, it seems to indicate a “solution” to “something it was bound up with” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 393). The image of the family and the “comely woman”, I believe, is bound up with the loss of his mother, his search for the ideal motherly woman, and his dream to recreate with her his own nest: Even while out shooting, when nothing would have seemed to be on his mind, he kept thinking again and again of the old peasant and his family, and the impression they had made on him not only seemed to call for attention, but also for the solution of something it was bound up with. (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Carmichael 393)

Levin’s idealization of his lost mother has led him to formulate an image of the ideal woman, and that woman necessarily has to be a motherly woman. When during a conversation with Oblonsky, Levin says that since Anna has a daughter she is “probably busy with her”, Oblonsky retorts: “I suppose you imagine every woman is just a female, a brood hen…If she’s busy at all it could be only with children!” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 832). When Levin becomes disappointed with farming, he found it especially agreeable to visit Sviyazhsky, and seeing the “happy doves in their well-built nest” always had a cheerful effect on him (Tolstoy, Carmichael 393). When Levin is finally engaged to Kitty, it takes him time for the reality to sink in. It is my contention that Levin’s response to this event and the period (before marriage) subsequent to it is anything but normative. Having already fallen in love with Kitty and having transferred the image of the idealized mother to her, when she and her family finally accept him his joy knows no bounds. He cannot help but think of her as “his happiness, his life, his very self - the best of himself, that which he had been seeking and longing for so long (italics mine)” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 485). On the eve of marriage, Levin finds it abnormally difficult to bide the time: When Kitty had left and Levin remained alone he felt so restless without her and so impatient to live more and more quickly through the hours till morning when he would see her again and be united to her for good (forever), that he dreaded like death the fourteen hours he would have to spend without her. In order not to be alone and to deceive time, he needed to be with and to talk to somebody. (Tolstoy, Maude 393)

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In his state of extreme elation, he imagines that everyone likes him and that even people “who had in the past been previously unsympathetic, cold, and indifferent” to him “shared his conviction that he was the happiest man in the world because his betrothed was beyond perfection. (italics mine)” (Tolstoy, Schwartz 374). On the day of the wedding, when Levin is dining at the hotel with three bachelors (Katavasof, Tchirikof, and Sergei Ivanovitch), and they’re discussing the loss of liberty that marriage brings, he asserts: “I’m ready to swear I can’t detect any feeling of regret in my soul for my lost liberty!” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 531) He continues in this state right through the wedding ceremony and after it. Having found what he had been seeking and longing for so long, Levin now feels that he is one with his beloved. I feel this is his subconscious desire to merge with the lost mother, whom, so to say, he has now found again: He understood that she was not only close to him but that now he no longer knew where she ended and he began (italics mine). He realized this because of the agonizing feeling of cleavage he now underwent. At first he felt offended, but that same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, since she was himself (italics mine). During this first moment he had a feeling such as a man might have when after suddenly receiving a powerful blow from behind, he turns around angrily with a desire for revenge to find his attacker, and discovers that he has unwittingly struck himself, that there is no one to get angry with and that he must endure the pain and soothe it. (Tolstoy, Carmichael 577)

Interestingly (and understandably), we’re told that Levin “never felt this afterward with such force, but when it first happened he could not recover for a long time” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 577). Levin also encounters fearful moments when Kitty is delivering their first baby. We’re told that “every time, on hearing the scream, he jumped up and ran to justify himself but recollected on the way that he was not to blame” and that he longed to protect and help her (Tolstoy, Maude 704). He fears and almost believes that Kitty won’t survive through the childbirth, and consequently is violently agitated even after the baby is born: On her face was the same change from the earthly to that which was beyond earth, as is seen on the faces of the dead; but in their case it is a farewell, in hers it was a welcome. Again an agitation, similar to that which he had felt at the moment of the birth, gripped his heart. She took his hand and asked whether he had slept. He could not answer and, conscious of his weakness, turned away. (Tolstoy, Maude 707)

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It is quite probable that Kitty’s childbirth, which Levin perceives to be a near-death experience reminds him subconsciously of the trauma of losing his mother in infancy. Later, after he gets married to Kitty, we’re told of Levin’s distaste of giving his mother-in-law the love and respect that he would give to his idealized mother: “Levin never called the princess ‘maman’ as men often do call their mothers-in-law, and the princess disliked his not doing so. But though he liked and respected the princess, Levin could not call her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his dead mother” (Tolstoy, Garnett 507). In Unsaid Anna Karenina, Judith M. Armstrong notes that “unconscious memories of the experience of the lost mother affect Tolstoy’s attitudes” (Holbrook 50). “His very creative effort itself”, she suggests, “was impelled by the high moral association of his mother’s saintliness and purity” (Holbrook 50). Tolstoy was, as she points out, “both consciously aware of the significance to him of his lost mother, and unconsciously driven by the loss” (Holbrook 51). The loss of his mother at the age of eighteen months and the subsequent maternal deprivation that he felt through his childhood and adolescent years left a lasting impact on Tolstoy and clearly appears to have been an irrecoverable damage. Karl Stern says that “psychoanalytical studies have shown that the two-year-old child does experience grief at the loss of the mother” (Holbrook). John Bowlby, at the end of his volume on Loss Sadness and Depression (Volume 3 of Attachment and Loss), says he found there were good grounds for attributing a “germinal capacity for mourning among young children at least from sixteen months onward” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 437). This implies that…they have the “ability to retain an image of their absent mother, to distinguish mother from fostermother and to know well whom they prefer” (qtd. in Holbrook 42). David Holbrook believes that “this would surely square with the observations of D.W. Winnicott, about transitional object phenomena and disillusionment: for the child’s mother to die when he was eighteen months is surely likely to confuse him seriously in his distress, as the (psychic) weaning process and all that it entails for consciousness” (Holbrook 42). In his work Attachment and Loss, John Bowlby lays stress on the humongous impact on a young child of the loss of his mother, brought about by death or even through prolonged separation: If a child is taken from his mother’s care at this age, when he is so possessively and passionately attached to her, it is indeed as if his world had been shattered. His intense need of her is unsatisfied, and the frustration and longing may send him frantic with grief. It takes an

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exercise of imagination to sense the intensity of this distress. He is as overwhelmed as any adult who has lost a beloved person by death. To the child of two with his lack of understanding and complete inability to tolerate frustration it is really as if his mother had died. He does not know death, but only absence; and if the only person who can satisfy his imperative need is absent, she might as well be dead, so overwhelming is his sense of loss. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 17)

At one time “it was confidently believed that a young child soon forgets his mother and so gets over his misery” and it was thought that “grief in childhood...is short-lived” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 17). However, over a period of time, more detailed observations have shown that this is not the case. Bowlby states that “yearning for mother’s return lingers on” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 17). He claims that “this was made plain in many of Robertson’s early studies of young children in residential nursery and hospital and was amply confirmed in the two systematic studies of children in residential nurseries conducted by Heinicke” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 17). In adverse conditions “both yearning for and reproach against the deserting mother become redirected and cognitively disconnected from the situation that elicited them and, as a result, remain active though more or less unconscious” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 166). In his work Attachment and Loss, Bowlby presents the thesis that “in a young child an experience of separation from, or loss of mother-figure is especially apt to evoke psychological processes of a kind that are as crucial for psychopathology as inflammation and the resulting scar tissue are for physiopathology” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 26). This “does not mean that a crippling of personality is the inevitable result; but it does mean that, as in the case, say, of rheumatic fever, scar tissue is all too often formed that in later life leads to more or less severe dysfunction” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 26). Miller points out that there is now “widespread agreement among clinicians that, when a loss is sustained during childhood, responses to it frequently take a pathological course” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 24). Goldfarb’s studies remain the chief evidence for the claim that “very severe and prolonged deprivation beginning in the first year of life may leave grave, permanent effects on the personality” (Ainsworth 123). Which course of psychopathology (if at all) is taken cannot be predicted with unfailing accuracy, for conditions and circumstances differ, as do individual tendencies. In Levin’s case, we’re aware that he found it difficult to communicate the “mass of ideas and feelings” that had been “accumulating within him” to “those about him” (Tolstoy, Garnett 150). Even in his love for Kitty and subsequent attempts to court her, his hopelessness and helplessness and his

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feeling of being intrinsically unlovable and unwanted comes through. In Levin’s case and other similar cases, what may account then for the more or less intense degrees of hopelessness and helplessness? Bowlby states that the “low self-evaluation…is the result of one or more positively adverse self-judgements, such as that the self is incapable of changing the situation for the better, and/or is responsible for the situation in question, and/or is intrinsically unlovable and thus permanently incapable of making or maintaining any affectional bonds” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 192). Such a person is “more likely than others to have experienced actual loss of a parent during childhood with consequences to himself that, however disagreeable they might have been, he was impotent to change” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 191). Such experiences, Bowlby claims, would confirm the person “in the belief that any effort he might make to remedy his situation would be doomed to failure” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 191). The narrator of Anna Karenina tells us that “nothing would have seemed simpler than for” Levin, a man of “good family and rich rather than poor, to propose to Princess Shcherbatsky” and that “in all likelihood he would instantly have been acknowledged as a first-rate match” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 26). And yet (for reasons that the narrator erroneously attributes to Levin’s being in love), Levin thought of Kitty as “perfection in every way, a being far above everything else on earth” and of himself as a “lowly, earthy creature” and that “it was absolutely unthinkable for others and herself to regard him as worthy of her” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 26). Due to his misplaced conviction that Kitty “could never love him”, he suddenly drops the courtship after two months and retires to his country house, behavior that is found strange and leaves the Scherbatskys offended: “Having spent two months in Moscow as though bemused, meeting Kitty almost every day in society, which he began to frequent in order to see her…Levin abruptly decided that the whole thing was out of the question and went back to the country” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 26). After his proposal is turned down by Kitty (who is by now in love with Vronsky) Levin’s thoughts again show that he thinks of himself as intrinsically unlovable: Yes, she was bound to choose him (Vronsky); it had to be that way, and I have no reason to complain of anyone or anything. It’s my own fault. What right did I have to think she would want to unite her life with mine? Who am I? And what am I? An insignificant fellow wanted by no one and of no use to anyone. (Tolstoy, Carmichael 100)

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Levin, in his musings, confesses that he seems “so pathetic and worthless to himself” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 413). Interestingly (and this must be noted), even after Kitty has accepted his proposal, and on the eve of the wedding, even in the midst of all his feelings of elation, Levin is suddenly seized with doubt and finds it difficult to comprehend and believe that Kitty could possibly love him. But do I know her thoughts, her wishes, her feelings? a voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile vanished from his face, and he pondered. Suddenly a strange feeling came over him. Fear and doubt assailed him – doubt of everything. What if she doesn’t love me?...What if she doesn’t know herself what she’s doing? he asked himself. She may come to her senses and realize only after getting married that she doesn’t love me and never could have. (Tolstoy, Carmichael 532)

In this moment of doubt, he is lead to suspect that Kitty might still be in love with Vronsky and he becomes “violently jealous of Vronsky” and suspects Kitty of “not having confessed everything to him” (Tolstoy, Wildside 271). He frantically rushes to meet Kitty. The scene that follows is the pathetic confession of a man who is convinced that he can never be loved. Levin tells Kitty: “I am - as I have said and thought a thousand times before - I am not worthy of you. You once could not consent to marry me. Think of it! Perhaps you are mistaken now. Think of it well. You cannot love me” (Tolstoy, Wildside 272). When Kitty, taken much by surprise, asks him what he is thinking of, Levin responds by saying: “I think that you cannot love me. Why should you love me?” (Tolstoy, Wildside 272) Psychoanalysts have said “if the primary carers are…not available, the child can develop doubts about him/herself, prompting a deep-seated lack of confidence which can pervade all aspects of later life” (italics mine) (Kakabadse 187). Going through Levin’s story, we find that doubt, in fact, is second nature to him. When he returns from Moscow to his country house, he is overcome by doubt of the possibility of setting up the life that he has envisioned for himself: All these traces of his life seemed to seize hold of him and say: “No, you won’t escape from us and you won’t be any different, you’ll be just as you’ve always been: full of doubts, perpetually dissatisfied with yourself (italics mine), with futile attempts at self-improvement followed by lapses, and in constant expectation of the happiness which hasn’t been given you and is out of the question for you. (italics mine)” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 111)

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Prior to his wedding, when Levin goes to church for confession, he says to the priest: “I have doubted everything, and I still do.” When the priest asks him what his sins are, Levin replies: “My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 527). When the priest asks him what he doubts “most of all”, Levin says: “I doubt everything” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 527). In Tolstoy’s portrayal of Levin, we can make out that Levin is, in essence, a “frustrated”, “socially awkward” personality, who is plagued by recurrent “self-doubts”: Levin is something of an outcast throughout the early part of the novel. His views alienate him from noblemen and peasantry alike. He is frustrated by Russian culture but unable to feel comfortable with European ways. He is socially awkward and suffers from an inferiority complex, as we see in his self-doubts in proposing to Kitty. Devastated by Kitty’s rejection of his marriage proposal, Levin retreats to his country estate and renounces all dreams of family life. We wonder whether he will remain an eccentric isolationist for the rest of his days, without family or nearby friends, laboring over a theory of Russian agriculture that no one will read, as no one reads his brother Sergei’s magnum opus. (“Anna Karenina: Themes”)

Explaining why individuals who have experienced a discontinuity in the mother-child relationship may be prone to develop into socially withdrawn personalities, Bowlby states that “prolonged breaks [in the mother-child relationship] during the first three years of life leave a characteristic impression on the child’s personality”; and “clinically such children appear emotionally withdrawn and isolated” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). Time and again during the course of the novel, we’re witness to the social awkwardness that Levin is susceptible to. We’re told that when Levin was in Moscow, “he was always excited, in a hurry, slightly shy, and vexed by this shyness, and generally with a completely novel, unexpected view of things” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 20). We’re told of his efforts “to overcome his own shyness” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 22). A huge mass of thoughts and feelings accumulates in his solitude, but he is unable to “communicate (these thoughts) to those around him” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 191). Even though he is on excellent terms with Oblonsky and shares his plans and dreams with him, when he needs to ask Oblonsky about Kitty he feels “quite unable to” and can’t find “either the right form for it or the right moment to put it to him” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 204). He dawdles about in the room with a hint, talking about various trivialities and unable to ask him what he wanted to. We’re told that when Levin blushed, he blushed “not the way adults blush, very slightly, hardly aware of it themselves, but as little boys blush, feeling absurd because of their

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shyness and therefore ashamed of themselves and blushing even more, to the point of tears”, a behavior that is not normative and which Oblonsky finds strange: “It was so strange seeing this intelligent, virile face in such a childish state that Oblonsky turned his eyes away” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 22). There was a similarly “strange awkwardness and shyness” that marked the young Tolstoy’s personality (Birukoff 96). The old inhabitants of Kazan “remember him as being present at all the balls, soirees, and aristocratic parties, a welcome guest everywhere and always dancing, but, unlike his high-born fellow-students, far from being a ladies’ man” (Birukoff 80). He “evidently was ill at ease in the part which he had to play and to which he was involuntarily bound by the detestable surroundings of his life in Kazan” (Birukoff 96). Malcolm Cowley’s reference to the “roundness” of Tolstoy’s characters and his “method of presenting characters so as to give them substantiality” is exemplified in Levin’s character portrayal (Tolstoy, Carmichael xi). Levin’s character is illuminated not only by his own thoughts (that we’re privy to) and the omniscient narrator’s representation but also by what other characters in the story think of him. We’re told that Kitty’s mother, Princess Shcherbatskaya “didn’t like Levin or understand him” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 51). The mother disliked both Levin’s strange and bitter judgments and his awkwardness in society (italics mine), which she thought based on pride, as well as the peculiar life, from her point of view, that he led in the country, busy with cattle and peasants; she also disliked particularly his coming to the house for six weeks in a row while in love with her daughter, when he seemed to be waiting for something and kept looking around as though afraid he would be doing them too great an honor if he proposed, not understanding that when he frequented a house with an unmarried girl in it he had to explain himself. Then suddenly, without declaring himself, he had left. (Tolstoy, Carmichael 51)

Countess Nordston refers to Levin’s aloofness which makes him look down at her from the “height of his majesty” and he either cuts short his intelligent conversation because he finds her stupid, or else he patronizes her (Tolstoy, Carmichael 58). Sergei Ivanovich, commenting on the personality differences between Levin and Oblonsky, says: “It’s hard to find two brothers-in-law less alike than your husbands…One all movement, living in society like a fish in water, the other, our Kostya, alive, quick, sensitive to everything, but the moment he’s in society, he either freezes or thrashes about senselessly like a fish on dry land (italics mine)” (Tolstoy, Pevear 568). Kitty too can’t help noticing that Levin

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seems “restless and on his guard” when in town “as if afraid lest someone should insult him or, worse still, her” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 803). Although she observes that Levin is not himself in society, she “could not otherwise define his condition” (Tolstoy, Maude 662). Not surprisingly, Levin himself is aware of the strange patterns of behavior that he tends to exhibit in social dealings. He feels that by not having answered Dolly’s letter (“a piece of rudeness he could not think of without a blush of shame”) he had “burned his boats and would surely never be visiting them again” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 410). He recalls that “this was exactly the way he had behaved with the Sviyazhskys when he had left without saying good-bye”, but quickly rationalizes that “he no longer cared about all that” since he would “surely never be visiting them again” and instead diverts his thoughts to the “reorganization of his farming system” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 410). Leaving the Scherbatskys’ home one evening, after getting himself into an embarrassing position, Levin muses: “YES, THERE is something in me that’s loathsome and repellent…I don’t fit in with other people” (Tolstoy, Bartlett 86). He is also well aware that (unlike what Countess Nordston feels) his awkward, aloof, and strange behavior is not due to pride. He muses: “Pride, they call it. But I’m not even proud. If it were a matter of pride I should never have put myself in such a position” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 100). When Oblonsky calls him peculiar and asks Levin to explain “the sudden way” in which he had vanished from Moscow after initiating and carrying on a courtship with Kitty, and why he always does what “no one else does”, Levin responds “slowly and with emotion”: “you’re right. I am peculiar” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 43). Elsewhere, we’re told that he is also aware of “a painful feeling of yearning” and “his alienation from the world” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 329). Another possible impact of deprivation that Bowlby discussed extensively and one that was controversial initially (due to misreadings and oversimplification of his concept) was delinquency. Bowlby has given case illustrations as “examples of emotional pathology caused by primary affect hunger of a severe degree” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). The symptom complaints are of various types - “they include, frequently, aggressive and sexual behaviour in early life, stealing”, and “lying” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). Bowlby stated that “early maternal deprivation was foremost among the causes not of delinquency, but of delinquent (or affectionless or psychopathic) character formation” (qtd. in Ainsworth 117). We won’t discuss it in detail here because the only references to it in the novel are Levin’s discomfort with the memory of his past misdeeds and his tell-all revelations to Kitty of the same on the eve of their marriage. I shall,

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however, touch upon delinquent aspects of the young Tolstoy’s character, which may not be widely known. One of Tolstoy’s earliest memory, “at the age of five, was of pushing a woman off a porch for rejecting his advances” (Hays). It is also known that “after he left the university, he lived like a rogue” (Hays). He drank and gambled excessively and “rioted with all sorts of loose women” (Hays). Young Tolstoy “caroused the bars of Moscow with gypsies”, allegedly “lost his family’s 32-room mansion in a card game and was often taking medicine for either gonorrhea or syphilis” (Hays). Describing his “misspent youth”, Tolstoy later wrote in his diary, “I fought duels to slay others, I lost at cards, wasted the substance wrung from the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, drunkenness, violence, murder...all committed by me, not one crime omitted” (qtd. in Hays). Even if we were to consider that Tolstoy might have tended to be overly critical of himself, the fact that as an adolescent and a young man he had ample delinquent tendencies stands out. It is said that “Tolstoy’s rogue period came to an end in 1851 when he joined the army and went to the Caucasus with his brother” (Hays). In 1854 “he was commissioned as an officer and fought in the Crimean War” (Hays). His fellow and subordinate soldiers said of him: “He was a real master in cursing. Sometimes he would curse so ornately that it was impossible to repeat it after him” (Hays). Right till the end, Tolstoy’s unsettled nature persisted in his dissatisfaction with life. Summing up his life, “in his last entry in his diary”, Tolstoy wrote: “My life is some stupid and spiteful joke that someone has played on me...This is the end and it doesn’t really matter anymore” (qtd. in Hays). From what we’ve analysed till now, it won’t come as a surprise to know that depression and melancholia are two psychological conditions that maternally deprived individuals tend to be at risk to develop. A number of other psychoanalysts “in trying to trace the childhood roots of depressive illness and of personalities prone to develop it have drawn attention to unhappy experiences in the early years of their patients’ lives” (Bowlby Loss Sadness 34). Psychoanalysts have identified that “consequences of severe separation” are “diverse” and “sometimes ‘hidden’” (Ainsworth 113). Ainsworth says that “separation experiences in early childhood may be classed as ‘severe’ for several reasons”: “because they usher in a prolonged period of deprivation, because the separation itself is particularly traumatic, or because the loss of the parent is permanent” (Ainsworth 113). She also asserts that “sometimes, when the circumstances of substitute care are not known, the mere fact that the separation was prolonged may be grounds for classing the experience as ‘severe’” (Ainsworth 113). She points to the

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findings of Earle & Earle who found a clear tendency of such “severe” experiences leading to depressive illness. Studying a group of individuals who had had separation experiences in early childhood, they found that “depression was significantly more frequent among those who had lost their mothers through death than among those whose separation had had other causes” (Ainsworth 114). Ainsworth points to other studies that have “devoted themselves specifically to childhood bereavement” (Ainsworth 114). Barry, for example, found that “the loss of the mother through death, either in the first five or the second five years of life, was an antecedent occurrence significantly more frequent among mental hospital patients than in the general population” (Ainsworth 114). Barry & Lindemann found that “loss of the mother through death before the age of five years was significantly more frequent among out-patients suffering from psychoneurotic or psychosomatic disorders than in a control group, whereas loss of the mother at older ages or loss of the father at any age (before sixteen) was not more frequent in the patient group” (Ainsworth 114). Devoting himself to a study of depressive patients, Brown found that “loss of the mother through death in each of the five-year periods from birth to fifteen years of age was significantly more frequent among the depressive group than in the general population” (Ainsworth 114). Quite often the depression and distress sets in early childhood itself. Burlingham & Freud presented reports which made it clear that “disturbance resulted from mother-child separation as early as the second half of the first year of life, and that this distress was often strikingly persistent in children of two or three years of age” (Ainsworth 135). Bowlby was right in his prediction that “the particular pattern of depressive disorder that a person develops will turn on the particular pattern of childhood experiences he has had” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 191). The findings both that “children who have apparently recovered from a separation experience are particularly vulnerable to subsequent threats of separation, and that there is an empirical association between childhood bereavement and adult depressive illness suggest that early experiences may set up processes which may remain covert for a long time but, when subsequently reactivated by some stressful experience (which might well be minor and relatively undisturbing to other people), cause a pathological reaction” (Ainsworth 151). The link between early bereavement and subsequent depressive reaction hence suggests that a “predisposition to depressive illness may be one of the hidden effects of prolonged and severe separation experiences in early childhood, one which may well

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escape notice until some later precipitating situation touches off the latent pathology” (Ainsworth 114). Psychoanalysts like Abraham, Gero, Deutsch, and Jacobson, in trying to trace the developmental roots of depressive disorder through their studies, have similarly implicated the loss of the mother or of mother’s love during childhood. Soon after the publication of Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia, Karl Abraham “advanced a hypothesis that has influenced all later workers with a psychoanalytic orientation” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 34). As a “result of treating several melancholic patients”, he came to the conclusion that “in the last resort melancholic depression is derived from disagreeable experiences in the childhood of the patient” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 34). He, therefore “postulated that, during their childhood, melancholics have suffered from what he termed a ‘primal parathymia’” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 34). In these passages, however, “Abraham never uses the words ‘grief’ and ‘mourning’, despite his having already espoused the view that melancholia is to be understood as a pathological variant of mourning” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 34). Felix Brown also conducted studies “linking childhood bereavement and depressive disorders”, which have been particularly influential. Among the whole community sample, “the incidence of depressive disorder was found to be three times higher in the mother-loss subsample than it was in the mother-present sub-sample” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 199). It is also known in psychoanalytic circles that early loss of the mother can result in existential abandonment anxiety. Levin’s (suicidal tendencies and) despondency and overpowering feelings of existential anxiety are clearly depicted in the novel. We’re told that “he was horrified not so much by death as by a life without the slightest knowledge of where it came from, what it was for, and why, and what it was”: “The organism, its dissolution, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, evolution - these were the words that had replaced his former faith” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 939). Fromm, the eminent psychoanalyst, and theorist has referred to this as “the existential dilemma” – which is the “foundation of existential loneliness, uncertainty, and angst” (Booth). We “must learn to deal effectively with knowing we will die, though we do not know what death is”: “Similar ideas can be found in the works of Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and others. Fundamentally, we are dealing with dread - the dread of knowing we cannot know, the dread of the forever unknowable” (Booth). In Levin’s case, his existential anxiety plays out as a repetition of the early trauma of existential abandonment. The maddening streak in Levin’s thoughts, rendered beautifully through ‘stream of consciousness’,

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becomes evident – his thoughts and unending questions and doubts seem to revolve in his mind in circles and always end up unanswered: But how did I explain existence? By existence? By nothing? The Devil, sin? But how do I explain evil? Atonement? Evolution from what, into what? Unending evolution and struggle…As if there could be any direction and struggle in infinity! (Tolstoy, Maude 785)

Levin found it astonishing, unsettling and disconcerting that most of the people, especially those in his circle and age-group, who (owing to societal drives and patterns) had inculcated the same new, modern beliefs and convictions as he had, saw nothing untoward or unsettling about this, and seemed absolutely satisfied, contented and calm. Even though Levin goes about living his everyday life, he never ceases to feel “this terror at his own ignorance” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 939). When he is supervising the threshing work being done by his farmhands, he observes the peasants bustling about in the dark and dusty threshing barn and muses: “Why is all this being done? … Why am I standing here, making them work? What are they bustling about for, trying to show how diligent they are in front of me? What is my good friend old Matryona slaving away for?” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 716) We’re told that “after he married, the new joys and obligations he became aware of stifled these thoughts completely at first; but…since his wife had given birth to their child, while he was living in Moscow with nothing to do, this problem, which demanded a solution, began occupying his mind more and more often, more and more insistently” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 939). Even when he is (to all external appearances) interacting with his family, he is mentally preoccupied with existential questions: All that day, while he was talking to the steward and the peasants, and while he was talking to his wife, Dolly, her children, and his father-in-law at home, Levin kept thinking about the one single thing that occupied him apart from the farm-work, and in everything he searched for some perspective on his question: ‘What am I, and where am I? And why am I here?’ (Tolstoy, Carmichael 797)

These thoughts tormented Levin with varying intensity, but he could not free himself from them. And since he cannot find anything that will clear his doubts, his anxiety and depression only become worse with the passage of time. He read and meditated, but “the end desired seemed to grow more and more remote” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 852). In his quest to find the answers to his questions Levin turns to philosophical readings and to teachings of the Church and “involuntarily and unconsciously sought a

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connection and a solution to these questions in every book, every conversation, every person” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 790). We’re told that “not only was he unable to find any answers amongst the whole arsenal of his convictions, but he could not find anything even approaching an answer” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Carmichael 790). Dever points out how Melanie Klein “makes an explicit connection between an infant’s primal love for the mother and its later love for objects or abstract concepts” (Dever 189): “The attempt to collect or codify these objects, to generate theories based on abstractions, Klein says, signals a desire to reconstruct the primary, mother-child relationship; the relationship between mother and objects is not one of displacement but of a symbolic equation” (Dever 189). Levin’s incessant philosophical readings, ostensibly in search of answers to the existential questions that crowd upon his psyche and unceasingly bother him indicate his leanings towards abstract concepts. Levin’s reading list includes Rousseau who was a significant influence on Tolstoy, especially in his youth. (Interestingly, anyone who has read Rousseau’s autobiography cannot help noticing that “the work is preoccupied with maternal death, taking its primary configurations of identity and sexuality from the fact of his mother’s death following his birth”: “I was born…a poor and sickly child, and cost my mother her life. So my birth was the first of my misfortunes” (Jacoby 73)). In his study of Charles Darwin, Edward Kempf similarly points to Darwin’s search for origins and his empirical investigations and ascribes them to his search for his lost mother (Dever). Kempf stresses the loss of Darwin’s mother, who died when he was eight years old. Through an indepth study of multiple sources, including Darwin’s autobiography, “Kempf sees a direct relationship between Darwin’s scientific work and the death of his mother in his youth” (qtd. in Dever 182). “‘Looking at the inside of the blossom,’ and exploring the secrets of the scientific universe, signifies for Darwin as the means of connection with his missing mother” (Dever 181). For Charles Darwin, “who sailed around the world for five years on the Beagle, the activity of exploration is the act of reclaiming the lost mother, of exonerating himself from guilt in her disappearance, of supplementing his faulty memory of her loss” (Dever 188). Darwin’s mother “figures the centrality of loss and repression in his autobiography and in the developmental narrative that it describes” (Dever 183). Tracing the pattern of Levin’s thoughts and his personality, it is not surprising that he demonstrates a tendency for depression. He is always “in a state of internal conflict” and keeps striving “with all the strength of his nature to free himself from it”. We’re told that Levin “felt depressed…by the confusion in his mind, dissatisfaction with himself, and

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a vague sense of shame”: “Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through that darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might” (Tolstoy, Maude 347). Levin’s inability to find satisfactory answers to his existential questions also contribute to his desire for death. He lives through terrible moments and can’t help musing: “Without knowing what I am and why I’m here, it is impossible for me to live. And I cannot know that - therefore I cannot live” (Tolstoy, Pevear 788) Despite this, Levin goes on living a mechanical existence, occupying himself in everyday activities only because “it seemed to him that he had to do what he was doing - that he could not do otherwise” (Tolstoy, Pevear 790). Levin occupies himself with routine activities, but it makes “no sense to him when he lets himself think” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 684). Life doesn’t make any sense to him when he knows that it will all end in death! Even when observing his peasants, he tells himself: “And the main thing is that they will be burying not just them but me, and nothing will be left. What is the point?” (Tolstoy, Bartlett 797) His inability to free himself from his internal conflict inevitably leads to depression which together with his existential anxiety gives rise to a preoccupation with the idea of death: “Levin’s thoughts were very various, but they all ended up the same way - with death” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 418). Levin “saw death and the approach of death in everything” and he could not help knowing that “when he thought of death he thought about it with all his might” (Tolstoy, Carmichael 530). His brother’s fatal illness and impending death make things more difficult for Levin for the “sight of his brother” reminds him of “the nearness and inevitability of death” and revives in him the “sense of horror in face of the insoluble enigma” (Tolstoy, Garnett 461): “This feeling was now even stronger than before; even less than before did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of death, and its inevitability rose up before him more terrible than ever” (Tolstoy, Garnett 461). To Levin, death is a phenomenon to be discovered and yearned for: Levin involuntarily thought with him of what it was that was happening to him now, but in spite of all his mental efforts to go along with him he saw by the expression of that calm, stern face that for the dying man all was growing clearer and clearer that was still as dark as ever for Levin. (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 457)

The narrator tells us that if Levin “had any feeling for his brother at that moment, it was envy for the knowledge the dying man had now that he

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could not have” (Tolstoy, Garnett 457). He “felt utterly cold” and was “not conscious of sorrow nor of loss, less still of pity for his brother” (Tolstoy, Garnett 457). While on a visit abroad when Levin runs into Kitty’s cousin, he astonishes him by his moroseness. “What’s the matter with you?” Shcherbatsky asked him. “Nothing at all; just that there’s not much joy in the world?” “What d’you mean - not much joy? Just come to Paris with me…You’ll see how much joy there is!” “No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die.” “That is a fine thing!” said Shcherbatsky, laughing. “I am only preparing to begin to live.” (Tolstoy, Maude 347)

Levin confesses to Oblonsky: “Well, yes, I never stop thinking about death…It’s true that it’s time to die, and that it’s all nonsense” (Tolstoy, Bartlett 379) He confesses to Oblonsky that he tries hard to keep away his thoughts about death: “That’s how you spend your life, distracting yourself with hunting, work - anything just so you don’t think about death” (Tolstoy, Schwartz 345). It is to be noted that although Levin is preoccupied with the idea of death, he has but little understanding of it, and even less of why he has a foreboding of death. It is for the literary analyst to discover why Levin is so occupied with thoughts of death. When Oblonsky, reminding Levin how he used to attack him for seeking pleasures in life and speaks now about the transience of Life, tries to draw him into a discussion, Levin “becomes confused”: “No, still, what’s good in life is…I don’t really know. All I know is we’re going to die soon” (Tolstoy, Schwartz 345). In trying to understand his existence (and existence in general), Levin thinks to himself: “In infinite time, in the infinity of matter, in infinite space a bubble-organism separates itself, and that bubble holds out for a while and then bursts, and that bubble is - me. This was a tormenting untruth, but it was the sole, the latest result of age-long labours of human thought in that direction” (Tolstoy, Pevear 788). But this explanation is not one that Levin can submit to. He finds it “untrue” and “the cruel mockery of some evil power, evil and offensive” (Tolstoy, Pevear 789). To deliver himself from the burden of his existential anxiety (or so it seems to him), Levin contemplates suicide: It was not only untrue it was the cruel mockery of some evil power, evil and offensive, which it was impossible to submit to. It was necessary to be delivered from this power. And deliverance was within everyone’s reach. It was necessary to stop this dependence on evil. And there was one means – to shoot oneself. (Tolstoy, Pevear 789)

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From Bowlby’s own research it emerges that “those who have suffered childhood bereavement are not only more prone than others to develop a psychiatric disorder but that both the form and the severity of any disorder they may develop is likely to be strongly influenced in certain special directions” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 230). He concludes that “those who have suffered a childhood bereavement…are more likely than others to express serious ideas of committing suicide and to develop depressive conditions of severe degree” (italics mine) (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 230). Other than his own potent findings, Bowlby draws from research conducted by various psychoanalysts from across the globe and considers evidence that suggests that “those who have lost a parent by death during childhood or adolescence are at greater risk than others of developing psychiatric disorder and, more especially, of becoming seriously suicidal and/or psychotically depressed should they do so” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 238). Bowlby points to the existence of “an extensive literature on the relationship of parental loss during childhood, due to losses of any kind (not only death), and attempted suicide during later life, e.g. Greer et al., and Koller and Castanos” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 230). After reviewing this literature, “some of it clinical and some statistical”, Adam concludes: “There seems general agreement...that of all the sequelae attributed to early childhood loss the evidence with regard to suicidal behaviour is among the strongest” (qtd. in Bowlby, Loss Sadness 231). In “most of these studies, however, the losses concerned are due to desertion, separation or divorce as well as to death” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 231). In Levin’s case, what strikes the reader is the strength of his suicidal urges as well as his apparent helplessness when faced with them. He has to go to great lengths to try and control them: “And, happy in his family life, a healthy man Levin was several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself” (Tolstoy, Pevear 789). Adam describes “some of the ways in which the ideas of people who were categorized as showing serious suicidal ideation differed from the ideas of those whose ideas were judged as less serious” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 232): In the former, suicidal ideas were relatively more elaborate, more persistent and of longer duration. Often, they presented in an intense way as strong urges or impulses that sometimes were frightening and difficult to control; for these reasons, these people had even sought help to protect themselves. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 232)

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The uncanny similarity of the symptoms of the former with Levin is quite evident. While this may be so, we also need to understand why in Levin’s case depression first surfaces as existential anxiety and subsequently into a drive to end one’s own life. The clinical evidence available to us suggests the following motives: -

-

a wish for reunion with a dead person a desire for revenge against a dead person for having deserted, which can take the form either of redirecting towards the self murderous wishes aroused by a deserting person, or else of abandoning another in retaliation a wish to destroy the self in order to assuage an overpowering sense of guilt for having contributed to a death. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 233)

Bowlby draws our attention to the fact that there is little doubt “that in any one act more than one of these motives may play a part” and that “such motives, moreover, can be combined in any way with motives of other kinds” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 233). But Levin does not shoot himself or hang himself and instead goes on living, “not knowing or seeing the possibility of knowing what he was and what he was living for and agonizing over this ignorance to such a degree that he feared suicide”, while and “at the same time firmly laying his own individual, definite road in life” (Tolstoy, Schwartz 719). It is to be noted that unlike Anna, or most people who contemplate suicide, there was nothing problematic in Levin’s everyday circumstances that would have merited a conscious drive towards suicide. The narrator is well-aware of this and tells us that Levin contemplates suicide despite being a “healthy man” and “happy in his family life” (Tolstoy, Pevear 789). We’re also told that Levin “continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life” (Tolstoy, Maude 785). Speaking to one of his farmers, the oft-repeated idea that one must “live not for one’s needs but for God” appears to Levin in a new Light: “The words the peasant had spoken produced in his soul the effect of an electric spark, suddenly transforming and welding into one a whole group of disjointed impotent separate ideas which had always interested him” (Tolstoy, Maude 783). But since he doesn’t know what God is even this idea seems “senseless” to him (Tolstoy, Maude 784). He is also aware that unlike him “nobody ever doubts this one thing, everybody always agrees with it” (Tolstoy, Maude 784). His thoughts subsequently lead him to the conclusion that to live for God actually means to live for goodness: “If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness; if it has a consequence - a

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reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore goodness is beyond the chain of cause and effect” (Tolstoy, Maude 784). This realization seems profound to him and he wonders whether this could end his “long-continued suffering” (Tolstoy, Maude 784): ‘What greater miracle could there be than that? Can I possibly have found the solution of everything? Have my sufferings really come to an end?’ thought Levin as he strode along the dusty road, oblivious of the heat, of his fatigue, and filled with a sense of relief from long-continued suffering. That feeling was so joyous that it seemed questionable to him. He was breathless with excitement and, incapable of going further. (Tolstoy, Maude 784)

Another aspect to analyse about the author of Anna Karenina is whether the early loss of his mother affected Tolstoy’s attitude towards women. Holbrook suggests that the “disastrous death of Tolstoy’s mother” caused a “bereavement that left him baffled and bewildered about women, love, and sexuality” (Holbrook 41). This is reflected in Levin’s idealization of the desired woman, and his struggles with his own unbridled sexuality through his adolescent years. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy was still willing to give credence to the importance of love and the marital and sexual union between man and woman. In Tolstoy and the Woman Question, Amy Mandelkar mentions this and how the loss of his mother goes on to “shape his view of women”: Did Tolstoy’s lifelong yearning for his mother shape his view of women and of motherhood? In many respects, how could it not? We know that in his personal life, Tolstoy took a passionate interest in his wife’s experience of maternity. Just before writing Anna Karenina, Tolstoy championed motherhood as the divinely ordained role for women in his written response to John Stuart Mill’s essay On the Subjection of Women. From his yearnings for a mother he never knew sprang portraits of women who haunt us and inform us even to this day. (Mandelker)

Interestingly, the same Tolstoy who in his earlier years “championed motherhood as the divinely ordained role for women”, in his later years declared a war on human sexuality: “In fin-de-siecle (relating to the end of the 19th century) Russia, Tolstoy broke a taboo when he initiated a provocative discussion on sex (polovoi vopros)” (Stolberg). As “a frequent guest of brothels in his youth and as a father of fifteen children, including at least two illegitimate ones, he suddenly changed his promiscuous attitudes and became an ardent advocate of sexual abstinence” (Stolberg). Tolstoy, in his 1889 novella The Kreutzer Sonata, had the arrogance to

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imply that people should stop having children. How can this change in Tolstoy’s viewpoint be explained? Daniel Rancour-Laferriere asserts that more than being a religious belief, Tolstoy’s viewpoint was related to his origins: It was not merely a literary fact - although it was first revealed to the world in a literary work. It was not a religious belief either, although Tolstoy did marshal quotations from the Bible to support his thesis. Tolstoy’s repudiation of sex was, rather a fact of his particular biography. (RancourLaferriere, Tolstoy 1)

To try and explain the change, let’s first go back to a story that was written by Tolstoy earlier - Kholstomer, also translated as Strider, “is one of the most striking stories in Russian literature” (“Strider”). It was “started by Leo Tolstoy in 1863 and left unfinished until 1886, when it was reworked and published as Kholstomer: The Story of a Horse” (“Strider”). Strider is “a work that feels autobiographical and is highly autopsychological, in this sense a work like Lucerne” (Gustafson). The “Strider we meet in the third-person narrative is an old discarded piebald gelding who bears up under the insults from the other horses who feel superior to him in looks and worth” (Gustafson). Gustafson points out how Tolstoy imbues Strider with his own psyche, his own primal loss, in effect recreating in a way his own story: Throughout his life Tolstoy tended to alienate or isolate himself from the very people who would most appreciate his art, even as he ranted at those who criticized his work. He was in many ways a stranger in the world in which he resided, an ‘alien resident’ like Strider. From his own diaries we know that Tolstoy believed himself neither attractive nor lovable. To be loved by others became his major paradoxical psychological pursuit. Tolstoy gives Strider the same central psychological wound from which he himself suffered. Strider...too experiences the loss of his mother, which he considers the ‘cause’ of ‘the first sorrow of my life’. What is most striking is that this loss is not due to death, but sex. Strider’s mother is taken from him to be bred to Kindly I, and Strider believes that ‘I had lost my mother’s love for ever’. Furthermore, like most children, Strider believes that he himself is the real cause of the loss of his mother’s love: ‘And it’s all because I am piebald!’ Nowhere In Tolstoy’s fiction do we peer more movingly into the depths of Tolstoy’s own unconscious. (Gustafson, Introduction to The Devil and Other Stories)

Strider ponders over “the injustice of men, who blamed me for being piebald” as well as “over the inconstancy of maternal love and feminine love in general (italics mine) and on its dependence on physical conditions”

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(Gustafson). Thus Tolstoy “gives Strider his own most deep-seated anxiety over sexuality, an anxiety which plays itself out in his life, his moral and religious worldview, and in a great deal of his fiction, both before and after his announced conversion in A Confession” (Gustafson). Tolstoy’s psychology (like that of any other person) was an evolving one. His attitude towards women did not come to be formed by the events of a single day in adulthood. It evolved over a period of time, starting from the intense grief that he felt at the absence and permanent loss of his mother in his early years to his teenage years when he continued to acutely feel the absence of intimate feminine love to his young adulthood when he felt disillusioned by his paid sexual encounters which brought instant gratification but no lasting joy or feeling of being loved. The insufficiency and inconstancy of maternal love and the resultant trauma and long-term suffering that maternal separation engendered was responsible for the emerging misogyny in Tolstoy’s nature. It was also responsible for Tolstoy’s masochistic drives and the misplaced hatred of women (in general) that he gradually became a victim to. The key to understanding this is to recognize the universality of the “absolute dependence” (physically, emotionally, psychologically) of the young infant on its mother, something that Winnicott stressed upon (Dever 54). Winnicott suggested “what the child might have at stake in maintaining the objectified status of the mother-object” (Dever 54). In “a discussion of the praiseworthy but unsung activities of the ‘good mother’ in society, he argues”: Is not this contribution of the devoted mother unrecognized precisely because it is immense? If this contribution is accepted, it follows that every man or woman who is sane, every man or woman who has the feeling of being a person in the world, and for whom the world means something, every happy person, is in infinite debt to a woman. At the time when as an infant (male or female) this person knew nothing about dependence, there was absolute dependence…If there is no true recognition of the mother’s part, then there must remain a vague fear of dependence. This fear will sometimes take the form of a fear of WOMAN, or fear of a woman, and at other times will take less easily recognized forms, always including the fear of domination. (Winnicott)

Dever contends that “normative subjectivity, in the psychoanalytic model, is articulated through a poetics of loss”, and that “the fundamental lost object is, practically or symbolically, the mother” (Dever 4). In Mourning and Melancholia, “Freud explicitly links the pathology of melancholia with the normative developmental phase of orality, and

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through this connection, situates the mother at the epicenter of both” (Dever 4). Discussing melancholia, “through the work of Otto Rank and Karl Abraham, as a narcissistic disorder characterized by the ego’s inability to forsake a loved object” (Dever 4), Freud wrote: This substitution of identification for object-love is an important mechanism in the narcissistic affections...It represents, of course, a regression from one type of object choice to original narcissism…. identification is a preliminary stage of object-choice, that it is the first way - and one that is expressed in an ambivalent fashion - in which the ego picks out an object. The ego wants to incorporate this object into itself, and, in accordance with the oral or cannibalistic phase of libidinal development in which it is, it wants to do so by devouring it. Abraham is undoubtedly right in attributing to this connection the refusal of nourishment met with in severe forms of melancholia. (Coyne 54)

Dever says that “the desire to introject the lost object is a symptom of the melancholic subject and the melancholic text alike” (Dever 5). Notably, “the oral mother-child relationship provides Freud with a template for melancholia: the child’s struggle toward individual subjectivity entails the need to separate from the nutritive mother, even as that separation itself entails a potentially devastating loss” (Dever 5). Addressing “Freud’s identification of the internalized melancholic object with the construction of an abstract ideal” (Dever 5), Judith Butler says: If melancholia in Freud’s sense is the effect of an ungrieved loss (a sustaining of the lost object/Other as a psychic figure with the consequence of heightened identification with the Other, self-beratement, and the acting out of unresolved anger and love), it may be that performance, understood as ‘acting out’, is significantly related to the problem of unacknowledged loss. (qtd. in Dever 5)

In his 1926 essay ‘Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety’, “Freud argues that the etiology of all anxiety is traceable to the loss of the original object, the mother” (Dever 40): Only a few manifestations of anxiety in children are comprehensible to us, and we must confine our attention to them. They occur, for instance, when a child is alone, or in the dark, or when it finds itself with an unknown person instead of one to whom it is used - such as its mother. These three instances can be reduced to a single condition - namely, that of missing someone who is loved and longed for...Here anxiety appears as a reaction to the felt loss of the object. (qtd. in Dever 40)

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Therefore, when the absence of the original object is a long-standing one or to all appearances an irrevocable loss, we’re justified in speculating as to its effects on the subject concerned. Since the loss of the mother in infancy is a primal loss, its effect on the immature developing psyche can potentially be varied, mysterious and disturbing. We may wonder as to why the early loss of the mother cannot always be managed through normal mourning and the subject always emerge from it unscathed. In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud talks at length on the management of loss and in considering Freud’s work Caroline Dever points to the difference between “normal mourning” and “pathological melancholia”: While normal mourning is characterized by the eventual ability to recognize the loss of a loved object, and therefore to forsake the object, pathological melancholia is characterized by the desire to introject the object of loss, and therefore to punish the self for the transgressions of the loved one, thereby occupying a masochistic relationship to the event of loss itself (italics mine). As in the communities consolidated in memory of the dead heroines of Richardson's Clarissa or Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse, a poetics of life becomes a poetics of loss in which every event refers back to an overdetermined, abstract, idealized version of the dead object (italics mine)...The analogy to the oral phase of development, in which the child’s desires are fixed exclusively on the mother, makes explicit Freud’s argument that later-life attitudes toward traumatic loss are shaped by the primal loss of infancy. (Dever 41)

If every subject could get over its primal loss through “normal mourning” there would be no issue at all. We must point to the fact that the child’s psyche cannot accept the reality of the loss of the mother (there is little else that could be of more tragic significance to his world anyway) and his development is as yet at a too-nascent stage to enable him to get over this loss through what most healthy adults would subconsciously resort to when faced with such a tragedy – normal mourning. Pathological mourning, once initiated can go along to develop along several possible pathways during the subject’s life, some of which (like pathological melancholia or masochistic tendencies) can be potentially unhealthy and with potentially devastating repercussions. Winnicott suggests “that the subject’s fear of dependence might lead to misogyny more generally” (Dever 54). Similarly, Klein, “through her discussion of the ‘epistemophilic impulse’, argues that sadism and aggression toward women work as a preemptive response to the fear of domination and dependence” (Dever 54). “Based on an in-depth survey of The Kreutzer Sonata, Rancour-Laferriere argues that Tolstoy’s ideal of

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sexual abstinence” (that emerged in his later years) was also “derived from ‘maternal loss’ in the writer’s childhood” (Stolberg). The Kreutzer Sonata, in all of its many draft variants, constitutes a pattern of associations leading back to early maternal loss. Tolstoy never forgave his mother for dying on him when he was about two years old, and he could never accept what he believed was the cause of her death, i.e., her sexual activity. The hatred of women and the hatred of sexuality cannot be disentangled from one another. (italics mine) (Rancour-Laferriere)

Tolstoy’s “repudiation of sex” was, therefore, “a strikingly personal declaration reflecting the state of his psyche at the time he made it” (Rancour-Laferriere, Tolstoy 1). Tolstoy had suffered from a lifelong separation-anxiety disorder which finally led to existential anxiety. Rancour-Laferriere states: Repeatedly, Tolstoy told about his depression and wish to die. He revealed strong inclinations to punish and destroy himself. His dead and therefore absent mother remained the lifelong object of his conscious and unconscious feelings and wishes. Love became for Tolstoy a value of highest spirituality and lost its originally biological destination of sexual intercourse and reproduction. (Rancour-Laferriere, Tolstoy)

In his later years, Tolstoy was to openly come across as a misogynist. Many of “Tolstoy’s conscious attitudes to women came to be reinforced by his reading of Schopenhauer, whose attitudes were full of abominable hate and contempt” (Holbrook 47). And yet, as David Holbrook points out, the “strange truth is that the same Tolstoy in his early literary years gave us in Anna Karenina…a penetrating rendering of the participation mystique between mother and infant – so excellent that Stern quotes it in his chapter on ‘womanhood’!” (Holbrook 48) Psychoanalysis of Tolstoy’s diaries and other private materials “reveals that Tolstoy’s anti-sex position was grounded in a sadistic attitude towards women (including his wife Sonia) and a punishing, masochistic attitude towards himself” (Rancour-Laferriere, Tolstoy). As discussed earlier, these feelings were related to the trauma of maternal loss in Tolstoy’s early childhood. Tolstoy probably lived with this attitude in his subconscious throughout his life, but they were accentuated post-marriage and in his later years. While writing the Kreutzer Sonata Tolstoy was convinced of the need for total sexual abstinence, yet at the same time he was unable to desist from having sexual intercourse with his wife, as can easily be proven by the diaries. While preaching at this tie to his public and to himself about the

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The “misogyny is particularly important” – to put it bluntly, The Kreutzer Sonata itself is a creation of Tolstoy’s misogyny, a living out (through the art of writing) of his hatred (Rancour-Laferriere, Kreutzer). As Daniel Rancour-Laferriere puts is: “Tolstoy’s novella is, after all, about the brutal murder of a woman, a wife, a mother. The murderer Pozdnyshev reflects the murderous feelings which Tolstoy himself harbored toward women, especially toward mothers” (Rancour-Laferriere, Kreutzer). The novel is an “in-depth first-person description of jealous rage” (“The Kreutzer”) The rage which Pozdnyshev feels strongly resembles the affective state which psychoanalyst Melanie Klein attributes to the pre-Oedipal child: “...the subject’s dominant aim is to possess himself of the contents of the mother’s body and to destroy her by every means which sadism can command.” Drafts of the novella indicate cannibalistic fantasies regarding the wife’s body. The drafts also represent the murder weapon as phallic, and equate sexual intercourse with murderous destruction of a woman’s body. Tolstoy’s Pozdnyshev, in other words, is a Kleinian infant. The only way to avoid stirring up the sadistic fantasies of such an infant is to avoid sexual contact with women - which is precisely what the aging Tolstoy advocated to the world. (Rancour-Laferriere, Kreutzer)

It would be correct to say that Tolstoy was no Pozdnyshev! In fact, Pozdnyshev was what Tolstoy could never be, simply because he could not bring himself to do what Pozdnyshev did. It is an equally serious fact of Tolstoy’s psychobiography that the “jealous rage” that Pozdnyshev felt was a reflection of what Tolstoy himself felt in his marriage at that stage of his life. Tolstoy married in 1862 and Anna Karenina was written in the years from 1873 to 1877. The Kreutzer Sonata was first published in 1889, several years later. Tolstoy (like Levin), from his youth to the early years of his marriage (and beyond) struggled with depression and suicidal tendencies. He was also given to fits of jealous rage. But the Tolstoy who wrote Anna Karenina, howsoever disillusioned and confused he might have been regarding the meaning of Life and the purpose of Religion, did believe in the efficacy of feminine love and the joys of family life. His novella Family Happiness, written in 1959 during the period of his courtship with Sophia Behrs (his future wife) is also semi-autobiographical and dwells on the “love and marriage of a young girl, Mashechka (17 years old), and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych (36 years), an old family friend” (“Family Happiness”). Sergey’s idea of happiness is “a quiet secluded life

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in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people...then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor” and “then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps - what more can the heart of man desire?” (Gustafson, Kreutzer 39). But as the years of marriage rolled on, it seems Tolstoy became increasingly disillusioned with his own psychology – his inconsiderate and constant desire for sex from a woman who was forever carrying a child, coupled with his jealous rage and sadistic tendencies towards her. All through, he neither forgot nor forgave the woman who deserted him when he was still an infant and developed masochistic tendencies to punish himself for what he subconsciously considered to be the wrongdoing of his mother. In her “long and often turbulent marriage to Leo Tolstoy, Sophia Andreevna Tolstoy put up with a lot, but The Kreutzer Sonata qualified as special punishment” (Grimes). “And it isn’t just other people,” she is known to have said: “I, too, know in my heart that this story is directed against me, and that it has done me a great wrong, humiliated me in the eyes of the world and destroyed the last vestiges of love between us” (qtd. in Katz 322) It would be “fair to say that Sophia was humiliated and incensed when the novella was published” (Rosenbaum). And yet “such was her devotion that she made a special plea to the Czar to allow its publication after Orthodox Church objections banned it” (“The Other Tolstoy”). Convinced that the story was “untrue in everything relating to a young woman’s experiences,” Sophia wrote two novellas setting forth her own views, Whose Fault? and Song Without Words. Evidence of how she felt about her husband’s depiction of their marriage in Kreutzer can be found in her list of possible titles for her novella: Is She Guilty?, Murdered, Long Since Murdered, Gradual Murder, How She Was Murdered, How Husbands Murder Their Wives, One More Murdered Woman [or Wife]. Ultimately she chose a somewhat graceless alternate: Whose Fault? (“The Other Tolstoy”)

Sophia “pulls off a remarkable structural feat in mirroring Kreutzer’s wifemurder plot from the point of view of the murdered wife” (italics mine) (“The Other Tolstoy”). The character of her story Anna, being fearful of the unknown, for a considerable time after marriage, refuses to have sex with her husband. When she finally gives in to her husband’s advances, she finds herself almost horrified, in a detached way, by her body’s response, “and even more repulsed by the brutal, utilitarian nature of her husband’s attention” (“The Other Tolstoy”). Just like Pozdnyshev, the character in The Kreutzer Sonata, who thinks of sex as resulting from a build-up of “pressure” that

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must seek “relief”, Anna’s husband goes about fulfilling his lust with a single-minded animal devotion to his own needs (Rosenbaum). Interestingly, even after the relief that comes through the release of pressure, “he is never peacefully sated, but actually becomes angry and hostile at the way he has degraded himself” (italics mine) (“The Other Tolstoy”). After Anna’s husband begins suspecting that his wife is having an affair with Bekhmetev, “he becomes tormented with jealousy, with hatred of the woman he wished to possess alone” (Rosenbaum). For Anna’s husband, sex and rage are interlinked, and each fuels the other to greater heights. Anna notes with revulsion his lust for her: “Along with this hatred grew his passion, his unrestrained, animal passion, whose strength he felt, and as a result of which his anger grew even stronger” (qtd. in “The Other Tolstoy”). Anna leaves “no doubt of the dynamic going on in her own matrimonial prison”: “He didn’t know her, he had never made the effort to understand the sort of woman she really was (italics mine). He knew her shoulders, her lovely eyes, her passionate temperament” (qtd. in “The Other Tolstoy”). It is interesting that other than Constantine Levin, there is another character in Anna Karenina who was brought up an orphan – Alexei Karenin. We’re told that right from his early years, Karenin neither had his mother beside him nor a loving father. It is therefore interesting and intriguing that Tolstoy’s portrayal of Karenin marks him out as an emotionally inadequate personality. We shall deal with him in more detail in the next section and try and examine if Tolstoy’s dynamics of character portrayal does indeed match up to the character history that he surreptitiously drops into his narrative.

Character Study of Alexei Karenin Why a separate section on Anna’s husband, one may ask? After all, isn’t he supposed to be existent in the novel for the sole purpose of driving Anna towards an adulterous relationship? While that may be true, the very admission of this crucial role of Karenin’s in Anna’s fate merits a closer look at him. Moreover, as we shall subsequently explore, while many characters in nineteenth-century fiction might seem to revolve around the principle characters, Tolstoy’s characters are so lifelike and their personalities are so well delineated that they seem to have an independent story of their own, even when viewed distinctly from the structure of the story. The author also gives them a psychological history that makes it easier to appreciate the nuances in their character traits. Indeed, my analysis of Anna Karenina made it clear to me that in the portrayal of

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Alexei Karenin, Tolstoy has created one of his most psychologically realistic characters. A.V. Knowles recognized the complexity with which Tolstoy drew Karenin: It is probable that the character of Karenin and the importance of his personality is the most difficult problem for the critic in the whole of Count Tolstoy’s novel. First of all the reader’s sympathy is so clearly on the side of Anna that the form of the husband she hates takes on of itself an unsympathetic appearance and it is difficult for him not only to be fair but also to comprehend the profound secrets of the human heart, which the author has revealed through his character and which makes Karenin far more artistically valuable than even Anna herself. (Knowles 312)

Knowles’s assertion might sound opinionated unless we recognize the intricacy of Tolstoy’s portrayal of Karenin. He recognizes that Count Tolstoy has “penetrated too deeply into Karenin’s inner world and the heterogeneous traits of his character are presented so clearly and individually that it is impossible at first sight to grasp their deep interrelation” (Knowles 313). Tolstoy “identified himself with Rousseau’s view that man is inherently good by birth” (Novikov). But he was also “aware of the other part of Rousseau’s formula which said that the environment made man evil” (Novikov). It is hence imperative that in trying to analyze Tolstoy’s characters we pay adequate attention to their psychological history and the environmental conditions that he weaves around them. What do we know of Alexei Karenin’s early life? The narrator gives us the following information: “Alexey Alexandrovitch grew up an orphan. There were two brothers. They did not remember their father, and their mother died when Alexey Alexandrovitch was ten years old” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). We have already touched upon (in the previous section) the traumatic effects that maternal deprivation could have upon an individual. Bowlby too considered “the quality of parental care” to be “of vital importance to the child’s development and future mental health” (Ramos). It was “believed to be essential” that “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both found satisfaction and enjoyment” (Bowlby, Separation 9). In Karenin’s case, we can’t help noticing however that he is indeed an “orphan” – bestowed with a father whom he cannot even remember, and a mother who dies when he is just ten. It would be appropriate to say that Karenin was subjected to ‘parental

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deprivation’, for much of his childhood he had been deprived of interaction with a father-figure as well as a mother-figure. Byrd stresses on the criticality of a child having a mother as well as a father and asserts that any “other family forms are not equally as helpful or healthful for children” (Byrd). Pruett (1993) “summarized the highly acclaimed work of Erik Erikson, one of the most esteemed developmental psychologists in the world, who noted that mothers and fathers love differently” (“Definition of Marriage”). A fathers’ love is characterized by instrumentality and more expectancies, whereas a mother’s love is more nurturing, expressive, and integrative. Mothers care for their young…mothers nurture. Fathers negotiate. Fathers focus on extra-familial relationships, social skills and developing friendships. (“Definition of Marriage”)

What then could be the possible consequences of such parental deprivation for the child’s development and his future? As stated earlier, attachment theorists believe that children “need to have secure relationship with adult caregivers, without which normal social and emotional development will not occur” (O’Reilly 696). (It is critical that I alert the reader at this point to think of ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ social and emotional development on very broad terms. Human psychology is not always evident on-thesurface; meaning that many tendencies, fears, repressed desires, and even psychological anomalies may not always be made out in normal social interactions with our fellow beings. They’re often (if not always) hidden and may in fact only start to “resurface in a disguised form at the later stages of life” (Kakabadse 186)). Freud recognized that the lack of a secure relationship with adult caregivers could have long-reaching effects on the child’s future: Freud believed that during the first six to ten years of life, the ‘formative’ years, our experiences deeply impact on our mind, creating deep and powerful, in Jungian terms, preferences that later direct our lives. Many may not be conscious of that development, as strained or damaging experiences can lead to various kinds of repression that resurface in a disguised form at the later stages of life. (Kakabadse 186)

We are now moving towards an understanding of the profound impact that “strained or damaging” experiences like parental deprivation could have on the future of the child. Commonsense dictates that children “need care, attention, affection and an active display of responding to the child’s needs in the early stages of its life” (Kakabadse 191). Thus, “individuals who experience deprivation

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in that period”, “emerge in adulthood as less robust, less sure of themselves, and less able to handle the world effectively, than those who have positive experiences in their early years of life” (Kakabadse 191). Melanie Klein, the well-known post-Freudian British psychoanalyst, “suggests that many of the disorders that Freud attributed to human sexuality have their origins in early patterns of socialization, which if unresolved, emerge in adulthood as defences against anxiety” (italics mine) (Kakabadse 188). Melanie Klein thereby “broadened Freud’s concepts to include environment” (Kakabadse 188). Kaplan and Sadock also stress the importance of “early interactions with parents”: The capacity to form mutually satisfying relationships is related in part to patterns of internalization stemming from early interactions with parents and other significant figures (italics mine). This ability is also a fundamental function of the ego, in that satisfying relatedness depends on the ability to integrate positive and negative aspects of others and self and to maintain an internal sense of others even in their absence. (Sadock 200)

In a series of studies published in the 1930s, psychologist Bill Goldfarb noted that institutionalised children “were socially less mature and appeared emotionally removed in terms of their capacity to form relationships” as compared to a control group (“Orphans”). Through a proper analysis of Karenin’s motivations and behavioral patterns, as well as what the narrator explicitly tells us about him in the text, I shall attempt to show that Karenin exhibits character patterns that strongly hint that he has limitations in his personality that a psychoanalyst may ascribe to his inadequate childhood conditions. The parental deprivation that he faced has had a traumatic effect on him and hindered his normative development. Noting the serious inadequacies in Karenin’s personality, Knowles identifies his being an orphan as a crucial link to understanding his personality development: Karenin is a man of ambition, of abstract thought, a man of naked will and cold reason who scorns on principle emotion, of which he feels so little anyway. He is emotionally cold, but the fact of being orphaned at an early age, his lack of friends, his exclusively bureaucratic existence and his devotion to ambition have all made him colder still (italics mine). From his conception of abstract duty he has so subdued all manifestations of feeling in himself that even an accidental and involuntary expression of it is considered by him to be an unworthy weakness. (Knowles 313)

Although Knowles seems to have identified multiple reasons for Karenin’s inadequacies - his lack of friends, his exclusively bureaucratic existence

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and his devotion to ambition – we will be more accurate in our psychoanalysis when we identify Karenin’s “being orphaned at an early age” as the pivotal reason that led to these other manifestations (Knowles 313). I’m trying to point out that it was Karenin’s inability to form mutually satisfying relationships that led to “his lack of friends” and “exclusively bureaucratic existence” (Knowles 313). His “devotion to ambition” is a result of his wish to stand up to a world that he feels is unwilling to stand with him (Knowles 313). We’re told that Karenin has “never formed a close friendship with anyone”: In the high school and the university, and afterwards in the service, Alexey Alexandrovitch had never formed a close friendship with anyone. His brother had been the person nearest to his heart, but he had a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was always abroad, where he had died shortly after Alexey Alexandrovitch’s marriage. (Tolstoy, Garnett 463)

The section where the narrator tells us about Karenin’s early years, the loss of his parents, his friendless existence throughout in school, university and service years is immediately followed by a recounting of the circumstances which led the middle-aged bachelor (obviously not inclined towards marriage), governor of a province, to assent to the marital bond. We’re told that it was Anna’s aunt who “had thrown him...with her niece” (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). Insinuating that he had already compromised the girl and that he was in honor bound to make her an offer, she had put him in fact “in such a position that he had either to declare himself or to leave the town” (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). It is hence clearly stated that the marriage was plotted, and Karenin wouldn’t have assented to the marriage had he not been put in a situation where he couldn’t refuse. A close reading of the text leaves no doubt that the narrator ascribes Karenin’s early orphaned and friendless years as leading up to the formation of a ‘personality’ that needs to be trapped into a marriage. Karenin’s narrative pursues the story of a child, who left fatherless and motherless, “is left to decode the mysteries of the world, and most provocatively of the mating process, alone” (to use the phrase that Carolyn Dever uses to describe the conventional opening of a Victorian novel) (Dever 1). When Anna finally decides to leave Karenin and live with Vronsky, he seems to suffer only due to a sense of shame. But although he attempts to share his sorrow with some of his confidantes, he finds that he is unable to do so: “several times he attempted to speak but could not. He had already prepared the phrase: ‘You have heard of my trouble?’ But he ended by saying, as usual: ‘So you’ll get this ready for me?’ and with that dismissed him” (Tolstoy, Garnett 464). After Anna falls into adultery, Karenin’s

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“despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly alone in his sorrow”: “In all Petersburg there was not a human being to whom he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a high official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man; indeed he had not such a one in the whole world” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 462). Not only this, but he also feels that people will be unsympathetic and antagonistic towards him: “He knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them, and instinctively he tried to do this” (Tolstoy, Garnett 462). Given Karenin’s isolated existence, it is not surprising that in this crisis he feels the need to share his grief with an empathetic human. Fleming, who spent many years studying the problems of adult patients who have suffered bereavement during childhood or adolescence, insisted that even in adult life, “we are never completely independent of the need that a trusted helpful person exists and could be called if necessary” (Bowlby, Separation 273). When Karenin had entered into marriage, his reasons for choosing Anna were inadequate: “There were at the time as many reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt” (italics mine). (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). He made the offer, and “concentrated on his betrothed and his wife all the feeling of which he was capable” (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). The narrator is surely suggesting that Karenin wasn’t “capable” of much “feeling”. Karenin’s deficient feeling is a theme that we come across multiple times throughout the story. The inability to feel is something that was widely observed in children who had suffered maternal deprivation in their early years. In fact, this is the chief characteristic of individuals who have suffered in their early years from what Bowlby calls (in Volume 3 of his work Attachment and Loss) ‘primary affect hunger’. Foster parents of such children are often known to complain that “the child did not seem able to show any affection”, or, to use the mother’s words, the child “would kiss you but it would mean nothing” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). Such children typically draw remarks like: ‘You just can’t get to her’; ‘You can’t get under her skin’; ‘She never tells what she’s thinking or what she feels’; ‘She chatters but it’s all surface’ (Bowlby, Maternal Care). This translates primarily into a “lack of emotional response” and a “shallowness of affect” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). Based on an analysis of such children, Powdermaker et all stated that they “have apparently had no opportunity to have a libidinal relationship in early childhood [and] seem to have little or no capacity to enter into an emotional relation with another person or with a group” (Bowlby, Maternal Care). In effect, they are completely confused about

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human relationships. Bowlby lays down the following typical features that such children exhibit: -

superficial relationships; no real feeling – no capacity to care for people or to make true friends; an inaccessibility, exasperating to those trying to help; no emotional response to situations where it is normal- a curious lack of concern (Bowlby, Maternal Care)

Several research papers, notably by Levy (1937), Powdermaker et all (1937), Lowrey (1940), Bender (1941,1946, and 1947), and Goldfarb (9 papers 1943-1949) other than by Bowlby (1940 and 1944) with monotonous regularity ascribe “the child’s inability to make relationships as being the central feature from which all the other disturbances sprang” (Haslam 205). These papers primarily refer to children whose early disturbances were due to either being shifted about from one foster-mother to another or those who had a history of institutionalization. There have been other notable studies as well. During the late 1930’s, “at least six independent workers were struck by the frequency with which children who…seemed to have no feelings for anyone and were very difficult to treat, were found to have had grossly disturbed relationships with their mothers in their early years” (italics mine) (Bowlby, Maternal Care). Severe maternal deprivation, “associated with the discontinuity of ties brought about by mother-child separation”, or serious disturbances in the mother-child relationship, “is a significant antecedent of affectionless character formation” (Ainsworth 117). Numerous authors have published observations of the same nature. Among them, “Lauretta Bender, Goldfarb and Bowlby can be mentioned in particular” (Ainsworth 77). After the Second World War, “Bender returned to the problem, describing the syndrome to which she gave the name ‘psychopathic behaviour disorder of childhood’” (Ainsworth 77). Such children appear “markedly detached, isolated and incapable of deep or lasting ties” (Ainsworth 119). Retrospective case studies “of psychiatrically disturbed children and adults demonstrate a significant association between character disorders, behaviour disorders and the ‘affectionless’ character and severe, early and depriving separation experiences” (Ainsworth 155). Certain impairments “seem to be less readily and less completely reversible than others - the capacity for strong and lasting interpersonal attachments being one of them” (Ainsworth 153). Although “an examination of the life-histories of such children showed the personality disturbances to be more overt and acute in childhood than later in adolescence, the

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degree of reversal of the basic impairment was of limited degree” (Ainsworth 122). What about Alexei Karenin? All the evidence in the text (in the form of character and behavioural traits that Tolstoy imbues Karenin with), I propose, points to Karenin having had an inadequate relationship with his mother, although I wish Tolstoy had thrown some more light on Karenin’s early years. The account that we do have of Karenin strongly suggests a man whose feeling life had become to a great degree inhibited and suppressed during childhood and who had grown up, as a result, to be intensely introspective. Talking of inadequate relationship, what are the parameters that contribute to the adequacy of the mother-child relationship? In other words, what is the role played by the mother in normal child development? The answer to the question obviously “lies in the interaction that takes place between mother and child, for if the mere physical presence of the mother were enough, the effects of deprivation would not be noticeable in the absence of separation” (Ainsworth 158). This prompts Ainsworth to consider the question: “Since early mother-child interaction is a necessary condition for healthy development, and particularly for social development, how does the interaction produce its effects?” (Ainsworth 158) In the case of the infant of under two years of age, “the chief perceptual stimulation comes through the mother - in the course of caring for, handling, playing with and talking to the child” (Ainsworth 156). Therefore, “perceptual deprivation” seems equivalent to the insufficiency of maternal care. Having said that, maternal deprivation need not necessarily result from physical separation between mother and infant, or absence of the mother alone. The occurrence of (what is commonly known as) ‘masked deprivation’ is equally common. It refers to the inability or unwillingness of the mother (due to psychobiographical reasons of her own) to give to the child the love, comfort, and patience it needs in its early years. It must be remembered that “the implicit definition of maternal deprivation is insufficiency of interaction between the child and a mother-figure” (Ainsworth 98). In Deprivation of Maternal Care: A Reassessment of its Effects, Dane G Prugh and Robert G Harlow take the position that “the subtle effects of less obvious disruptions or distortions in the parent-child relationship may have as devastating effects upon emotional development as the more gross maternal deprivations highlighted by Bowlby” (Ainsworth 14). Further, it is to be emphasized that “instances of ‘masked’ or covert deprivation, of a virtually ‘complete’ nature, may occur frequently in intact families, giving rise to clinical pictures in children which may equal in pathological intensity those derived from overt

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deprivations” (Ainsworth 14). This position is in agreement with the views of Bakwin, and Glaser and Eisenberg. The physiological lack of maturity of the baby “puts it in a state of anaclitic dependence upon its mother” (Ainsworth 91). It is not only a question of the need for food. The infant must come into close contact with its mother and receive from her sensory stimulation visual, vestibular, auditory and cutaneous - that must provide it with certain sensations of contact and warmth, and certain rhythmic sensations. The Oedipus complex in fact is a necessary phase for children to go through. (Ainsworth 91)

The “Oedipal situation and its eventual overcoming constitute a trial period preparing children for the need to find a partner outside the family” (de Berg 80). As Jones puts it, a “child has to learn how to love just as it has to learn how to walk” (Jones 47). It is a fault of our social mindset and our individual apathy that while we give adequate importance to the timely emergence of a child’s ability to walk and to communicate, we’re neither equally wary nor knowledgeable about the course that their psychological development is taking. Before Bowlby’s works were published, the prevalent belief was that “infants’ internal life was determined by fantasy rather than real life events” (Shaw). Some critics “profoundly disagreed with the necessity for maternal (or equivalent) love to function normally, or that the formation of an ongoing relationship with a child was an important part of parenting” (Shaw). Others “questioned the extent to which his hypothesis was supported by the evidence” (“John Bowlby”). The 1951 WHO publication of “Bowlby’s monograph Maternal Care and Mental Health was highly influential in causing widespread changes in the practices and prevalence of institutional care for infants and children, and in changing practices relating to the visiting of infants and small children in hospitals by parents” (Price). As the primary object of love and major influence (in the infant’s early years), the mother’s role and responsibility in the early years cannot be overemphasized. It is in being loved by the mother and in loving her that the child is initiated into the concept and act of love. Risk and danger, therefore, ensues “for the human being who has not been started off well enough by the mother” (Dever 70): All health depends on the mother’s complicity in the drama of omnipotent illusion, in which that mother is constructed, first phantastically, then symbolically, by the creative agency of the infant. The condition which Klein and Riviere would call hunger, and which Winnicott describes as weaning, ultimately intervenes in the choric dyad, creating the selfprotective need within the child for a transitional object as a preemptive

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strike against dependence and vulnerability. “The mother’s eventual task,” writes Winnicott, “is gradually to disillusion the infant, but she has no hope of success unless at first she has been able to give sufficient opportunity for illusion.” (Dever 70)

In The Mirror-Role of the Mother and Family in Child Development, “an essay that addresses Lacan’s The Mirror Stage, Winnicott argues for a reading of the mother’s face as the child’s primary ‘mirror’” (Dever 67). To “carry the baby to usage means that the mother’s gradual withdrawal of herself as the object of phantastic projections and the center of dependency facilitates the emergence of a fully independent subject – neurotic, perhaps but not permanently entrenched within the detached world of psychosis” (Dever 66-67). The keywords here are “gradual withdrawal” and “center of dependency”. That the mother is for the child the center of his Universe and dependency is now inarguable. What merits a closer look (to aid our understanding) however is what has been referred to as a “gradual withdrawal”. Successful mothering or successful child-rearing necessarily involves the requirement for a sequence of events to take place in the child’s early years. It begins with unadulterated, unconditional love from a healthy, happy mother-figure who can make the infant feel loved, be its playmate and aid its creation of a self that is entirely dependent on its mother-figure for the fulfillment of its existential needs and physiological and psychological development. Bowlby emphasised that the infant’s and the toddler’s complete dependence on the mother (or mother-figure), his possessiveness about her and his anxiety at her absence is both normative and essential. There is first the need for the mother to successfully become the object of phantastic projections. Thereafter, through subsequent phases (that will typically include weaning) achieve the withdrawal of herself as the object of phantastic projections and the center of dependency. However, the happy and healthy mother has to be present long enough to achieve this “gradual withdrawal.” Any breaks (whether brought about through temporary absence or permanent loss) in the mother-child relationship during any of these periods can be potentially catastrophic to the child’s psychological development and future well-being. Winnicott emphasized the importance of “appropriate timing” and the fact that it should be the child who should be able to achieve the position of finally rejecting its complete dependence on the mother-figure: Maternal subjectivity is equivalent to “relative maternal failure.” Maternal “objectivity” is the mother’s passive reflection of the child’s perception; in other words, the mother’s self-construction as object. This is, in Winnicott’s argument, the form of successful mothering that produces healthy, non-

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Chapter Three pathological adults. (Dever 67)…In the mother’s manual that emerges from the structures Winnicott describes, to be a good-enough mother is to have a sense of appropriate timing, and to forestall the subject-position rejection until the child has already adequately managed the terms of that rejection from the other position. To be a good-enough mother is to be rejected, not to reject, to maintain the masochistic position in order to facilitate the sadistic foundation of epistemology. (Dever 70)

A study of Karenin’s character portrayal makes me think that this was the kind of “successful mothering” that he never received. Studies indicate that “patterns of insufficient mothering may begin very early, and that the effects may both begin very early and persist despite later improvement in mother-child interaction” (Ainsworth 121). It must be noted that although “the sensitive phase seems to be the first year of life”, especially “the second half of the first year”, “the absolute upper limit of the sensitive phase” is “uncertain” (Ainsworth 154). In “order for human development to occur in an orderly fashion, the infant’s primal cathexis onto the mother must be ruptured, and the mother replaced by alternative physical, psychological, and erotic objects” (Dever 39). What is at stake for the child is “the construction of a mother who is sufficiently willing to participate in the effacement of her subjectivity” (Dever 67). Joan Riviere writes of the breast: Without some degree of dissatisfaction with our mother’s milk and her nipples or with our bottles, we none of us ever grow up mentally at all. By turning away, also by subdividing our aims and distributing them elsewhere, the needs both of hunger and sexual pleasure become detached from the mother. Food for the body and for pleasure of eating and drinking is gradually found elsewhere, while on turning away from the breast erotic pleasure is also rediscovered elsewhere. (qtd. in Dever 53)

The possibility of masked deprivation and unsuccessful mothering (and its consequences) was something Bowlby was aware of. His initial hypothesis stated that: “in early childhood…privation or deprivation of a relationship of dependence with a mother-figure, will have an adverse effect on personality development, particularly with respect to the capacity for forming and maintaining satisfactory object relations” (qtd. In Ainsworth 79) Bowlby clearly stated that such a relationship may be inadequate under three conditions: (1) where the child never has any relationship with a mother-person; (2) where the relationship with the mother-person is discontinuous;

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(3) where the relationship with the mother-person is insecure. (italics mine) (Ainsworth 79)

In the third condition, the deprivation “chiefly stems from insufficiency of intimate interpersonal interaction” (Ainsworth 156). We’re told that the attachment Karenin “felt to Anna precluded in his heart every need of intimate relations with others” (Tolstoy, Garnett 463). Karenin doesn’t have the healthy instinct and ability to have “intimate relations with others” beside his wife. But as Anna and Karenin himself (though he habitually keeps this knowledge away from himself) are soon to realize, he is also incapable of having a mutually satisfying relationship with his wife. Other than the aforementioned reasons, is there something else that could explain this? Holbrook believes that “catastrophes” in early childhood lead to a breakdown in the “capacity to love and to find meaning”: It is not difficult for the present-day medical researcher to recognize that things that happen to a child...may influence its whole life. This is beginning to be recognized in physical medicine, and it may be assumed to be true of psychological problems. During the first weeks and months of life the infant is striving to put together a self and its world, and catastrophes at this stage can lead to severe damage to the reality sense, to the sense of identity, and to the capacity to love and to find meaning. The adult finds it difficult or impossible to escape from the consequent distortions of the reality sense because it has grown into his psychic tissue. (italics mine) (Holbrook 42)

Taking the case of Tolstoy’s personal life, Holbrook suggests that the “catastrophe of the loss of his mother at the age of eighteen months” was “crucially formative in Tolstoy’s attitude to women and to everything associated with them: sex, love, hunger, guilt, childbirth, natural feeding, care and nurturing, and (since she had died) death: and indeed, mortality” (Holbrook 42-43). If we consider the case of Karenin, he faced the early death of his father, while his mother passed away when he was ten. Though his mother was present when he was an infant, I’ve already proposed that she was in all probability an inadequate mother and Karenin did not go through normal psychosexual development. Due to the fairly predictable timeline that the childhood behaviors in question follow, Freud developed a model for what he considered to be the ‘normal’ sexual development of the child, which he called ‘libido development’. According to this theory, each child passes through five

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Freud “postulated a state of primary narcissism at birth in which the libido is stored in the ego” (Sadock 199). He “viewed the neonate as entirely narcissistic, with the entire libidinal investment in physiological needs and their satisfaction” (Sadock 199). He “referred to this self-investment as ego libido” (Sadock 199). The infantile state of self-absorption changes only gradually, according to Freud, with the dawning awareness that a separate person - the mothering figure - is responsible for gratifying an infant’s needs. This realization leads to the gradual withdrawal of the libido from the self and its redirection toward the external object. Hence, the development of object relations in infants parallels the shift from primary narcissism to object attachment. The libidinal investment in the object is referred to as object libido. If a developing child suffers rebuffs or trauma from the caretaking figure, object libido may be withdrawn and reinvested in the ego (italics mine). Freud called this regressive posture secondary narcissism. (Sadock 199)

Pointing to studies that have been carried out Ainsworth details how the aforementioned and other similar disturbances in the child’s life may impact its physical and mental development: Some studies have suggested retardation of both physical and mental development, the impairment of the capacity to form close object relationships, and the failure to achieve ego differentiation, as a consequence of seriously impaired mother-child relationships during this period. (Ainsworth 21)

An inadequate mother-child relationship may “produce pathological effects, principally in regard to the capacity to form warm object relationships, and marked regression, difficulties in impulse control, and blunting or distortion of ego development…under deeply unhealthy circumstances” (Ainsworth 21). Bowlby believed that an inadequate mother-child relationship during the first three years of life could leave a characteristic impression on the child’s personality: “Clinically such children appear emotionally withdrawn and isolated. They fail to develop libidinal ties with other children or with adults and consequently have no friendships worth the name” (qtd. in Ainsworth 11) Henk de Berg states that the “society and the period in which a child grows up, his immediate social environment (parents, teachers, and so on),

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and…a number of contingent circumstances such as the possible death of a parent… – all these factors taken together determine the course of the child’s development into sexual adulthood” (de Berg 10). In view of this “significance of the infantile relation to the parents for the later selection of the sexual object”, it is easy to understand that “every disturbance of this infantile relation brings to a head the most serious results for the sexual life after puberty” (italics mine) (Freud, Three Contributions 78). Freud argued that “the path towards a mature and normal sexual attitude began not at puberty but early childhood” (“Three Essays”). Our “experience of the mother colors our whole experience of, and attitude to, nature and the world: and, so, ultimately, to the problem of the meaning of existence” (Holbrook 43) Karenin harbours an inner dread and hatred of women. His attitude to women suggests that he either had an inadequate relationship with his mother, or he has grown up harbouring ambivalent feelings of love-hate towards his dead mother for having abandoned him: “Of his women friends, foremost amongst them Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Alexey Alexandrovitch never thought. All women, simply as women, were terrible and distasteful to him” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 464). The Anxiety theory postulates that “issues that cause anxiety in childhood are symbolically recapitulated in adult behavior” (“Psychodynamics of Anxiety”). Not surprisingly, this also translates into the subject’s inability to provide ideal parenthood to his own children, as is seen in the case of Karenin. Wardle, studying cases in a child guidance clinic, “investigated the association of three sets of antecedent conditions with the type of behaviour problem shown by the child: (a) homes broken by the loss of one parent through death, divorce or separation; (b) motherchild separations of more than six months in duration; and (c) one parent having come from a broken home” (Ainsworth 116). Wardle suggested that the high incidence of conduct disorders in children whose parents had come from broken homes is a manifestation of a vicious cycle, starting with a home that may have been accidentally broken by death or illness, causing the child to have difficulty in interpersonal relations, in turn making it difficult for the child, in the future, to provide an affectionate, secure environment for his own children, who consequently may emerge with conduct disorders. (Ainsworth 116)

Freud “positioned the key repressions, for both the normal individual and the neurotic, in the first five years of childhood, and, of course, held them to be essentially sexual in nature” (Thornton) - as we have seen, “repressions which disrupt the process of infantile sexual development in

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particular, he held, lead to a strong tendency to later neurosis in adult life” (Thornton). The intercourse between the child and its foster-parents is for the former an inexhaustible source of sexual excitation and gratification of erogenous zones, especially since the parents--or as a rule the mother--supplies the child with feelings which originate from her own sexual life; she pats it, kisses it, and rocks it, plainly taking it as a substitute for a full-valued sexual object. The mother would probably be terrified if it were explained to her that all her tenderness awakens the sexual impulse of her child and prepares its future intensity. By teaching the child to love she only fulfills her function; for the child should become a fit man with energetic sexual needs, and accomplish in life all that the impulse urges the man to do. (Freud, Three Contributions 80)

Karenin’s inability to love is brought out when Anna muses: “Love? Can he love? If he hadn’t heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn’t even know what love is” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 138). Karpushina suggests that Anna is wholly dissatisfied with her sexual life and the lack of love and intimacy in her marriage with Karenin: “Anna’s suppressed energy tells us that her marriage is not happy in at least one respect. Dolly recollects that she has always sensed something false in Anna’s family situation” (Karpushina). Anna experiences discontent with herself when she sees Karenin as he meets her at the railway station. Her distaste and disaffection for her husband are obvious, for although she condescends to have her hand kissed, as soon as he was out of sight, she is keenly “aware of the spot on her hand that his lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion” (Tolstoy, Garnett 192). I’m not necessarily suggesting that Karenin is sexually inadequate or any less of a man, but as Freud suggested, “some aberration of the sexual life is always present, as the cause of especially insistent emotions and repressions” (Freud, Three Contributions 7). We cannot afford to ignore that Karenin’s awareness and appreciation of love are inhibited (due to reasons already explored) to a degree that makes him an insensitive and insufficient lover. It is not surprising that Karenin is himself aware of his inadequacy: “But how have I been to blame?” he said to himself. And this question always excited another question in him--whether they felt differently, did their loving and marrying differently, these Vronskys and Oblonskys... these gentlemen of the bedchamber, with their fine calves. And there passed before his mind a whole series of these mettlesome, vigorous, selfconfident men, who always and everywhere drew his inquisitive attention

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in spite of himself. He tried to dispel these thoughts, he tried to persuade himself that he was not living for this transient life (italics mine), but for the life of eternity, and that there was peace and love in his heart. (Tolstoy, Garnett 475)

Sadock and Kaplan opine that “previous unsuccessful resolutions and fixations in various phases or/of aspects of psychosexual development will produce pathological defects in the emerging adult personality” (Sadock 198). Along with the emergence of such “pathological defects”, it is also possible that the individual is devoid of a “satisfying genital potency”: The successful resolution and reintegration of previous psychosexual stages in the adolescent, fully genital phase sets the stage normally for a fully mature personality with a capacity for full and satisfying genital potency and a self-integrated and consistent sense of identity. Such a person has reached a satisfying capacity for self-realization and meaningful participation in the areas of work and love. (Sadock 198)

In this respect, it might be of use to mention an interesting line of animal research taken up by Harlow in studying the “development of affectional patterns in infant monkeys” (Ainsworth 128). (It must be remembered that “laboratory experimentation introducing deprivation is considered possible only with infra-human species” (Ainsworth 127)). Two of “his most relevant findings” were the “intensity and persistence of the infant primate’s monotropic attachment to the mother or mother-surrogate” (Ainsworth 128): He reported that monkeys which had been separated from their mothers at birth and reared either in the absence of any mother surrogate or with only an inanimate cloth mother-surrogate failed, at maturity, to show normal sexual behaviour. Despite this lack of sexual responsiveness, four females finally were mated; when their infants were born, however, they showed a strikingly abnormal absence of maternal behaviour. This report provides an instance of a “hidden” effect of an early deprivation experience that becomes overt only later. (Ainsworth 128)

Coming back to Karenin, it has to be said that had he been “capable of the slightest feeling or had loved Anna with a real, living love and not simply the habit of extended cohabitation, he would have killed her or Vronsky or done something else – separate from his wife, call Vronsky out for a duel – but certainly not what he actually does do” (Knowles 315). He only seems to discuss things and these discussions come across as formal and marked by a curious lack of feeling, egotism and their disregard of the factors that has led to problems in their marriage. It is to be noted that such

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individuals “may perform competently in earning a living and in ordinary social interaction with friends and colleagues and still betray impairment through failure in meeting the more intimate interpersonal demands of marriage or parenthood” (Ainsworth 151).

Avoidance of emotions This is evident in Karenin’s emotional inadequacy. Knowles sees Karenin as a “man who has no room for living thoughts or living feelings and whose capacity for the latter is utterly atrophied”: “He is a man of strong will and great intelligence but completely lacking in feeling” (Knowles 314). Karenin displays another behavioral pattern that reveals his inability to deal with emotions. We’re told that “while on the surface the coldest and most reasonable of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of his character” (Tolstoy, Garnett 258). He is unable to deal with a person’s tears. At the sight of a person crying he feels at a loss how to react and can only feel “hasty anger”: “…in such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexey Alexandrovitch by the sight of tears found expression in hasty anger.” ‘I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room!’ he would commonly cry in such cases” (Tolstoy, Garnett 258). This is also manifested when he finds himself called upon to witness and empathise with his wife’s sorrow and tears: That pang was intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity (italics mine) for her set up by her tears. This feeling Alexey Alexandrovitch was experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something other than his wife. (Tolstoy, Garnett 258)

After the “incident at the races, when Anna informs him on the way home of her affair with Vronsky”, “Karenin suppresses an anger” that is “triggered” in him “whenever he sees anyone weeping” (Oatley 42-43). When he is confronted with Vronsky’s tears, he feels “a rush of that nervous emotion always produced in him by the sight of other people’s suffering, and turning away his face, he moved hurriedly to the door, without hearing the rest of his words” (Tolstoy, Garnett 378). In fact, Karenin’s frantic efforts to avoid emotions is akin to a phobia – in the case of a phobic person, what is most feared is the presence of some situation that other people find much less frightening but that he either takes great pains to avoid or else urgently withdraws from. Karenin obviously feels vulnerable and stressed when this strange feeling of physical pity is aroused in him. His paternal deprivation might be a reason

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for this lack of emotional maturity. Parke (1981) noted that “infants whose fathers spent more time with them were more socially responsive and better able to withstand stressful situations than infants relatively deprived of substantial interaction with their fathers. A second female cannot provide fathering” (Byrd). However, it must be noted that, as a concept, “parental deficiencies are seen as a vulnerability factor for, rather than a direct cause of later difficulties” (“Maternal Deprivation”, liquisearch). Karenin hasn’t been able to cultivate a mature attitude towards his marriage and the woman in his life. Even when faced with domestic problems and anxiety, he avoids thinking about it and his mind wanders towards matters of work: “He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it” (Tolstoy, Garnett 264). He seems to look upon marriage as more of a social necessity than an opportunity to attain bliss and happiness with a soulmate. This is reflected in his lack of genuine respect for Anna and his dismissive and pathetic attitude towards her: Absorbed in business with the chief secretary, Alexey Alexandrovitch had completely forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock of annoyance when a servant came in to inform him of her arrival. (Tolstoy, Garnett 294)

Karenin takes no notice of Anna’s growing intimacy with Vronsky until it becomes a social impropriety and is reflected in the faces of others. Karenin’s “perception of Anna will always be mediated by group perception. He does not see Anna; he sees her indiscretion” (Wasiolek 137). Sensitivity to society, not to Anna, leads him to concern himself with Anna’s behavior. Karenin’s “chief objection to Anna’s involvement with Vronsky is not that adultery is a sin, or even that it causes him emotional anguish, but rather that society will react negatively” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). Karenin “thinks of propriety and decency, looking good to the neighbors, over anything else” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). It is “for this reason that he is so willing to overlook Anna’s affair as long as she does not seek a separation or divorce” (“Anna Karenina: Themes”). It is evident that Karenin has developed a ‘false self’ which, willingly or unwillingly, he presents to the world. Such people, even when they do not become psychiatric casualties themselves, can often be responsible for the breakdown of others - spouse, children, as the case may be. Karenin “does not care so much about the fact that his wife loves another man; he cares only that she continues to appear to be a good wife” (“Anna Karenina:

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Themes”). When Anna, whose nature is repelled by falsehood and deception, is unable to keep up appearances, Karenin feels he must act to protect his image and reputation. The author presents Karenin “as a man whose standard of justice is his own convenience” (Knowles): “Only one thing concerned him now – the question of how best, most conveniently and most properly, and consequently most justly, to remove from himself the dirt in which his wife had covered him in her fall and to continue along his road of active, honourable and useful life” (qtd. in Knowles 300).

Character Study of Seryozha (Sergei Alexeyitch Karenin) Based on “extensive research spanning decades, the importance of mothers to the healthy development of children is now irrefutable” (Byrd). Recent research has also provided “clear and compelling evidence of the importance of fathers to the healthy development of children” (Byrd). The “research is clear: mothers and fathers are essential for optimal childrearing” and “gender complementarity affords children the opportunity to thrive in the best possible environment” (Byrd). In Seryozha Karenin, Tolstoy beautifully draws a character who never gets this ‘best possible environment.’ However, Tolstoy’ characterization of Seryozha hasn’t drawn the attention that it deserves. Seryozha, the tenyear-old only son of Anna and Alexei Karenin, is depicted as a lonely, sensitive, individualistic young boy, hugely dependent on his mother’s love. Part of the reason is the difficult relationship he shares with his father, who comes across as remarkably insensitive in his attitude towards his only son: Seryozha’s eyes that had been shining with gaiety and tenderness grew dull and dropped before his father’s gaze. This was the same long-familiar tone his father always took with him, and Seryozha had learned by now to fall in with it. His father always talked to him--so Seryozha felt--as though he were addressing some boy of his own imagination, one of those boys that exist in books, utterly unlike himself. And Seryozha always tried with his father to act being the story-book boy. (Tolstoy, Garnett 479)

Through his pathetic attitude towards his son, his father is only contributing to the development of a deformed personality that is not going to be comfortable in its own skin. The narrator reveals Seryozha’s thoughts about his own condition and seems to ratify them: “In his father’s opinion, he did not want to learn what he was taught. In reality he could not learn that. He could not, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on him than those claims his father and his teacher made upon

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him (italics mine). Those claims were in opposition, and he was in direct conflict with his education” (Tolstoy, Garnett 480). Psychoanalysis gives us insights into the possible long-reaching effects that this kind of “overly controlling” behavior could have on the child: “If the primary carers are overly controlling, or not available, the child can develop doubts about him/herself, prompting a deep-seated lack of confidence which can pervade all aspects of later life” (Kakabadse 187). The narrator reveals his immense understanding of child psychology and convinces the reader about the need to recognize the individuality of a child: His teachers complained that he would not learn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst for knowledge. And he learned from Kapitonitch, from his nurse, from Nadinka, from Vassily Lukitch, but not from his teachers. The spring his father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn their mill-wheels had long dried up at the source, but its waters did their work in another channel (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 480).

It becomes evident that Seryozha suffers from father hunger and Karenin is an inadequate father. In his thoughts, Seryozha voices his protest at this lack of love and understanding from his father: “But why have they all agreed to speak just in the same manner always the dreariest and most useless stuff? Why does he keep me off; why doesn’t he love me? (italics mine) he asked himself mournfully, and could not think of an answer” (Tolstoy, Garnett 478). However, as long as Seryozha has his mother beside him, he bears the lack of understanding and empathy of his father and tutor. But when his mother deserts him (although he is given to understand that she has died), he finds it increasingly difficult to maintain sanity in his loveless young life. The British physician Ian Suttie suggested that “the child’s basic need is for mother-love, and his greatest anxiety is that such love will be lost” (“Maternal Deprivation”). O’Brien et al assert that although “fatherless boys certainly experience a range of conflicts that defy generalization”, essential “conflicts directly involving the mother will be difficult to approach”: “Because the relationship with the mother usually represents the primary object tie, threats to it lead to more dangerous and overwhelming anxiety” (O’Brien 86). This is reflected in Seryozha’s initial response to the absence of his mother as we shall discuss. We’re also told that Seryozha, in his pain at the loss of his mother, often dreamt of her: “When the candle was taken away, Seryozha heard and felt his mother. She stood over him, and with loving eyes caressed him. But then came windmills, a knife, everything began to be mixed up, and he fell asleep” (Tolstoy,

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Garnett 481). Exploring the dynamics of Tolstoy’s writing and characters with his experience of felt-loss, Austin Ratner suggests that “many of Tolstoy’s characters” were aspects of his own self: It won’t be incorrect to assert that many of Tolstoy’s characters are aspects of his own self. When Leo Tolstoy was two, his mother died; when he was eight, his father died; and he writes movingly of a child mourning the death of both mother and father in his first novel Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. It’s one of the few novels that addresses the subject of childhood loss directly and realistically. The theme would echo throughout Tolstoy’s later works. (Ratner)

The impact of the early loss of his mother and later of his father on Tolstoy’s life was huge, and it was only natural that the pain would find its way into Tolstoy’s works both directly and indirectly. (In fact, around the time of Tolstoy’s father’s death, “three deaths occurred” (Birukoff 18). Eighteen months after his father’s death, Tolstoy’s grandmother passed away “and finally the aunt and guardian of the children Baroness OstenSaken” (Birukoff 18). The “guardianship” subsequently “passed to another aunt, Pelagie Yushkoff”) (Birukoff 18). The young Tolstoy was fond of his father and the fact that he was away from his father when he died made it even more difficult for the child to come to grasp with the unforeseen loss. His biography reveals this: His father’s death was the event which left the deepest impression on Tolstoy in his childhood. He used to say that this death called forth in him a feeling of religious awe, bringing the question of life and death vividly before him for the first time. As he was not present when his father died, he would not believe for a long time that he was no longer alive. (Birukoff 66)

Moreover, Tolstoy’s biography gives a moving portrayal of his disbelief at the tragic event and the child’s continued and frantic search for the father who was never to come back: For a long time afterwards, if he looked at the faces of strangers in the streets of Moscow, he not only fancied, but was almost certain, that he might at any moment come upon his father alive. And this mixed attitude of hope and unbelief called forth in him a special feeling of tenderness. (Birukoff 66)

In Volume III of his work Attachment and Loss (Loss, Sadness and Depression), Bowlby comments on the yearning that the child feels for the

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“lost parent” after his (or her) death and how his difficulty in accepting the reality may result in a search for the missed parent: Evidence shows that after a parent’s death a child or adolescent commonly yearns as persistently as does an adult and is ready to express such yearning openly whenever a listener is sympathetic. At times he entertains hope that his lost parent will return; at others he recognizes reluctantly that that cannot be and is sad. On occasion he will be observed searching (though this feature is not well recorded in the literature) or will describe experiencing a vivid sense of the dead person’s presence. In some circumstances he will feel angry about his loss and in others guilty. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 210)

Indeed (as Ratner says), the subject of childhood loss echoes through many of Tolstoy’s works. In Anna Karenina, the depiction of Seryozha’s search for his mother (and this deserves to be quoted at length), and his unwillingness to accept that she is no more is similar to what Tolstoy himself experienced after the loss of his father. While waiting for his father, Seryozha sat at the table playing with a penknife, and fell to dreaming. Among Seryozha’s favorite occupations was searching for his mother during his walks. He did not believe in death generally, and in her death in particular, in spite of what Lidia Ivanovna had told him and his father had confirmed, and it was just because of that, and after he had been told she was dead, that he had begun looking for her when out for a walk. Every woman of full, graceful figure with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of such a woman such a feeling of tenderness was stirred within him that his breath failed him, and tears came into his eyes. And he was on the tiptoe of expectation that she would come up to him, would lift her veil. All her face would be visible, she would smile, she would hug him, he would sniff her fragrance, feel the softness of her arms, and cry with happiness... (Tolstoy, Garnett 478)

In Seryozha’s case, we find that it is his guardians’ “reluctance to share information and feeling” with him (regarding his mother’s disappearance) that partly results in his denial of the news of his mother’s death. Bowlby rightly states that “only, indeed, when he is given true information, and the sympathy and support to bear it, can a child or adolescent be expected to respond to his loss with any degree of realism” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 208). Bowlby lists the following conditions that will favour a child’s ability for healthy mourning: ...first, that he should have enjoyed a reasonably secure relationship with his parents prior to the loss; secondly that, as already discussed, he be

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Bowlby also suggests that in such cases the parent’s “own difficulty in expressing feeling had originated during [his/her] childhood in response to” their own parent’s “strictures” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 218). He also makes it clear that “a child is at even greater disadvantage than is an adult should his relatives or other companions prove unsympathetic to his yearning, his sorrow and his anxiety” for, whereas “an adult can, if he wishes, seek further for understanding and comfort should his first exchanges prove unhelpful, a child is rarely in a position to do so” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 222). Giving further insight into this, Bowlby states the following pertinent points: Other problems arise from a child having even less knowledge and understanding of issues of life and death than has an adult. In consequence he is more apt to make false inferences from the information he receives...As a result it is necessary for the adults caring for a bereaved child to give him even more opportunity to discuss what has happened and its far-reaching implications than it is with an adult...From this brief review we conclude that a substantial proportion of the special difficulties which children experience after loss of a parent are a direct result of the effect that the loss has had on the surviving parent’s behaviour towards them. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 225)

To anyone who carefully reads the passages dealing with Seryozha’s life, his father’s attitude towards him and especially the circumstances that come into play after his mother’s disappearance, it will become clear that the conditions were unfavourable. Some readers may wonder why I’m equating the absence of Seryozha’s mother with the actual death of a parent. The reasons are not difficult to understand. Firstly, as we know, Seryozha’s father and Lidia Ivanovna both explicitly misinform him by saying that his mother has died; and there is nothing to suggest him otherwise. Secondly, (as Bowlby makes it clear) irrespective of the cause of loss, long-term absence of the parent with no definite evidence that the wait will end can also be significantly traumatic for a child and bring similar effects.

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There is also an uncanny resemblance between the character portrayal of Seryozha and the character of the young Leo (depicted in his biography Leo Tolstoy His Life And Work), as can be seen through the following information: “Thus developed this remarkable child, thoughtful, impressionable, shy, affectionate, very lonely owing to the immense power of inner life in him which found no response in his surroundings” (Birukoff 90). Interestingly, Seryozha was also the name of Tolstoy’s “handsome” elder brother, whom he “admired and imitated” since early childhood (Birukoff 60). Speaking of the anxiety and helplessness that is felt by the child abandoned by its primary caregiver, O’Brien states that despite feeling this “dangerous and overwhelming anxiety”, the “essential conflicts” gradually “become repressed simply because awareness of them leads to a greater sense of abandonment” (O’Brien 86). Psychological Repression “consists in excluding impulses and their ideational representation from consciousness” (“Repression: Concepts”). When some unconscious desires make an attempt to come to the conscious or reality level, it creates unbearable conflict resulting in anxiety for the ego. The said ideas, wishes and impulses are not consciously rejected but they are inhibited in deeper levels of personality...It is the central theme in dreams, in anxiety, in psychoses and neuroses and in free association, and in interpretation of dreams. (“Repression: Concepts”)

The publication of Freud’s works made the psychoanalytic literature accessible to researchers leading to further studies and supporting findings, and these gave impetus to the understanding that repression is an important defense mechanism in everyday life. Psychological Repression, in fact, is “a primary psychic mechanism in Freudian theory” (“The Contemporary”): Memories of events that were too powerful and traumatic are repressed they are pushed down into the unconscious. This is not the same thing as forgetting - for the Freudian, we forget nothing. The memories are still there, and they are still active, but they influence our psychic state and our behaviours without our being aware of them. Thus, in later life, the events that occurred before we were five years old continue to influence us. (Mason)

Bowlby studied the consequences of separation between mother and child at a later age and concluded that “these are more important than is generally believed - separation puts in jeopardy the instinctual bonds and triggers off the ‘work of mourning’ very similar to that observed in adults”

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(qtd. in Ainsworth 87). Bowlby believed that “the anxiety of the child” was “the consequence of the breaking of these same bonds” (Ainsworth 87). Another closely related defense mechanism is blocking which is the “temporary or transient inhibition of thinking” (Klamen 51). Sadock and Kaplan say that “affects and impulses may also be involved” (Sadock 202). Blocking “closely resembles repression but differs in that tension arises when the impulse, affect, or thought is inhibited” (Sadock 202). Traditionally “the mental processes and also the ways of behaving that mitigate” pain “are known as defences and are referred to by terms such as repression, splitting, denial, dissociation, projection, displacement, identification and reaction formation” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 139). Seryozha’s intense mother hunger is gradually suppressed and repressed within a year: “The dreams and memories of his mother, which had made him ill after seeing her, did not occupy his thoughts now. When they came back to him, he studiously drove them away, regarding them as shameful and girlish, below the dignity of a boy and a schoolboy” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 656). Studying a group of ‘deprived’ children “who had failed to adjust in foster-homes and had to be replaced”, Williams found that “80% of the ‘breakdown’ group” had “been first separated from their mothers before the age of two years” (Ainsworth 115). The differences that emerged through the use of the Rorschach, Children’s Apperception Test and BeneAnthony Family Relations Test may be summarized as follows: in contrast with the control group the deprived children (i.e., the breakdown group) tended at first to be uninhibited and impulsive, but by seven years of age appeared to be defensive and limited; they tended to feel punished, rejected and deserted by parents, and lonely and confused; they tended to deny normal dependency feelings, massively to repress aggressive feelings and grossly to lack self-regard. (Ainsworth 115)

Rene Spitz, a psychoanalyst, “undertook research in the 1930s and ‘40s on the effects of maternal deprivation” with his investigation focussing on “children who had experienced abrupt, long-term separation from the familiar caregiver, as for instance when the mother was sent to prison” (“Languages”). Spitz “adopted the term anaclitic depression to describe the child’s reaction of grief, anger, and apathy to partial emotional deprivation (the loss of a loved object) and proposed that when the love object is returned to the child within three to five months, recovery is prompt but after five months, they will show the symptoms of increasingly serious deterioration” (“Maternal Deprivation”).

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Seryozha shows evident symptoms of anaclitic depression in his “grief, anger, and apathy” at being deserted by his mother. After being away from his mother for a long time, he shows signs of “serious deterioration”. When his maternal uncle Stepan Oblonsky tries to draw him into a conversation and mentions his absent mother, Seryozha is clearly uncomfortable: “Do you remember your mother?” he asked suddenly. “No, I don’t,” Seryozha said quickly. He blushed crimson, and his face clouded over (italics mine). And his uncle could get nothing more out of him. His tutor found his pupil on the staircase half an hour later, and for a long while he could not make out whether he was ill-tempered or crying. “What is it? I expect you hurt yourself when you fell down?” “If I had hurt myself, nobody should have found it out, that’s certain (italics mine).” “Well, what is it, then?” “Leave me alone! If I remember, or if I don’t remember?...what business is it of his? Why should I remember? (italics mine) Leave me in peace!” he said, addressing not his tutor, but the whole world. (Tolstoy, Garnett 657)

This provides a brilliant exemplification of the “central psychoanalytic idea ‘that what is suppressed continues to exist in normal people as well as abnormal, and remains capable of mental functioning’” (de Berg 29). This reminds me of two of the cases described by Bowlby, those of Henry and Geraldine, which “illustrate how a bereavement greatly intensifies any tendency a child may already have towards abjuring his desire for love and proclaiming instead his total self-sufficiency” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 283). In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim states that “in child or adult, the unconscious is a powerful determinant of behavior”: When the unconscious is repressed and its content denied entrance into awareness, then eventually the person’s conscious mind will be partially overwhelmed by derivatives of these unconscious elements, or else he is forced to keep such rigid, compulsive control over them that his personality may become severely crippled. (Bettleheim)

Citing similar behavioral patterns in children faced with maternal absence, Bowlby states that this kind of behaviour “is difficult to understand until its rationale is known” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 210). In cases where the mother has died, Bowlby states that it is apparent that “the angry outburst and/or withdrawal from the situation are the ways that a child who is unable to mourn responds whenever the death is mentioned”

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(Bowlby, Loss Sadness 278). The anger that the child feels is unhealthy for his own psyche, for, “evidence demonstrates without doubt that the presence of hostile impulses, whether conscious or unconscious, directed towards a loved figure can greatly increase anxiety” (Bowlby, Separation 196). Moreover, Bowlby asserted that “this cognitive disconnection of a response from the interpersonal situation that elicited it…play(s) an enormous role in psychopathology” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 59). He also maintained that “much of the information liable to be defensively excluded” is of the kind that “that leads a child’s attachment behaviour and feeling to be aroused intensely but to remain unassuaged” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 62-63). Seryozha misses his mother but is unwilling to admit to it. He has become adept at suppressing any feelings of hurt and is sure of his capacity to hide them: “If I had hurt myself, nobody should have found it out, that’s certain” (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 657). Referring to this kind of behavior as a “vehement assertion of self-sufficiency”, Bowlby states that in cases where the mother/mother-figure’s absence is temporary, and she returns to be with the child after a certain period of time the behavioral pattern can persist for some time and be directed against the mother (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 168). Citing researches, he gives examples where “even when” the child is “hurt”, “he is likely still to make no attempt to seek her comfort and will even spurn her attempts to provide it” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 26). Repression means “that we drive these desires (in forms of fantasy, dream) into the subconscious” - and “this requires the expansion of a lot of energy” (“Psychodynamics of Anxiety”). And “when the unconscious instinctual drives break through, anxiety automatically follows” (“Psychodynamics of Anxiety”). The child’s anger at his mother for abandoning him is evident. This tendency in the deserted child to feel the “original ambivalence” of love-hate is corroborated by psychoanalytical studies: Moreover, the child looks at the death of the mother more frequently as though it were a case of leaving, of willful abandonment, and this is associated with resentment. In other words, the original ambivalence (lovehate) which the child harbours towards the mother may be deepened to a degree which leaves no resolution, in the case of the mother’s death. I have loved you, you have abandoned me, and therefore I hate you. (Holbrook 42)

In such a scenario it is also common for the child to be bitter for having been kept in the dark about the actual reason for his mother’s absence and

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the child is likely to be “much preoccupied about who or what might have been responsible for it” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 292): “A child’s persistent longing for his mother is often suffused with intense, generalized hostility. This has been reported by several workers, e.g. Robertson (1953) and Spitz (1953) and was one of the most striking findings in the first of Heinicke’s systematic studies” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 20). That intense sorrow can give rise to “anger and hostility” is understandable (Bowlby, Separation 197). Shand (1920) “in his picture of grieving gives anger a central place” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 31): The tendency of sorrow to arouse anger under certain conditions appears to be part of the fundamental constitution of the mind…The nature of sorrow is so complex, its effects in different characters so various, that it is rare, if not impossible, for any writer to show an insight into all of them. (qtd. in Bowlby, Loss Sadness 31-33)

It is also to be noted that Seryozha’s anger is now directed not only against his perpetrators but to the “whole world” in general (Tolstoy, Garnett 657). If we refer to Bowlby’s comment that “a child’s life” is “even less within his control than is that of a grown-up”, we can probably begin to understand the intense conflict that a child faced with such a situation undergoes (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 222). As can be seen in Seryozha’s case, “deviations consist of disturbances in the way the attachment behaviour of the individual concerned becomes organized, usually in the direction either of anxious and insecure attachment or else of a vehement assertion of self-sufficiency” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 168). It is to be noted that the analysis of Seryozha’s behavior done here is of a phase in his life when he was ‘separated’ from his mother. In his final letter in reply to his critics, Bowlby had “acknowledged the importance of the difference between separation and deprivation, but had maintained that they were both adverse factors, neither of which should be neglected, and that separation could not but affect the emotional attachment between child and mother” (Ainsworth 90). In his work Attachment and Loss Bowlby draws the reader’s attention to the fact that the studies considered in his work deal with “differential incidence of parent death during childhood in psychiatric casualties and controls”, but “there are many more studies that have the related but broader aim of studying the differential incidence of loss of a parent during childhood irrespective of the cause of loss” (italics mine) (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 226). He goes on to say that the “findings of these other studies are of no less significance for psychiatry” and regrets “their omission” (“for reasons of consistency”) (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 226).

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Since separation from an attachment figure “is accompanied by longing and often also by anger, and loss by anguish and despair, it is entirely appropriate to use the word anxiety to denote what is felt either when an attachment figure cannot be found or when there is no confidence that an attachment figure will be available and responsive when desired” (Bowlby, Separation 303). Loss leads to anxiety and anxiety can lead to defensive processes like repression. We had earlier introduced psychological repression as also being a normal phenomenon in everyday life. However, Thornton notes the process through which it can gradually give rise to “dysfunctional behaviour”: Repression is thus one of the central defence mechanisms by which the ego seeks to avoid internal conflict and pain, and to reconcile reality with the demands of both id and super-ego. As such it is completely normal and an integral part of the developmental process through which every child must pass on the way to adulthood. However, the repressed instinctual drive, as an energy-form, is not and cannot be destroyed when it is repressed - it continues to exist intact in the unconscious, from where it exerts a determining force upon the conscious mind, and can give rise to the dysfunctional behaviour characteristic of neuroses. (italics mine) (Thornton)

Basing his premise on data from extensive research, Bowlby believed that “selective exclusion occurs more readily in children than in adults”: There is reason to suspect that vulnerability to conditions initiating defensive exclusion is at a maximum during the early years of life, perhaps the first three in particular…Although vulnerability diminishes during later childhood and early adolescence, it probably does so only slowly and remains comparatively high throughout most of these years. (italics mine) (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 62)

I’m attempting to show here that Seryozha, through the compulsive and traumatic reliance on repression as a defense mechanism, gradually moves towards what is known in psychoanalytical parlance as abnormal repression: “Abnormal repression, or complex neurotic behavior involving repression and the superego, occurs when repression develops and/or continues to develop, due to the internalized feelings of anxiety…” (“Psychological Repression”) The “conflict between the id drives and the ego” is hence resolved through “two basic defence mechanisms of the ego”:

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One of them is repression, which involves the blocking of memories, impulses and ideas from the conscious mind, but does not lead to resolution of the conflict. The second is identification, which involves incorporation of characteristics of the same-sex parent into the child’s own ego. The boy by adopting this mechanism seeks for the reduction of castration fears, since his similarity with the father is thought to protect the boy from him. (“Psychosexual development”)

I can only attribute it to Tolstoy’s genius for realistic psychological portrayals that in depicting the traumatic condition of young Seryozha, he shows him to subconsciously employ repression to fight his fears, and also resort to identification: He disliked seeing his uncle, so like his mother, for it called up those memories of which he was ashamed. He disliked it all the more as from some words he had caught as he waited at the study door, and still more from the faces of his father and uncle, he guessed that they must have been talking of his mother. And to avoid condemning the father with whom he lived and on whom he was dependent, and, above all, to avoid giving way to sentimentality, which he considered so degrading, Seryozha tried not to look at his uncle who had come to disturb his peace of mind, and not to think of what he recalled to him. (italics mine) (Tolstoy, Garnett 656)

Seryozha’s attempts to identify with his father are evident. I also believe that his effort to “avoid giving way to sentimentality, which he considered so degrading” are in-part influenced by his father’s attitudes (Tolstoy, Garnett 656). The narrator also lets us know that Seryozha’s subconscious identification is driven in part by his realization that his father was the guardian with “whom he lived and on whom he was dependent” (Tolstoy, Garnett 656). At the same time we realize that Seryozha’s equation with his father hasn’t changed and he talks more freely “away from his father’s presence”: “But when Stepan Arkadyevitch, going out after him, saw him on the stairs, and calling to him, asked him how he spent his playtime at school, Seryozha talked more freely to him away from his father’s presence” (Tolstoy, Garnett 656). In his work Attachment and Loss, Bowlby had theorised: “whether the response (to maternal loss) is a pathological one or not appears to be determined in very high degree by the way a child is treated during the period of separation and after it” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 166). Several researchers have stressed on the “enormous influence on a child’s responses to loss of such variables as when and what he is told, how the surviving parent himself responds, and how he wishes and expects his child to respond” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness

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205). Bowlby stresses that “to discuss children’s responses without constant reference to these (environmental) conditions would be unrealistic” – the reason why throughout Volume 3 of his work he is “much concerned with how the people in a child’s immediate environment are behaving towards him” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 205). Bowlby asserted that a child is at an “even greater disadvantage than is an adult should his relatives or other companions prove unsympathetic to his yearning, his sorrow, and his anxiety” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 222). In Seryozha’s case, the impression given is that he never had an opportunity to talk freely about the event. Having already dissected Karenin’s attitude towards his son and the relationship that the father-son shared, it seems likely that Karenin implicitly discouraged questions at this time and that he could not bear to talk about Anna and the circumstances that lead to her desertion of her son. There are families where “open expression of thought and feeling is encouraged, and loving support provided when asked for” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 174). There could be other families, by contrast, where: affectional bonds are little valued, attachment behaviour is regarded as childish and weak and is rebuffed, all expression of feeling is frowned upon and contempt expressed for those who cry. Because they are condemned and despised, a child comes ultimately to inhibit his attachment behaviour and to bottle up his feelings. Furthermore he comes, like his parents, to view his yearning for love as a weakness, his anger as a sin and his grief as childish. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 174)

Given (what must have been) his father’s silence, it is hardly surprising that Seryozha was extremely confused about his mother’s absence. Such confusion might have been compounded, moreover, by the child hearing several different stories about the reasons for his mother’s absence from different people. Inevitably, Seryozha was left in a sea of uncertainty. Those “who have worked in this field and especially the clinicians are clear that nothing but confusion and pathology results when news of a parent’s death is withheld from children, or glossed over, and when expression of feeling is discouraged either implicitly or explicitly” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 207). Robertson through his studies of children “undergoing separation experiences” observed and identified “three phases of response to separation” (Ainsworth 135). Although his studies were done on children of ages one to four years, it is interesting that Seryozha (though older) also shows the three phases. Robertson, in his study, “paid particular attention to the effects of the disruption of the relationship that had already been

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established between the child and his mother” (Ainsworth 135). The three phases of response to ‘separation’ that were observed were: (a) protest, characterized by crying and acute distress at the loss of the mother and by efforts to recapture her through the limited means at the child’s disposal; (b) despair, characterized by increasing hopelessness, withdrawal, and decreasing efforts to regain the mother, for whom the child seems to be mourning; (c) detachment (earlier termed ‘denial’), characterized behaviourally by “settling down” in the separation environment, accepting the care of whatever substitute figures are available, with marked loss of attachment behaviour towards the mother. (Ainsworth 135)

There is reason to believe that Seryozha’s developing psychopathology was caused by his father’s pathetic attitude towards him. Bowlby points out how such behavior in the child develops due to lack of support from the ‘available’ guardian: Disparaging, perhaps sarcastic, remarks made by parents whenever a child is distressed and seeks comfort result in his learning that to cry and to seek comfort is to court rebuff and contempt. Cultivation of self-sufficiency and a self-protective shell, with as much disavowal as possible of all desire for love and support, are the natural sequelae. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 185)

Information given in the text points to the fact that Karenin had always been blind to how his child might be feeling; that he himself tended to avoid expressing feeling and gave explanations and rationalizations instead. Discussing such a child’s behavior (the kind that Seryozha displays after his mother’s absence), Bowlby terms the inherent parentchild relationship in such cases as a “vicious circle”: There is, moreover, a vicious circle here. Children who respond in the ways described, the evidence shows, are commonly the children of parents who themselves have little understanding or sympathy for a person’s desire for love and care, either their own or their children’s. After a loss, therefore, these parents are extremely likely to stifle their own grief and to be especially insensitive to how their children are feeling. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 278)

Even if we refer to the circumstances prior to Anna’s separation from her husband, we can see why Seryozha went on to develop compulsive self-reliance. His mother, although attached to her son, didn’t have all the time in the world to give to him; trapped as she was in a loveless marriage

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and having to frequently take recourse to social engagements to try and lead a fruitful existence. Karenin’s erratic existence as an inadequate father-figure only provided further occasions for Seryozha to feel rejected by him. It also becomes evident that Seryozha has had a traumatic time ever since Anna deserted him, and his uncle can’t help noticing that the child’s eyes were “not childish now” and “no longer innocent” (Tolstoy, Garnett 656). Tolstoy earlier shows his recognition of the influence of father hunger when he suggests that it is the absence of a father that “partly explains why Grisha hits Tania and she does something awful in the bushes” (Karpushina). It is evident that a person’s character traits and behavior in adult life may not be adequately understood if we view it in isolation from his childhood circumstances. Freud postulated that “each individual displays traits of character in adult life which result from particular childhood experiences” and that “such experiences are driven by the way a child reconciles external forces of control and constraint with their personal needs” (Kakabadse 185). Having examined Seryozha’s character, life circumstances and behavior (with particular emphasis on the period subsequent to his mother’s departure) in considerable detail in this chapter, I cannot help but wonder at the kind of future (something that, as we know, does not find a place in Tolstoy’s work) that would lie ahead for him. We do know that his beloved mother goes on to give up her life on the railway tracks, a death that Tolstoy presents as gruesome. In many cases where a child’s parent has committed suicide, the surviving parent and relatives attempt to keep the suicide a secret. Bowlby tells us that in some of these cases, the child may discover the truth soon afterwards - from a “newspaper, a relative or overhearing a conversation” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 296). Others discover it later, and some may not get a definite idea for quite some time. There is a tendency in some of the children to “blame themselves” for the parent’s suicide, whereas others blame the surviving parent (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 220). Also, “the defensive processes described by the psychoanalyst seem similar to certain phenomena observed in the psychology of learning” – “certain sequences of behaviour once well learned may be very resistant to change, and may constitute a serious block to learning a new sequence of behaviour” (Ainsworth 152). These may lead to instances where old habits once formed block the inculcation of new habits. This brings to mind the example of a golfer who cannot learn to hit straight after having got used to slicing his drive. The psychoanalytic position implies that an early experience can set up certain dynamic processes that become entrenched or ingrained, and that

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tend to continue despite the subsequent alteration of the reality situation. Thus early maternal deprivation can be viewed as requiring the establishment of defensive operations, which serve to insulate the child against the painful frustration of seeking an interaction with an environment that is unstimulating and unresponsive. Once entrenched, this defensive operation tends to maintain itself, insulating the child against interaction with an environment that could prove supportive, responsive and helpful if he could only be receptive. According to this position, reversibility depends upon the effect of efforts to break down the defensive processes. Some of Bowlby’s publications imply this position. (Ainsworth 152)

Ainsworth points to the fact that defensive operations that are brought about in the child through “early experience” become “entrenched” in the individual psyche and tend to persist into adulthood (Ainsworth 152). It is also evident that “reversibility” will depend strictly on favourable circumstances that result in “efforts to break down the defensive processes” (Ainsworth 152). It is not difficult to surmise that such favourable circumstances may be available but rarely; and will often need to comprise of therapy that will not usually be made available to the subject if his condition does not appear serious on the surface or merit much concern. Bowlby’s studies, however, suggested that a parent’s death through suicide can present more challenges to the surviving child than had been hitherto recognized. Presenting three surveys that output “findings suggesting that the incidence of psychiatric disturbance following a parent’s suicide is unusually high” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 295), Bowlby states: Considering the traumatic circumstances surrounding a death due to suicide and the strong tendency to conceal the facts from children it would be no surprise were the loss of a parent by suicide lead to an incidence of, and perhaps a degree of, psychopathology appreciably higher than for deaths due to other causes. (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 294)

Moreover, subsequent experiences of “insufficiency, distortion or discontinuity in interpersonal interaction may be important in reinforcing impairments that otherwise might have been reversed more or less completely” (Ainsworth 154). The deficient parental care that Seryozha is likely to receive after his mother’s suicide makes him especially vulnerable after the incident. As Bowlby has stated: Amongst all those who have surveyed different groups of individuals who have lost a parent during childhood there is now substantial agreement in regard to the enormous importance of a child’s experience after the loss. Individuals who later develop a psychiatric disorder, it is found, are far

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I will reiterate here that the reader must think of ‘psychiatric disorder’ on broad terms, encompassing serious disorders that may be evident in a few interactions with the subject, as well as those disorders that will tend to be more-or-less hidden from our view. We’ve already examined how prone Seryozha becomes to repression (or defensive exclusion) following his mother’s absence. Commenting on the severe effects that defensive exclusion may give rise to, Bowlby states: First, there can be little doubt that those persons in whom defensive exclusion plays a prominent part are handicapped in their dealing with other human beings when compared to those in whom it plays only a minor part. Furthermore, they are more prone to suffer breakdowns in functioning when, for periods lasting weeks, months or years, they may be unable to deal effectively with their environment. Thus, whatever the benefits of defensive exclusion may possibly be, the personality which adopts it pays a penalty, sometimes severe. (italics mine) (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 62)

Moreover, there is enough evidence to show that “events of later years, notably loss of mother before the tenth or eleventh birthday, when combined with certain other conditions can play a causal role in the development of depressive disorder” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 167). Through an analysis of the results of several studies, conducted by researchers far-removed from each other, Bowlby realized that there is an especial susceptibility to depression and depressive disorders of subjects who have gone through early maternal loss. He also hypothesized that the subject’s despair and the ensuing ‘defensive detachment’ make them prone to later psychological difficulties: Bowlby attaches particular significance to studies reporting an association between childhood bereavement and depressive illness because of the similarity he had observed between grief and mourning in the adult and the ‘despair’ phase of response to separation in the young child. Furthermore, he hypothesizes that the defensive detachment which succeeds despair, if the young child suffers a depriving separation for a prolonged period, precludes a healthy working through of grief, and predisposes him to later depressive reactions. (Ainsworth 114)

Given the facts and the circumstances that Seryozha has to face up to, the prognosis for his future must be considered ominous.

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In conclusion, it must be stated that the evidence that Bowlby presents suggests that the “most significant object that can be lost is not the breast but the mother herself (and sometimes the father)”, that the “vulnerable period is not confined to the first year but extends over a number of years of childhood (as Freud always held) and on into adolescence as well” (as also seen in our analysis of Seryozha), and that “loss of a parent gives rise not only to separation anxiety and grief but to processes of mourning in which aggression, the function of which is to achieve reunion, plays a major part” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 37). I would also like to point out that our analysis of Seryozha’s behaviour by-and-large follows the period after his mother’s departure (from his life) and not the period after her death (which in any case, is not presented in the novel). As Bowlby points out in his work, it would “be a pity to confine…the discussion to the effects of loss due to the single cause of death, since a great number, probably a majority, of losses that occur in our society are due to causes other than death” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 64). In fact, he presents several case-studies in his work where he examines the effects of loss (of variable periods) due to causes other than death and considers them (due to reasons already analysed in this chapter) “on no less significance for psychiatry” (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 226). Our analysis of Karenin’s behavior (in this chapter, as well as the detailed analysis in the previous chapter) also becomes crucial because it throws light on the transmission of behavior patterns from parent-to-child, what Bowlby refers to as a “vicious circle”, as discussed earlier (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 278): Because in all these respects children tend unwittingly to identify with parents and therefore to adopt, when they become parents, the same patterns of behaviour towards children that they themselves have experienced during their own childhood, patterns of interaction are transmitted, more or less faithfully, from one generation to another. Thus the inheritance of mental health and of mental ill health through the medium of family microculture is certainly no less important, and may well be far more important, than is their inheritance through the medium of genes. (Bowlby, Separation 245)

Afterword For long the “theoretical standpoint” that gave “scant weight to the influence of environmental factors and has explained almost all differences in personality development by reference to some phase of development in which the individual is thought to be fixated” (Bowlby,

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Loss Sadness 243) held sway, and it also claimed to account for many instances of psychopathology. However, through studies conducted and research done, some psychoanalysts began to opine that some instances of psychopathology could more appropriately be said to originate from primal loss of the mother in early years, rather than through a so-called fixation at a particular stage of psychosexual development. Studies to identify the “developmental roots of depressive disorder” by various psychoanalysts like Abraham, Gero, Deutsch, and Jacobsen “implicated” the “loss of the mother or of mother’s love” as the root cause (Bowlby, Loss Sadness 167). Meanwhile, insulated from communication with these workers, Bowlby was making identical observations in London. The unanimity of their conclusions stamped their findings as authentic. Today, of course, developmental psychology has reached a stage where examination of the “influences of nature and nurture on the process of human development” (as well as processes of change in context and across time) have become its basic tenets (Barrett 275). Many “researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual’s behavior and environmental factors, including social context and the built environment” (“Attachment Theory”, studylib). But when Bowlby first came out with similar ideas and findings, they were thought to be controversial. He unequivocally stressed the importance of the mothering (or lack of it) that the child received to influence its subsequent personality development. Deprivation research conducted has amply demonstrated “the serious impact on the infant and young child of the absence of a mother, even though the child’s basic physical needs may be adequately met” (Ainsworth 158). The “conclusion Bowlby reaches in his monograph is that the prolonged deprivation of the young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character and so on the whole of his future life” (Ainsworth 7). Other notable researchers like Lowrey, Bender, and Goldfarb, embarking on studies of the effects of early maternal loss and institutionalization, were all struck with the consequent disruption of the capacity to form warm and lasting relationships on the part of children undergoing such experiences. These and other investigations derived impetus from Sigmund Freud’s earlier conclusions regarding the critical influence of early experiences upon later personality development. The “direct study of the consequences of maternal deprivation” was the “subject of a considerable number of papers, particularly by Burlingham & Freud” (Ainsworth 76). During this period also, “a number of workers, especially Bowlby and Bender, recognized the frequent later appearance of

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deep and pervasive character disorders with delinquent behavioural manifestations in children so severely deprived” (Ainsworth 10). Numerous “research workers...engaged in the theoretical study of these problems or approached them experimentally, clinically or statistically, but it is to Bowlby that credit is due for having examined them again systematically” (Ainsworth 75). Indeed, most “workers who have devoted all their activities to studying the consequences of maternal deprivation have been very exacting in regard to their own work”, and “this applies particularly to Bowlby” (Ainsworth 88). Thanks to Bowlby, “our knowledge of the effects of maternal deprivation will be seen to be a remarkably coherent body of knowledge - with many gaps and open-ended questions to be sure - but with no implicit controversy” (Ainsworth 103). Research on emotional and maternal deprivation has been pursued for years on the theoretical foundations that Bowlby had helped outline, and “the conclusion has been reached that only maternal care is capable of preventing the long-term consequences of early emotional frustrations” (Ainsworth 75). Moreover, “numerous authors have noted the irreversibility of responses learnt under stress” (Ainsworth 79). The underutilization of Bowlby’s attachment theory in psychoanalytical criticism can be ascribed to several reasons. The initial publication of the primary tenets of his theory led to many misunderstandings and faulty interpretations of his theory. The inference was “loosely made by some that only children experiencing” extreme maternal deprivation will exhibit affectionless personality traits (Ainsworth 12). Also, it was observed that “some deprived children are found to be more adversely affected than others, while some emerge with little or no apparent damage” (Ainsworth 100101). The “fact that some seem to escape unscathed...led some critics to question the validity of the proposition that maternal deprivation is pathogenic” (Ainsworth 101). Considering this variability of the impact of maternal deprivation, Ainsworth states: The reasons for this seeming ‘immunity’ from marked psychological disorders in some children undergoing experience of this nature are not clearly understood. Factors relating to genetic endowment may be involved, as well as special environmental circumstances--e.g., the child’s attractiveness or personal appeal may lead substitute caregivers to give the child special care or attention (Ainsworth 13)…When other sources of variability in degree of damage have been ruled out, the variability that remains is usually attributed to individual differences in vulnerability, and these in turn are attributed either to differences in genetic constitution or to differences in environmental influences upon development prior to the onset of deprivation or to both. (Ainsworth 101)

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Researchers like Bowlby and Ainsworth recognized that “in regard to separation (actual or psychological)”, the “effects of such experience upon the infant” would “vary according to its nature and length of duration, as well as to the quality of substitute maternal relationships available” (Ainsworth 21). And “in addition to the development stage of the infant or young child at the time of occurrence of emotional trauma, the particular and unique conflicts with which the young child is dealing during that stage may influence his immediate response, the type of resulting symptomatology, and later personality development” (Ainsworth 22). In fact, some of the diversities in the effects of experiences “can be explained by the great diversity of antecedent experiences that have been subsumed under the term ‘maternal deprivation’” (Ainsworth 101). Ainsworth also pointed out how the “three dimensions of mother-child interaction insufficiency, distortion and discontinuity” had all been included by “loose custom” under the term ‘maternal deprivation’ (Ainsworth 99). (Moreover, it needs to be noted that “all three variables” may be applicable and “pertinent to the description of an individual case”, and hence the “confounding of variables that may occur in the individual case makes it difficult to sort out the effect of any one variable in isolation” (Ainsworth 109).) Ainsworth also suggests that the variability in effects also seem to be related to inborn tendencies: But even the same class of deprivation experience affecting the same process (although perhaps with different degrees of severity) may result in disparate overt outcomes in different children. (Of course, some of the variation in degree of damage may be explained by differences in the severity of the deprivation experiences themselves.) Thus, for example, the processes through which interpersonal ties are established and maintained may be affected, but one child may emerge as detached and ‘affectionless’, while another may cling anxiously to his mother and seem over-dependent on her. (Ainsworth 101)

What makes psychoanalysis challenging (and in fact lends interest to each individual case and psychological history) is that, given a uniform set of antecedent conditions (as far as we can rely on them being ‘uniform’), there may or may not be uniformity in the pathways that the subjects’ course of development takes. In her reassessment of the effects of maternal deprivation, Ainsworth too alerted psychoanalysts and readers from developing the “erroneous belief” that “a single complex of experiences, more or less prolonged, occurring in early childhood will have a uniform and lasting effect in all cases” (Ainsworth 104). She also reminds us that

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the uniqueness of each parent-child relationship and other family dynamics would naturally impact the effect brought on the child: Because of the intensely unique quality of each parent-child diad occurring as it does in an interlocking network of marital and family interpersonal relationships at a particular point in time, and involving persons with idiosyncratic personality attributes - any event, whether it be actual separation, psychological estrangement from the parents, or some other significant happening, may have greatly varying effects on both parent and child. (Ainsworth 20)

In this context, it will be noted that in this chapter we have done a psychoanalytic study of three characters from Anna Karenina, differing in age, position, and situation in life. Although they have very different characters and personality traits and unique psychological life-history, I found each of them to be appropriate subjects for a psychoanalytic study through the prism of maternal deprivation theory, or what is in common parlance (and in psychoanalytic circles) better known today as attachment theory. The reader should not wonder if he finds differences or uniformity in the way the maternal deprivation theory has been applied to these three differing characters. I have given indications in the text that Tolstoy was more often than not aware of the significance of the characters he was portraying vis-a-vis their psychological history, and yet he often does not give us a sufficiently elaborate psychological history of the characters. We can only conjecture as to why he doesn’t do so – possibly, representation was his forte rather than interpretation; or else, like Turgenev, he too believed that “a poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away”; or possibly, deep-set psychological reasons might have dissuaded him from doing so (“Ivan Turgenev Quotes”). Due to the aforementioned limitations in the characters’ psychological origins and history, the reader may sometimes be tempted to feel that whereas my analysis and thesis has sufficient grounds in some respects, it relies on conjecture with respect to other aspects. From my point of view, where I see that the characters’ behavioral traits and tendencies (as represented by the author) all pertinently point to and appear to be clues to certain patterns of early history, I cannot but try and illuminate them. I do not presume that all my findings or propositions will agree with all readers, but if attention is paid to the evidence presented from the text of the novel, as well as parallels drawn with the findings of various psychoanalytic researchers who have worked closely with the general

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populace, it will be seen that the richness of the character portrayals from Tolstoy’s novel warrants a closer look at them (from a psychological perspective) than has hitherto been given. Researchers in the field of maternal deprivation have presented multiple and multifarious case-studies, and the “paradoxical nature of the diversity of outcomes has led some critics to be sceptical that they could stem from the same cause” (Ainsworth 102). Thus, it is “easy but fallacious to jump from the observation that psychopathic or affectionless characters in a clinical setting commonly have experienced severe, prolonged and early maternal deprivation to the conviction that severe, early and prolonged maternal deprivation commonly produces psychopathic or affectionless characters” (Ainsworth 108). It must be remembered that the “development of the individual organism is an unbroken process” (Ainsworth 104). A deprivation experience “acts through its influence upon on-going processes and is interpreted in the light of previous experience” (Ainsworth 104). In the words of Jane Prugh and Robert Harlow: ...it would seem that the child’s response to separation, as a representative potential trauma, is a complex process, influenced by its nature and duration, the quality of mothering before and after the experience, the age and stage of development of the child, and the emotional conflicts with which he is principally dealing. Also important are such factors as the child’s physical health, his integrative or other ego capacities, the reaction of salient figures around him to the experience, and the nature of important later events. The influence of other variables such as the inborn or acquired biological capacities of the child are more difficult to assess but must also be considered. (Ainsworth 23)

Because of these and other complexities that it presents, “research in the field of maternal deprivation” is taxing and “time-consuming” (Ainsworth 106). One needs to “use careful methods to observe the variables and to assess the effects” (Ainsworth 106). As Mary D. Ainsworth has stated, it is definitely “no field for rapid research in which largescale techniques can be used” (Ainsworth 106). Rather, what can prove to be more illuminating is concentration on a select few cases. Indeed, as Ainsworth says, the nature of the appropriate techniques demand “small rather than large samples, and the cause-effect picture can be built up only gradually through many such small samples studied under different conditions, rather than through any large and final hypothesis testing” (Ainsworth 106). This is one reason why “retrospective studies preceded the direct study of the consequences of maternal deprivation” (Ainsworth 77).

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The retrospective case study strategy is invaluable in etiological research as a means of formulating hypotheses. This strategy is characterized by the identification of a syndrome, or cluster of related symptoms or personality characteristics, and by the exploration of the history of the patient or patients displaying this syndrome to discover likely antecedents that might account for the outcome. (Ainsworth 106-107)

Taken in this context, Carolyn Dever’s statement that “psychoanalysis, and in particular object-relations theory, provides a useful lens through which to consider the phenomenon of maternal loss in Victorian fiction” makes sense (Dever 3). Dever rightly states that since “psychoanalysis is always in the process of reading backward into infancy, under the rubric of object-relations theory, this reading process entails the analysis of the moment and the terms of maternal loss and maternal ‘fiction’” (Dever 58). On quite similar lines, our analysis of the chosen characters from Anna Karenina can be seen to be akin to retrospective case-studies (although technically not so). In each of the three cases (character studies), the modus operandi hasn’t been to decipher a lacuna or peculiarity in the psychological origins of the characters and then go on to analyse whether they show symptoms or character formations that might result from them. On the contrary, I’ve been struck by the peculiarities and uniqueness in their character traits, and then going back to their early history, have either found evidence to corroborate or warrant their behavioral tendencies or where these are lacking have proposed to fill in the gaps. (This reading back into infancy can often (not always) give us clues to the characters’ psychological makeup). Although our whole life is an “interplay of unconsciousness and consciousness”, it is our childhood that sets the stage for what we become: “It is the interplay of unconsciousness and consciousness in childhood that determines what kind of adult we become, including how vulnerable we are going to be to potentially traumatic experiences” (de Berg 8).) In Freud’s Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies, Henk de Berg states that “a psychoanalytic interpretation of literary texts…can tell us a good deal not just about the texts themselves, but also about their authors...” (de Berg 12) Conversely, an understanding of the author’s life, life-history, and psyche can sometimes go a long way in aiding the psychoanalytic interpretation of literary texts. Psychobiographical “interpretation of literary texts is a two-way process: the interpretation of the author and the interpretation of the text go side by side, the one constantly illuminating and modifying the other” (de Berg 91). Henk de Berg comments on how relating the text to the mind of its author may help in getting a multidimensional understanding of the text:

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Psychoanalytic literary criticism is not simply about interpreting a text’s protagonists. It also seeks to relate the text to the mind of its author. Everything people do depends on their mental states - on conscious deliberations, conflicts, and decisions, but also on unconscious mental processes - and can therefore be interpreted in psychoanalytic terms. This holds true for the writing of literary texts as well. Indeed, the creative process is among the psychoanalyst’s favorite objects of research, because the unconscious element in it is particularly strong. Like dreaming, the creative process provides a valve to the pressure of the unconscious. The creation of literary fictions allows the writer to work his repressed desires out of his system by expressing them in a cloaked, socially acceptable form (without being aware that this is what he is doing). (de Berg 84)

In brief, “literary texts do not simply result from a conflict between consciousness and unconsciousness, but embody it” (de Berg). Thus, “from a psychoanalytic point of view, text and author are intimately linked” (de Berg 85). Linking a text with its author’s mental disposition can only be done properly by interlinking the two, and the reader will observe that this is what I’ve attempted to do in this chapter, especially in my analysis of the character of Konstantin Levin. The analysis often perambulates from the character under discussion to the author, and back to the character, and often both aspects have been illuminated by inputs on psychoanalytic research done on the field and brief discussions of some theoretical aspects. While they may seem like digressions, this is deliberately done and rather unavoidable. Another aspect of the study undertaken in this chapter needs to be explained – at some points, the discussion has gone into works of Tolstoy other than Anna Karenina – War and Peace, The Kreutzer Sonata, Strider: the Story of a Horse, for example. This has been done for the simple reason that it is not possible to understand Tolstoy well without an understanding of the other works (many of which tend to have autobiographical or deeply personal aspects, in any case); and without understanding Tolstoy, it is equally difficult to have a good understanding of Anna Karenina and the characters that inhabit it. Having eulogized the merits of psychoanalytic study and criticism of literary works, it would do well to end with a note of caution. …if applied uncritically, this type of literary criticism can lead to an overly speculative reading of texts. Moreover, it is always in danger of becoming reductive, of interpreting texts solely in terms of their authors’ psychologies…A more cautious and modest use of psychobiographical

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criticism can yield genuine insights both into the author’s mind and into his oeuvre (de Berg 91).

In this respect, it will do well to remember that there are several aspects to a work of fiction, and trying to understand each will, in turn, mean that we may need to take recourse to various methodologies which may or may not agree with each other; but when viewed holistically it may be found that each approach has contributed to improving our understanding of the work. Henk de Berg has rightly pointed out that every work of art is “overdetermined”, meaning that it has several layers of meaning to it, and is “open to more than a single interpretation” (de Berg 86): Psychoanalytic literary criticism therefore does not uncover the meaning of literary texts, but only a specific layer of meaning. As Freud puts it: all genuinely creative writings are the product of more than a single motive and more than a single impulse in the poet’s mind, and are open to more than a single interpretation. The psychoanalytic interpretation can either contradict other interpretations or complement them. But even if the psychoanalytic reading contradicts existing readings, this does not mean that one is compelled to choose between them. One can also accept both, as an acknowledgment of a fundamental tension in the text. (de Berg 86-87)

In conclusion, it is worth stating that the analysis done in this chapter, while recognizing the obvious significance of the paternal figure to child development, lays an overarching emphasis on the role of the mother (and equally (or more so) on the significance of her loss) in normative development of the individual. The inherent premise in this will be in agreement with the views of scholars who recognize that “as the site of each individual’s physical and psychological origin, the mother is necessarily central to the analysis of infancy, development and trauma” (Dever 39). Psychoanalytic methodologies as well as narrative forms are structurally dependent on the symbolic figure of the missing mother, and the implications of this fact are developed in post-Freudian object-relations theories that situate the mother, rather than the father, at the center of erotic and developmental pathologies. (Dever xii)

Our analysis of Anna Karenina shows that consciously or unconsciously, Tolstoy invokes the trauma of maternal loss as a clue to the psychological constitution of the characters studied. I hope this chapter has left the reader

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with the feeling that the analysis of realistic fiction may have as much to teach us about psychoanalysis as psychoanalysis teaches us about realistic fiction.

CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS OF GEORGE ELIOT’S THE MILL ON THE FLOSS

Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pseudonym ‘George Eliot’, was amongst the most erudite of British writers, and this despite the fact that she had but little formal education after the age of sixteen. Women writers “were common at the time, but Evans’s role as the female editor of a literary magazine (Westminster Review) was quite unusual” (“Book”). Besides being a leading writer of the Victorian era, Eliot was also a “poet, journalist, and translator”, and her work as an editor and a critic was wellknown (Kirov). Eliot’s novels typically draw the reader into the story, and her rich character portrayals not only help the reader identify with the characters but also inspires an interest in their ultimate fate. As a writer, Eliot was always a social novelist – but only in the sense that her protagonists live off their interactions with the people in their social environment. As David Skilton has stated in The English Novel - Defoe to the Victorians: George Eliot…made the most detailed and philosophical examination to be found in the literature, of personal responsibility in a complex world where human knowledge is necessarily limited. Yet, however interconnected people may be in her fictional societies, her central values are all individual, and all pertain to personal duty, responsibility, sense of self, and so on. (Skilton 163)

Eliot’s depiction of the internal, psychological life of her characters has a rare beauty and believability about it that brings them to life; and this is the hallmark of her psychological realism. As “she was to ventriloquize through Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch, in a phrase which recognises the intertwining of perception, imagination, and emotional feeling: ‘The true seeing is within’” (O’Gorman 37). A reading of The Mill on the Floss reveals how the story plays around the Tulliver family. The concept of a family was often used by Eliot to delve into the interrelationships between members of a family and also enabled her to augment the understanding

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and portrayal of the individual psyche. Nowhere is this seen more than in The Mill on the Floss, which was only the second of the seven novels she was to write. In more ways than one, Eliot managed to write herself into this work – primarily through the character of Maggie Tulliver. When George Eliot “touches on the given intensities of Maggie’s inner life, the vibration comes directly and simply from the novelist, precluding the presence of a maturer intelligence than Maggie’s own” (Leavis 52). Eliot herself was “not considered physically beautiful”, and as a young woman “was not thought to have much chance of marriage” (“Adam”). Her questioning of “her religious faith” troubled her father, who “threatened to throw her out of the house”, although the “threat was not carried out” (Kirov). When she entered into a relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, she earned “the moral disapproval of not only the English society” but also her brother, who broke off all relations with her (“George Eliot Biography”). Her upbringing, her relations, the angst that she felt and the struggles that she went through were reflected in the life-story of the protagonist Maggie. In “a famous narratorial intervention in Adam Bede, Eliot divides novelists into two groups: ‘clever novelists’ who are ‘able to represent things as they never have been and never will be’, and herself, modestly, ‘obliged to creep servilely after nature and fact’” (McDonagh 28). Referring to the passage in her work George Eliot, Josephine McDonagh says: Of course, the drift of the passage makes it clear that this evaluation of the two kinds of novel is disingenuous, for, in this context; the ability to document ‘nature and fact’ is the superior one in all kinds of ways. Later she tells us that ‘Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult’, underlining the moral investment in documentation: it is in fact more difficult to write the truth, despite the cleverness of the novelists who, in effect, tell lies. In the end, the truthful, realist novelist is the cleverer, and indeed the more committed. (McDonagh 28)

The portrayal of Maggie’s relationship with her brother Tom, which is traced from their early childhood years right to their adulthood is not only beautiful, realistic and touching but also marked by her fascinating and clinical understanding of Tom’s psyche and development. I’ve discussed this in detail in the subsequent analysis. Indeed, Eliot’s “understanding of the conscious and unconscious effects of early experiences seems remarkably sophisticated” (Rotenberg). Equally revealing is the influence of Maggie’s parents and her aunts to her development. The psychological depth in the portrayal of the character of Mr. Tulliver, Maggie’s father,

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also deserves to be analysed in detail. The novel is “notable for its deep psychological insight” (“The Works”). It is known that Eliot kept herself aware of the developments in Psychology that were taking place around her time. Undertaking a deep analysis of the motives and impulses of the characters enabled Eliot to understand and represent the mental processes which propels them to act in a particular way. It was perhaps this that made her a pioneer of psychological fiction and her novels exemplary for their psychological realism. George Eliot often went “behind the apparent motive to something lying deeper in the consciousness which is the main determinant of conduct” (Baker 57). She had evidently “been studying the science of psychology as it then existed, and was not unaware of the light to be thrown on psychological processes from the study of physiology” (“Full Text”). She was “aware of the physiological bases of behavior” (“Full Text”). The balance of subjective and objective that Eliot achieves in The Mill on the Floss would have been much appreciated by writers like Turgenev who greatly valued it.

“Tom to be a bit of a scholard” – Vengeance Mr. Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss represents the dominant-aggressive personality that has been described by psychologist Karen Horney (Horney’s psychoanalytical theory has been discussed in detail in Chapter 1). It is interesting that even Mr. Tulliver’s decision to get Tom an “eddication” is guided by his desire for vengeance (Eliot 2). Mr. Tulliver rues his lack of education and wants his son to have the best of it. He feels that education arms a person to face the “puzzlin” world better and be a sharp and shrewd businessman (Eliot 15): “I want Tom to be such a sort o’ man as Riley, you know,-- can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o’ words as don’t mean much, so as you can’t lay hold of ‘em i’ law; and a good solid knowledge o’ business too” (Eliot 3). Mr. Tulliver wants Tom to have a similar education. This desire has resulted from his own terrible personal experiences in “lawing” (Eliot 8). Mr. Tulliver doesn’t fully understand the legal complications of business problems that arise. He finds the “affair of the water-power” to be a “tangled business” and a “big puzzle” (Eliot 18). He has often been outsmarted in legal dealings. Being a dominant-aggressive personality, this has hurt him bad and he is now consumed with a desire to be “even wi’ the lawyers” (Eliot 27): “Now, what I want is to send him to a school where they’ll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, and

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make a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi’ these fellows as have got the start o’ me with having better schooling” (italics mine) (Eliot 6). His intention is obviously that his son should not suffer what he has suffered. He also hopes that Tom will be well-equipped to help him in his “lawing” (Eliot 67). The idea of making his son an instrument for his vengeance stays with him: “I want to give him an eddication as he’ll be even wi’ the lawyers and folks, and put me up to a notion now an’ then” (Eliot 27). Typical of a dominant-aggressive person, Mr. Tulliver is unwilling to ascribe his losses and defeats in legal tanglings to his own weakness, bad judgments and poor understanding of legal procedures. He is impressed by the abilities of lawyers and legal men but is also critical and judgmental of them and is unwilling to give them their due since they have outsmarted him. He doubts their integrity and satisfies his pride by knowing himself as an honest, upright man. Mr. Tulliver is afraid that Tom is a “bit slowish” but he doesn’t acknowledge to himself the actual reason for his fears (Eliot 3). He has had a hard time facing up to the world which has often cornered him with “lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things” (Eliot 2). I believe Mr. Tulliver has a subconscious realization that he himself is “slowish”, doesn’t have the “right sort o’ brains for a smart fellow”, and doesn’t want his son to be the same (Eliot 3). But in his need to protect his neurotic pride, he projects his son’s “slowishness” on to his wife’s family: “…what I’m a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn’t got the right sort o’ brains for a smart fellow. I doubt he’s a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy” (italics mine) (Eliot 3). It is due to these reasons, and primarily his desire for vengeance and upmanship, that Mr. Tulliver plans a practical education for Tom rather than a philosophical one. It is psychologically interesting that even a seemingly disconnected thing like his son’s education reveals Mr. Tulliver’s vengeful nature.

Mr. Tulliver - Dominant-Vindictive Personality As already stated, Mr. Tulliver’s character presents an interesting example of the dominant-aggressive personality. Although his wife is submissive towards her Dodson sisters, Mr. Tulliver himself never implements or takes kindly to their suggestions. As he tells Mrs. Tulliver “defiantly”: “You may kill every fowl i’ the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I’m to do wi’ my own lad” (Eliot 2). Even when he was choosing a bride for himself, Mr. Tulliver was very sure on the point that he wanted a wife who would be submissive to him. As he tells Mr. Riley: “...but I picked her from her sisters o’ purpose,

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‘cause she was a bit weak like; for I wasn’t ‘agoin’ to be told the rights o’ things by my own fireside” (Eliot 6). We can sense Mr. Tulliver’s need for being the dominant partner and master. Mr. Tulliver was well-pleased with his choice of a partner and had “the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife conspicuously his inferior in intellect” (italics mine) (Eliot 8). Mr. Tulliver is an aggressive and a fiercely dominant person and this is brought out in the story not only through the narrator’s comments but also from Mr. Tulliver’s statements and the way he is perceived by others. As Lucy tells Stephen: “He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl and used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as if he were angry” (Eliot 145). Since the Dodson sisters (except Mrs. Tulliver), especially Mrs. Glegg are also dominant-aggressive personalities, throughout the narrative we are witness to frequent clashes between them and Mr. Tulliver: “it was a guiding principle with Mr. Tulliver to let the Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over him, or--more specifically--that a male Tulliver was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of them was Mrs. Glegg” (Eliot 62). Mr. Tulliver’s natural instinct is to be dominant towards both men and women, but his desire is manifested more strongly in the case of women and there is a strong psychological basis for this. The only women that he has dealt with closely in life have been loving and submissive. Dominant aggressive women are bound to leave a bad taste in his dominantaggressive mind. We know that his sister Mrs. Moss and his daughter Maggie are women with compliant personalities and so was his mother since both his sister and his daughter strongly remind him of her. It is this that gives the impression of his going through life with a sexist attitude. As he tells Mrs. Glegg: “If you talk o’ that, my family’s as good as yours, and better, for it hasn’t got a damned ill-tempered woman in it!” (Eliot 28) Mr. Tulliver has been imprudent in his business dealings and the “raskills” have taken advantage of that. He now views it as the fault of those “raskills” and the law that helped them achieve their end (Eliot 61). Since he doesn’t really understand the fault in his “lawing” and his business decisions and is also too proud to admit any such faults, he is quick to point out to his son that “it’s none” of his “fault” (Eliot 89): “But it’s the fault o’ the law, --it’s none o’ mine,” he added angrily. “It’s the fault o’ raskills. It’s wicked as the raskills should prosper; it’s the Devil’s doing” (Eliot 106). Time and again in the story, Mr. Tulliver refers to the world and its affairs as being ‘puzzling’ and he not being up to it (“this world is too much for me”) (Eliot 53): “But it seems one mustn’t judge by th’ outside. This is a puzzlin’ world” (Eliot 6).

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The “indignation and hatred which Mr. Tulliver ought properly to have directed against himself for his general quarrelsomeness, and his special exhibition of it in going to law”, was instead directed towards his adversaries (Eliot 101). After he is sold up, Mr. Tulliver’s desire for vengeance on Wakem becomes overpowering. As he tells his son: “Tom, you mind this: if ever you’ve got the chance, you make Wakem smart. If you don’t, you’re a good-for-nothing son. You might horse-whip him, but he’d set the law on you, --the law’s made to take care o’ reskills” (Eliot 89). Later he makes Tom write in the family Bible that he would “remember what Wakem’s done to your father, and you’ll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes” (Eliot 106). However, it needs to be noted that Mr. Tulliver’s sense of attachment to the Mill and his realization of having failed his wife and his family is stronger even than any immediate desire for vengeance: “I’ll stop in the old place, and I’ll serve under Wakem, and I’ll serve him like an honest man; there’s no Tulliver but what’s honest, mind that, Tom” (Eliot 106). He is an honest man and believes in divine justice and retribution. When Tom asks him for a portion of the saved money for investment in ventures, Mr. Tulliver’s “first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was in some awe of Tom’s wishes, and since he had the sense of being an ‘unlucky’ father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and determination to be master” (italics mine) (something Maggie probably didn’t consider when she feared that he might one day be violent to her mother) (Eliot 123). His guilt feelings for having failed his family led to his losing his “peremptoriness” and highhandedness. He is now beset with this guilt. As he tells his wife: “don't you bear me ill-will--I meant to do well by you” (Eliot 104). And again: “You may do as you like wi’ me, Bessy,”; “I’ve been the bringing of you to poverty--this world’s too many for me - I’m nought but a bankrupt; it’s no use standing up for anything now” (Eliot 104). Mr. Tulliver might find the affairs and doings of the world “puzzling”, but he has been able to understand the kind of person that Wakem is. He knows that one of the differences between him and Wakem is that Wakem was “too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him” (Eliot 106): “But I won’t forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That’s the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He’s been at the bottom of everything…he’s one o’ them fine gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he’s made beggars of ‘em he’ll give ‘em charity. I won’t forgive him!” (Eliot 106) Even after Mr. Tulliver is redeemed through the efforts of his son, his feeling of hatred for Wakem does not subside:

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It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would otherwise have been the channel his joy would have rushed into with dangerous force. Even as it was, that feeling from time to time gave threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden bursts of irrelevant exclamation. “Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I’d got hold of him.” (Eliot 140)

Even in his last moments, Mr. Tulliver doesn’t want to have anything to do with forgiveness. As he tells Maggie: “No, my wench. I don’t forgive him. What’s forgiving to do? I can’t love a reskill.” “Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won’t be hard wi’ me” (Eliot 143).

Mrs. Tulliver – Compliant-Submissive Personality Mrs. Tulliver considers her family to be an extension of her Dodson family. She feels that the Dodson family can set an example for her kids, to imbibe values from and also to set a standard to be achieved. Mrs. Tulliver probably faced negativity from the Dodson side of her family after marrying Tulliver. The Dodsons do not think highly of Mr. Tulliver; and rather look down upon his family and upbringing. Mrs. Tulliver accepts this point of view since she feels that her sisters are cleverer than she and are the best judge of any situation. She probably even has feelings of guilt for having brought the Dodson family name down by marrying a Tulliver. She hence tends to overvalue the opinion of her sisters and wants to keep them happy and be in their good books. This is amply clear when she says: “sister Glegg throws all the blame on upon me” and “lucky for my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent” (Eliot 2). It is Mrs. Tulliver’s sisters who set the standard for her children. Mrs. Tulliver has never been independent and mature enough to take her own decisions and feels threatened when she sees Maggie’s independent streak. Maggie is vehement and doesn’t like to do things just to keep appearances. Mrs. Glegg is aware that “Bessy was always weak!” (Eliot 20) Bessy (Mrs. Tulliver) was indeed “always weak” and the “power of device and determination” was “unusual” to her nature (Eliot 98). It is easy to see that Mrs. Tulliver is compliant towards her sisters who (especially Mrs. Glegg) are the dominant-aggressive personality types. Although the “point of the dinner was a tender one, and not at all new”, Mrs. Tulliver doesn’t protest since (as the narrator tells us) she “never went the length of quarrelling with” her sister; and instead finds safety in choosing to make “the same answer she had often made before” (Eliot 21). The dominant-compliant relation between Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Tulliver is evident when the narrator

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compares aunt Glegg to a “boy who throws stones” and Mrs. Tulliver to a “water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner” in reaction (Eliot 21). It is clear from the narrator’s comments that Jane (Mrs. Glegg) had been willfully domineering over her sister Bessy (Mrs. Tulliver) since early childhood. We are told that Mrs. Tulliver, was “always borne down by the family predominance of sister Jane” who “had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very tender years” (italics mine) (Eliot 83). Mrs. Glegg resents Mr. Tulliver for having the command over her sister. When Mrs. Tulliver lets her know that the meal timings are as per Mr. Tulliver’s wishes, she insinuates that Mr. Tulliver has a wife who is “weak enough to give in to” such directions (Eliot 21). Had Mr. Tulliver been just as compliant towards Mrs. Glegg as her sister Bessy, it would have suited her perfectly, since she would then have been able to impose the “Dodson” way on the Tullivers, show them the right path and be thanked and appreciated for it. Mrs. Glegg and the Dodsons, in general, have a lot of resentment against Bessy (Mrs. Tulliver now) for having “married worse than” she “might ha’ done” (Eliot 28). Mrs. Glegg does not approve of Mr. Tulliver and eagerly points out faults in their children and the running of the household. She can never stop feeling that she knows better. At the same time, Mrs. Tulliver profoundly feels the mistake in her decision (to marry Mr. Tulliver) - although she is devoted to her husband - and spends a lifetime trying to make amends for it by toeing the line of her critical sisters and by trying to raise her children by the Dodson standards. The following paragraph gives us some idea about the character of the Dodson sisters and their relationship with each other: “Don’t talk o’ your going, sister,” said Mrs. Tulliver; “I should have nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And there’s nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver, for sister Deane’s never o’ my side, and if she was, it’s not to be looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent fortin.” (Eliot 37)

While Mrs. Tulliver never opposes Mrs. Glegg she also does not have the ability to reason out things with her sister, to assert her will or express her opinions in a healthy manner. Sister Glegg is bound to overrule her ideas at all times. She needs someone to “stand between” her and Mrs. Glegg. Mrs. Glegg doesn’t think too highly of Mrs. Tulliver and views her past actions as deplorable. Like the typical dominant-aggressive personality type, she looks down on the person compliant to her, while at the same time deriving a subconscious pleasure at this position of superiority. Even if sister Deane were on Mrs. Tulliver’s side she is not qualified to “stand

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between” her and Mrs. Glegg because “she can speak like them as have got an independent fortin” (Eliot 84). Mrs. Pullet fits the bill because she is quite similar to aunt Glegg in her ideas, especially in her ideas about the Tulliver family. Mrs. Glegg allows Mrs. Pullet to stand between her and Mrs. Tulliver because, like her, Mrs. Pullet too believes that Mr. Tulliver is “awk’ard”, that the “children take after him” and the “gell’s rude and brown” (Eliot 37). We can almost infer from the text that either of Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Pullet or both, have no children of their own although they are elder to their sister Mrs. Tulliver and are quite advanced in age. We do not have any standard of the desirable “Dodson” child except Lucy. Can it possibly be that Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Pullet’s negative criticism of Tom and Maggie stem in-part from there childlessness? We do know that not all childless women take their fate and condition in a positive and healthy manner. It does affect their psychology deeply, sometimes negatively.

Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver’s Influence on the Psychology of their Children If Tom is his mother’s favourite, Maggie is her father’s. While Mrs. Tulliver feels that Maggie is far from perfect, Mr. Tulliver doesn’t have too high an opinion of Tom. Both feel that the reason lies in the respective kids having taken after the spouse’s family. But while Mrs. Tulliver makes her prejudice against Maggie known to the child, Mr. Tulliver isn’t too unkind to Tom, although he is somewhat strict with him. It is not hard to deduce that Mrs. Tulliver has a negative impact on Maggie’s development. Mrs. Tulliver thinks of Maggie as ‘wild’, ‘naughty’, ‘idiotic, ‘comical’, and with streaks of madness (“Bedlam creatur”) (Eliot 3). Mrs. Tulliver keeps comparing Maggie to “other folks’s children” and wants her to conform to her idea of the “perfect child” (Eliot 3). She has no respect for Maggie’s individuality. She also feels it’s a curse on her to have a child like Maggie: “Folks ‘ull think it’s a judgment on me as I’ve got such a child, --they’ll think I’ve done summat wicked” (italics mine) (Eliot 9). To Mr. Riley, Maggie doesn’t appear naughty. This is because, in spite of Mrs. Tulliver’s sense of dissatisfaction with Maggie, she is still naturally inclined to be polite to outsiders. Mrs. Tulliver doesn’t even make an attempt to understand why Maggie occasionally seeks refuge in the attic. She ascribes it to her “madness”. But Mr. Tulliver understands and empathizes with Maggie, and this explains Maggie’s attachment to her father:

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Chapter Four “Nay, nay, she’s none drownded,” said Mr. Tulliver. “You’ve been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?” “You go and fetch her down, Tom,” said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, - his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard upon ‘the little un,’ else she would never have left his side. ‘And be good to her, do you hear? Else I’ll let you know better” (Eliot 14).

Even later in the story, Mr. Tulliver exhorts Tom to be good to his sister. Mr. Tulliver himself had always been kind to his own sister, in childhood, as well as after she married (against the wishes of her family). This points to a clear difference between Tom’s attitude and his father’s. Tom was ready to excommunicate his sister for her faults, whereas Mr. Tulliver was forgiving, accepting and understanding towards his dear ones. Poor Maggie has to face severe “denunciation(s)” from her aunts and her mother (Eliot 59). Even the reader can make out that the treatment meted out to Maggie is not only harsh but rather uncivil and inconsiderate. The narrator has made no effort to hide the eccentricity and harshness of Maggie’s aunts. It is mentally very harrowing for a child to face up to such a “chorus of reproach and derision” (Eliot 26). It is no wonder that she was deeply affected when her father “took her part” under such circumstances (Eliot 60). The reader gets a measure of the kind of effect such incidents had on Maggie since she “kept them in her heart” and, “thought of them long years after” (Eliot 26). Despite everyone’s allusions that Mr. Tulliver didn’t have enough good sense and culture to bring up his children and family in the proper manner, it is he alone who has the required empathy for young Maggie. This is quite clear from Eliot’s depiction of Mr. Tulliver’s character: Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. (Eliot 45)

Maggie’s Loneliness, her suppressed Vindictiveness, and Revolt Several instances in the text point to a vindictive streak in Maggie: It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed (by Mrs. Tulliver) to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the academy…Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of opinion that…Maggie

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suddenly…dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day. (Eliot 9)

Karen Horney has laid out and documented the dominant-aggressivevindictive personality type. Maggie presents an interesting case of submissive-compliant-vindictive personality. However, as she grows into an adult, Maggie’s vindictiveness recedes into the deeper crevices of her subconscious mind. Moreover, Maggie’s vindictiveness is not of the kind that comes with an ‘all-consuming hatred’ nor does she go out of her way to ensure the downfall of her persecutors. Her act of punishing the Fetish is a solution that fits her submissive and compliant nature: “She kept a Fetish which she punished for all her misfortunes…now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering…luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion - represented aunt Glegg” (Eliot 10). Maggie has the kind of personality that can be psychologically violent and kind of apologetic by turns, because of their all-consuming “passion”, “a passion that expelled every other form of consciousness, --even the memory of the grievance that had caused it”, that doesn’t last long (Eliot 10): But immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece’s pardon. (Eliot 10)

Maggie has often been subjected to disparaging and “teasing remarks” about her hair (Eliot 56). It is this adverse environment that has nurtured her vindictiveness. She cuts her hair as an act of defiance, as a “triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts” (Eliot 25). The narrator has revealed that Maggie “didn't want her hair to look pretty” (Eliot 25) she only wanted people to think of her as a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her.

Maggie’s Character and her Psychological Life Maggie has a kind heart and feels sorry for pitiable creatures. Also, from her own experience, she knows how it feels to not be forgiven for a mistake that’s made: “I’m very glad his father took him back again, aren’t

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you, Luke?” she said. “For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn’t do wrong again” (Eliot 11). She feels that an apologetic person with a clean heart ought to be forgiven. Tom and probably Mrs. Tulliver are not quick to forgive her. The pain and anxiety that this generates probably contribute to making Maggie vindictive and sad. When Mr. Tulliver goes down with a stroke, Maggie finds her mother’s “implied reproaches” disagreeable for “Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers” (Eliot 81). Her father had “always defended and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable her to do or bear anything for his sake” (Eliot 81). Although Maggie did not have a childhood which could lay the foundation for a self-actualizing self and had suffered a lot, the narrator still refers to that period in Maggie’s life as “golden” (Eliot 165). Maggie believed in the basic goodness of human beings. She resented the fact that she was chastised so much in childhood by her mother and aunts due to hardly any fault of hers (mostly resulting from her appearance, ungainly, careless manner and forgetfulness). Her father was the only person who understood her, empathized with her and was kind towards her. She is, therefore “almost choked with mingled grief and anger” when she finds her mother blaming him when he is on his death-bed (Eliot 81). Maggie being the submissive personality type doesn’t feel the full force of the shame that has been brought upon the family by bankruptcy. She thinks of it as a misfortune brought on by her father’s doing, although she is far from blaming her father. This probably explains why she goes on to have a friendship with Wakem’s son. In fact, she never looks at Philip as “Wakem’s son” (Eliot 63). To her, he is the Philip whom she knew in childhood. She is unable and unwilling to make that association which comes so naturally to a vindictive person. She feels that it is “wicked to curse and bear malice” (Eliot 106). In her psychological studies, Karen Horney observed that “in contrast to our stereotypes of children as weak and passive their first reaction to parental indifference is anger, a response she calls basic hostility” (Boeree). I believe Maggie displays symptoms of ‘basic hostility’: She rebelled against her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be (italics mine); toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference,-would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for her to become a demon. (Eliot 113)

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For survival’s sake, ‘basic hostility’ must be suppressed, and the parents won over. If this “seems to work better for the child, it may become the preferred coping strategy – compliance” (Boeree). Maggie also coped by occupying her brain “with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man-Walter Scott, perhaps--and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her” (Eliot 113). The lack of “happiness” and “contentment” in her life has made Maggie a resentful creature. As she confesses to Lucy: No, Lucy, I don’t enjoy their happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for them when they are in trouble; I don’t think I could ever bear to make any one unhappy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful. (Eliot 148)

It is ironic that although Maggie’s situation in life had changed from being an “unheeded person, liable to be chid, from whom attention was continually claimed, and on whom no one felt bound to confer any” to someone for whom “there were admiring eyes always awaiting her”, she was so saddled with her improper psychological development that she was unable to exult in this new-found glory and transform her life towards positivity (Eliot 160).

Tom’s Dominant-Vindictive Personality Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters (italics mine); and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features. (Eliot 12)

The narrator holds the “most rigid, inflexible”, “unmodifiable”, and the unforgiving character of Tom as undesirable (Eliot 28). Tom feels he is superior to others. He has an inherent need to be superior, and to dominate: “I’ve got a great deal more money than you, because I’m a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you’re only a girl” (Eliot 12). Tom is a “perfectionist”. Perfectionists “take great pride in their rectitude and strive for excellence in every detail” (Paris, Brief Account). They “have a legalistic bargain in which correctness of conduct ensures

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fair treatment by fate and their fellows” (Paris, Brief Account). As we’re told, Tom “meant to punish her (Maggie), and that business having been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical person” (Eliot 13). Tom is rather insensitive towards his little sister - a natural outcome of his “perfectionist” disposition. He is “practical” and punishes her in a “business-like” manner (Eliot 55): Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand (italics mine); but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Maggie’s punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen…but he was particularly clear and positive on one point, --namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it (italics mine). Why, he wouldn’t have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but, then, he never did deserve it. (Eliot 14)

Tom believed that he was very fond of his sister, and “meant always to take care of her, make her his housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong” (Eliot 14). Tom insists on believing that he is “fond of his sister”, though he never forgives her faults, makes her feel guilty, and assumes the right to punish her time and again (Eliot 14). Although we perceive these mental processes in Tom, who is but a young boy of thirteen, we will be mistaken if we ascribe these idiosyncrasies of character to mere childishness or boyhood. As we go on to see, Tom maintains, develops and perfects the very same traits as he grows into an adult. Tom’s friendship with Bob Jakin is also subconsciously dictated by his dominant personality: “Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom” (Eliot 18). Tom doesn’t have the courage to morally defend his loved ones. Since Bob Jakin’s logic declares that Yap is not efficient in hunting rats, Yap is “no good at sport”: “No, no. Yap’s no good at sport. I’ll have regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I’ve done school” (Eliot 18). “‘Ugh! you coward!’ said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal” (Eliot 18). From Tom’s point of view, it is only “fair” that Tom’s loved ones should successfully pass through public scrutiny (Eliot 44. It is the same Tom who later holds Maggie guilty for her elopement with Stephen and cannot think of anything beyond the disgrace. Society knows that Maggie’s act has brought the “family name down” and Tom is unable to forgive or empathize with his sister’s circumstances and condition (Eliot 200).

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Interestingly, later in the narrative, when Tom, Maggie, and Bob have advanced in their teenage years, Bob Jakin plays a role in revealing to the reader the internal life of Tom Tulliver. He is a reliable witness and analyst because as he says, he is “forced to busy” himself “wi’ other folks’s insides” (Eliot 155). He has closely observed Tom sitting “by himself so glumpish, a-knittin’ his brow, an’ a-lookin’ at the fire” (Eliot 155). Bob also reveals to us that Tom is rather “close”, meaning that he has a deep internal life that he doesn’t reveal to anyone (Eliot 155). Maggie ascribes it to Tom’s thoughts of business: “It was a totally new idea to her mind that Tom could have his love troubles” (Eliot 156). Both Mr. Tulliver and his son share a “love of retributive justice” (Eliot 62). An opposition to their sense of righteousness was considered as cheating and affected them deeply. The sense of retribution was so strong in Tom’s mind that on meeting Philip for the first time at Mr. Stelling’s place Tom “had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem’s son had some relation to the lawyer’s rascality” (Eliot 63). Tom scolds Maggie after they have had an argument with their Dodson aunts and uncles: “Poor Tom! he had just come from being lectured and made to feel his inferiority; the reaction of his strong, self-asserting nature must take place somehow; and here was a case in which he could justly show himself dominant” (Eliot 93). It is interesting to note the cause of Tom’s outburst. The narrator also refers to it. Tom being a dominantvindictive type and of a “strong, assertive” nature cannot take kindly to being “made to feel” inferior (Eliot 93). The narrator tells us that in his outburst towards Maggie he found “a case in which he could justly show himself dominant” (Eliot 93). Maggie’s compliant nature is reflected in the fact that she felt “a certain awe as well as admiration of Tom’s firmer and more effective character” (Eliot 93). Also, despite Tom’s unreasonable outburst she still feels “conflicting resentment and affection” towards him, and although “angry words rose to her lips”, “they were driven back again” (Eliot 93). The understanding Eliot had of the characters she created and their psychology is remarkable. It is little wonder then that Freud found her works so interesting and relevant to psychology and psychological analysis. Even Turgenev, who didn’t approve of the explicit depiction of convoluted and complex mental processes, appreciated and espoused the subtle psychological depiction in Eliot’s works. It can be inferred from the preceding analysis that Eliot was subconsciously and intrinsically aware of the basis of the theories that Horney later formulated. The following comment by the narrator is a fascinatingly accurate and realistic description of the traits that can mark Horney’s dominant-aggressive personality type:

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It is no wonder then that Maggie’s “brother was the human being of whom she had been most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us” (italics mine) (Eliot 193).

Tom - Lad of Honour - and his Preoccupation with ‘Fairness’ There are instances which tell us that Maggie never offended Tom consciously or out of her own wish, unlike what Bernard J. Paris is so close to suggesting in his work A Psychological Approach to Fiction. This is brought out by her shock (turned “pale”) when Tom insinuates her folly; by her “unmerited reproach” on herself: “She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom” (Eliot 17). This incident brings out Tom’s preoccupation with what he considers ‘being fair’. Even after executing his plan for determining fairness, he is still unhappy and upset with Maggie for not being “fair”. It is tough to keep such personality types happy, because irrespective of what one does, they are sure to find fault with it on the basis that it doesn’t conform to their rules of conduct and fairness: “I’d divide fair to begin with, and then we’d see who’d win.” (italics mine) “It’s yeads,” said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it fell. “It wasn’t,” said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. “You give me the halfpenny; I’ve won it fair.” “You can’t make me do nothing, you can’t,” said Bob. “No, you can’t.” “I’m master.” (italics mine) “I don’t care for you.” “But I’ll make you care, you cheat,” said Tom, collaring Bob and shaking him. (italics mine) (Eliot 19)

This quarrel with Bob Jakin fully illustrates Tom’s preoccupation with fairness. Time and again we see that while Tom’s playmates (Maggie and Bob) act in sport and without undue consideration; Tom makes heavy

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weather of all incidents and dealings with his generous propensity to ensure fairness both on his side as well as on that of others. Also, it can be surprising to some readers to hear a statement like “I’m master” from a thirteen-year-old. Nevertheless, it gives us an excellent view of Tom’s mental makeup. His dominant-aggressive-vindictive personality takes shape very early in life. Also, it is to be noted that he enters into the fight with Bob Jakin with the intention to subdue him for being a cheat, and not to actually own the halfpenny: “There the halfpenny lies,” he said. “I don't want your halfpenny; I wouldn’t have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat” (Eliot 19). No literary psychoanalyst can help wonder at this obsession of Tom’s with fairness and his hatred of cheats. The reasons, however, are not very difficult to see. It is my surmise that Tom received this lesson in life from his father, Mr. Tulliver. Having ended up on the losing side in many of his minor dealings and legal confrontations, we already know Mr. Tulliver as being “puzzled” and unhappy with the ways of the world. He feels that if everything had been allowed “to be straight”, he would have had his way and received his share of ‘fairness’ (Eliot 53). Tom too has been privy to his father’s feelings since early childhood, since Mr. Tulliver is rather frank and vocal with his immediate family. Without being conscious of doing it, Mr. Tulliver might have directed the negative psychological development of his young son. At the same time, Tom’s psychological and ‘psycho-genetic’ pre-dispositions could also naturally have a role to play in this: “While pride or resentment was a feeble passion in Bob’s mind, it was a strong one in Tom’s” (Eliot 20). Tom got some of his ideas about the world from his father with whom he deeply empathized. He imbibed a “sense that there were rascally enemies in the world, and that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted without a good deal of quarrelling” (Eliot 60). Mr. Tulliver on his part mostly “talked to relieve himself” (Eliot 61). Such personality types tend to subconsciously pass judgment on others and also decide on the amount of punishment they “deserve”, and then go about meting out the punishment without being unduly bothered about exceeding (and exceed they often do) the “exact amount of their deserts” (Eliot 20). The narrator reveals to us that Tom’s actions were well-thought of and he never felt the need to express any regrets for them, even if some part of his being were to indicate to him that something was amiss about the action performed. There was a rigid belief in him that his sense of morality was flawless since it applied equally to himself and to others. This conveniently provided him with a license to pronounce others guilty while maintaining an adamant and blind belief in the validity of one’s own acts.

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Though Tom felt somewhat disappointed at having chosen to leave the ratcatching with Bob Jakin, if he “had told his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, ‘I’d do just the same again’” (Eliot 20). The narrator goes on to state that this was Tom Tulliver’s “usual mode of viewing his past actions; whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different” (Eliot 20). The narrator subsequently lets the reader know that Tom is actually a hypocrite and has dual standards of morality that are programmed to suit his own purposes: Tom never did the same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctive discernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; and so it happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexible than Maggie, his mother hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did make a mistake of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it: he “didn’t mind”. If he broke the lash of his father’s gigwhip by lashing the gate, he couldn’t help it, --the whip shouldn’t have got caught in the hinge.” (Eliot 25)

Tom’s immaturity in dealing with unusual situations is quite clearly depicted. He is not very comfortable with anything that he finds out of the ordinary course of events. Tom doesn’t fit in too easily and comfortably in the new environment that Mr. Stelling’s home provides. He is also very clear in his mind that “he would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even if he ‘had not been the son of a bad man’” (Eliot 63). I believe that Tom showed the same immaturity in adulthood when dealing with Maggie’s “elopement” with Stephen Guest (Eliot 436). He is uncomfortable with anything outside societal and (his) moral norms and tends to pre-judge without taking recourse to proper thought and empathy. Tom’s character has its negative shades - it is interesting that after Maggie’s ‘elopement’, the “worst” scenario that Tom could conjure was “disgrace” and not “death” (Eliot 194): “I wash my hands of you forever. You don’t belong to me.” “I loathe your character and your conduct.” (Eliot 194)

Under the circumstances, Tom’s feelings seem to be justified. But he doesn’t even give Maggie a fair chance to defend herself or state her version of the events: “But I will sanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that I feel the difference between right and wrong” (Eliot 194). Maggie’s is a delicate and vulnerable nature and has had a difficult life, but Tom has never realized or recognized this; else his attitude

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towards Maggie would have been different and more mature. As the narrator mentions: “More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us” (Eliot 194).

Personality Typology in The Mill on the Floss Maggie’s need for love triumphed over her pride, whereas in Tom’s nature it was pride that ruled, and love was secondary. In Mr. Tulliver’s nature, the need to be kind (the need to give love to his close ones) triumphed over his pride. Here we find the essential difference between Tom’s character and his father’s; although both are proud and vindictive, dominant-aggressive personalities. Mr. Tulliver and Mrs. Glegg share cold sentiments for each other. They are both dominant-aggressive types and I believe that Mrs. Glegg is the more extreme example of the species. It is not just Mr. Tulliver’s chauvinism that makes him speak to the “male part of his audience” (Eliot 27). He is also deeply critical of Mrs. Glegg for being a ‘dominantaggressive’ person. He feels that his house is his domain and doesn’t want to allow others to interfere beyond a certain point. It is, however, Mrs. Glegg who always injudiciously succeeds in provoking Mr. Tulliver. If Tom too felt that he was the “master”, he probably got the idea from the master of the house. It shouldn’t surprise us that Mr. Tulliver avoids reacting violently to Mrs. Glegg. There is the need to maintain decorum with his wife’s relatives, but he also wanted Mrs. Glegg to understand that “he didn’t mind her”; she herself, as well as her statements, were too inconsequential to bother him (Eliot 31). While both are dominant aggressive personalities and give vent to their feelings, Mr. Tulliver is not easily aroused or provoked into a betrayal of his emotions. Mr. Tulliver is governed by his male ego (“I should never want to quarrel with any woman if she kept her place”) whereas Mrs. Glegg, in keeping with the manifestations of her feminine nature, is rather hysterical and “shrill” (Eliot 28). No wonder, even an impartial observer like Mrs. Pullet finds Mrs. Glegg “quarrelsome”, “red in the face” and giving the appearance of someone “struck with a fit” (Eliot 28). Even Mr. Glegg appeals to his wife to be “reasonable”. The narrator tells us that Mr. Tulliver too “was not to be hindered of his retort” and tended to “burst out” even as the others were trying to pacify Mrs. Glegg (Eliot 28). When Mrs. Glegg walks out in a huff Mr. Tulliver is glad and angrily asserts that she “won't be trying to domineer over me again in a hurry” (Eliot 28). Mr. Tulliver can’t bear the idea of a woman behaving in a domineering manner towards him. At the

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same time, the reader will notice that Mrs. Glegg cannot bear the idea of a man behaving in a domineering manner towards her. Such pairs don’t make good partners and it is to be noted that both Mr. Tulliver and Mrs. Glegg have spouses who are compliant towards them and don’t directly confront them or seek to displease them. Mr. Tulliver is reluctant to pass any indictment on Philip Wakem. Mr. Tulliver is kind-hearted and feels genuine pity for the “poor crooked creature” (Eliot 73). He is not too hasty to condemn Philip simply because he is lawyer Wakem’s son – he feels that Philip “takes after his dead mother” (Eliot 73). During Mrs. Tulliver’s meeting with Wakem, we come to know that it was Wakem who had begun the hostility. It was he who “set the law on” Mr. Tulliver “about the road through the meadow” eight years back, and that Mr. Tulliver had then “been going on ever since” with his “lawing” (Eliot 99): “Although, when Mr. Wakem entered his office that morning, he had had no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made up…To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward Tulliver that Tulliver had toward him would be like supposing that a pike and a roach can look at each other from a similar point of view” (Eliot 100). Although Mr. Tulliver had only been “insignificantly offensive” towards Wakem, Wakem is definitely amongst those men who like to “take a little vengeance now and then” (Eliot 100). Wakem is a shrewd fellow who has often “used a few tricks against the miller” and defeated him “several times” (Eliot 100). Despite having done enough “Wakem’s conscience was not uneasy” and he takes the first opportunity that comes his way to do the injured Miller and his family further harm (Eliot 100). Wakem, I believe, is the true representative of the extreme type of dominant-vindictive personality. The narrator herself has used the term “vindictive” in relation to Wakem several times in the novel. He goes out of his way to exact revenge on Tulliver. He finds it “a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver the most deadly mortification” (Eliot 100) Wakem was also especially fond of the “sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem was not without an intention of keeping that scale respectably filled” (Eliot 100). He had done this more than once. The narrator tells us that Wakem’s vindictiveness was not of that “short-sighted, overheated vindictiveness which goes out its way to wreak itself in direct injury” (Eliot 100). That was more the type of vindictiveness that Mr. Tulliver was capable of harbouring. It also needs to be noted that while Tulliver was a man of principles, Wakem was not. We can’t help but be impressed by Eliot’s deep and profound understanding of human psychology. She has not only

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depicted Horney’s dominant-aggressive-vindictive personality but has also depicted four vastly different shades of it in the characters of Mr. Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg, Tom Tulliver and Mr. Wakem. The narrator tells us that “Tulliver was known to be a man of proud honesty” (Eliot 100). The narrator also reveals to us that Wakem wasn’t essentially an honest man by stating that he “was too acute not to believe in the existence of honesty”; and that he knew that “all men were not like himself” (Eliot 100). Wakem’s obsessive need for dominance is also reflected in the fact that another supporting reason in his decision to purchase the Mill was that since Mr. Guest too was considering buying the Mill, it would give him (Wakem) an opportunity to “predominate over a ship-owner and mill-owner (Mr. Guest) who was a little too loud in the town affairs as well as in his table-talk” (Eliot 101). This is affirmed when Mr. Dean says that “Wakem outbid us; he’d made up his mind to that”: “He’s rather fond of carrying everything over other people’s heads” (Eliot 159).

Maggie’s Submissive-Compliant Personality “Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you’re like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you’d fight him, wouldn’t you, Tom?” (Eliot 12)

Maggie wants to be reassured that Tom stands up to the ideals that she has set for him – and that he loves her as much as she loves him. Tom avoids giving an answer probably because he doesn’t like the thought of being in such a situation and isn’t sure what he would do if caught in it. Maggie is aware that Tom’s anger is a different anger than her own: “Maggie dreaded Tom’s anger of all things; it was quite a different anger from her own” (Eliot 12). It was the anger of a dominant-aggressive personality, silent, unforgiving and unbending; anger that had the power to master a compliant person: “What use was anything if Tom didn’t love her?…She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom - had never meant to be naughty to him” (Eliot 13). It is brought out here that while Maggie had vindictive feelings towards her mother, she had none towards Tom, for: “She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry” (italics mine) (Eliot 13). The attic is her shelter - it is not unusual for kids to seek out a lonely secluded place when they are bitter or disappointed. However, it is to be noted that on this occasion Maggie did not torture the Fetish - the narrator says that she was too miserable to be angry. Tom is probably the only person who could make her “too miserable” - too miserable to have

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any vindictive feelings. Right from childhood, Tom’s dominant-aggressive and unrelenting nature had mastered Maggie. Maggie loves, adores and idolizes Tom deeply – it is the kind of love that hardly leaves any room for vindictiveness. Feelings of vindictiveness would work well as a mental defense to the ill-treatment meted out to her by her aunts.

Maggies’s Basic Anxiety, her Penis Envy, her Repressed Nature and the Quest for an Actualizing Self Maggie needed to boost her self-esteem to make-up for her apparent lack of beauty. Her need to feel superior to others leads her to try to excel in bookish knowledge. Her feminine sense of inferiority (other than the natural powers of her intellect) also contributes towards her attraction to Knowledge and the world of books, traditionally considered a male domain. When she says that Tom isn’t fond of reading one can almost detect a sense of satisfaction in it - it has to be understood though that a lot of this happens at the subconscious level, more so because Maggie is still a child. Horney “did not reject the significance of childhood in emotional development, as is sometimes thought, but she emphasized pathogenic conditions in the family that make children feel unsafe, unloved, and unvalued rather than the frustration of libidinal desires” (“Horney, Major Concepts”). Maggie develops “basic anxiety”, a feeling of being helpless in a potentially hostile world, which she tries to reduce by adopting such strategies of defense as the pursuit of love (from Tom), or detachment (as occasioned by instances of her drawing away from everyone and taking refuge in the attic). Horney “felt that these defensive strategies are doomed to failure because they generate ‘vicious circles’ in which the means employed to allay anxiety tend to increase it” (“Horney, Major Concepts”). As an example, she pointed out how “the frustration of the need for love makes that need insatiable” (“Horney, Major Concepts”). This is the reason why Maggie keeps saying “I was never satisfied with a little of anything” (Eliot 130). Her being deprived of affection has made her dependent on others. Maggie gradually develops a neurotic need for love. Maggie also displayes some symptoms of fixation. In human psychology, fixation refers to a state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another person, being or object (“Fixation (psychology)”). It was Maggie’s affection for Philip (prompted by his kindness and soft, loving nature) that occurred to her as a strong “impression”. Does Maggie develop a neurotic character structure in the course of the novel? I believe she does. In “her clinical experience, Karen Horney

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discerned ten particular patterns of neurotic needs - they are based on things that we all need, but they have become distorted in several ways by the difficulties of some people’s lives” (Boeree). Through her investigations, Horney recognized that neurotic needs “can be clustered into three broad coping strategies: aggression, compliance, and withdrawal (italics mine)” (Boeree). It is interesting that Maggie displays two neurotic needs that belong to compliance - firstly, the neurotic need for affection and approval, the indiscriminate need to please others and be liked by them; and secondly, the neurotic need to restrict one’s life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little, to be inconspicuous. Even this has its normal counterpart. Horney says that it is this neurotic character structure from which later difficulties emanate. Maggie Tulliver fails to actualize her “real self”. As Horney says: The real self is not a fixed entity but a set of intrinsic potentialities – including temperament, talents, capacities, and predispositions -- that are part of our genetic makeup and need a favorable environment in which to develop. It is not a product of learning, since one cannot be taught to be oneself; but neither is it impervious to external influence, since it is actualized through interactions with an external world that can provide many paths of development. People can actualize themselves in different ways under different conditions, but there are certain conditions in childhood that everyone requires for self-realization. These include ‘an atmosphere of warmth’ that enables children to express their own thoughts and feelings, the goodwill of others to supply their various needs, and ‘healthy friction with the wishes and will’ of those around them. (“Horney, Major Concepts”)

When their own neuroses prevent parents from loving the child or even thinking “of him as the particular individual he is”, the child develops a feeling of basic anxiety that prevents him (or her) “from relating himself to others with the spontaneity of his real feelings” and forces the child to develop defensive strategies (“Horney, Major Concepts”): But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn’t come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved--the strongest need in poor Maggie’s nature--began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it. (Eliot 13)

Maggie feels unloved and unvalued. Adverse conditions in her family have created ‘basic anxiety’ in Maggie against which she is trying to

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defend herself by developing strategies of defense that are self-alienating, self-defeating and in conflict with each other. Maggie’s inner conflicts are manifested in her treatment of the Fetish. She feels angry and vindictive towards her aunts for being unreasonable, unkind and cruel to her, but cannot display her feelings towards them sufficiently. She emits her bottled up anger on the Fetish. To deal with her ‘basic anxiety’, Maggie adopts the following interpersonal strategies: -

Moving towards Tom and her father (compliance) Moving away from her aunts (detachment) Moving against her mother (aggression)

The solution she adopts is – self-effacing (compliant) Since Maggie employs a mix of interpersonal defensive strategies, she is bound to be beset by inner conflicts. Healthy people move appropriately and in a flexible manner in all three directions, but in neurotic development, these moves become compulsive and indiscriminate. Maggie’s moves (for example, in her relationship with Tom) are compulsive, not flexible. Maggie’s predominant solution is self-effacement since she tries to win the approval and praise of others – Maggie has a deep need for love. Her suppressed tendencies are aggressiveness, anger, and vindictiveness towards her detractors that she cannot adequately express. Later, when Maggie reaches adolescence, she looks to employ intrapsychic strategies of defense. The attitude of her aunts and her mother is not lost on Maggie. Based on her experiences with her family circle, she has come to generalize that “all women are crosser than men”: “I think all women are crosser than men…Aunt Glegg’s a great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than father does” (Eliot 57). Maggie’s experiences in a society that strongly differentiates between the genders have left a lasting mark on her psyche. Her penis envy is all too evident when she says: “Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in the world.” “But I begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving; I have always had so much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make myself a world outside it, as men do.” (Eliot 165)

Like Alfred Adler, Horney too believed that a ‘masculine protest’ develops in a woman in response to her sense of inferiority to men (“Horney, Intellectual Antecedents”).

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Blonde vs Dark in The Mill on the Floss “Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her was neat…Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight” (Eliot 23). This passage indicates the damage already done to Maggie’s psyche by her mother’s attitude towards her. She wants to be the queen of her fanciful world but “just like Lucy”; she wants to be a queen with a crown on her head and scepter in her hand but “in Lucy’s form” (Eliot 23). This apparent idolization is not a result of Maggie’s natural admiration for Lucy but more due to her knowledge that her mother and the Dodsons, in general, perceive Lucy as the right example of how a girl in their family should be and look like. It is no wonder that Maggie harbours a deepseated jealousy of blondes. Even Tom seems to prefer Lucy: “Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I’d never be such a cross thing as you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn’t do so. I like Lucy better than you; I wish Lucy was my sister” (Eliot 33). It is Lucy’s clean, quiet, polite and efficient nature that attracts people to her. More than once the narrator brings to our attention the cat-like quality of Lucy (“like a kitten pausing from her lapping”) (Eliot 34). We find instances of the narrator presenting Lucy in the light of a demure, overtly feminine character, with more than her share of feminine affectations. It is interesting to note that Maggie is entirely devoid of the same. Not only that, she has the rare talent of showing herself in a bad light. The narrator is obviously conscious of the advantages that girls like Lucy hold in society. And somehow the narrator has stereotyped such behaviour with blonde women. While this stereotyping is flawed, the young Maggie cannot help having developed it, because other than her own experiences (vis-à-vis Lucy) her theory has been supported by the works of fiction that she read during childhood and adolescence. It is no wonder that she holds Lucy as the epitome of how a girl should be because this has been reinforced in her mind by the attitude of her mother and her aunts. While being aware of Lucy’s desirability and appropriate behaviour, she is also aware of the unfairness of it all. She therefore gradually develops this subconscious desire to avenge the ‘wronged’ dark woman which sometimes comes out in her intimate conversations, as with Philip Wakem when they are in the ‘Red Deeps’: As soon as I came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and determined to read no further. I foresaw that that lightcomplexioned girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable. I’m determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice

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Maggie becomes uncomfortable when Philip suggests that she is jealous of Lucy: “Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything real,” (italics mine) said Maggie, looking hurt: “As if I, with my old gowns and want of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,--who knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier than I am” (Eliot 132).

Maggie’s Feminine sense of Pity and her Feelings for Philip and Stephen Maggie instinctively wants to lavish her love on an object that appreciates it and seems to need it: Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness for deformed things; she preferred the wry-necked lambs, because it seemed to her that the lambs which were quite strong and well made wouldn’t mind so much about being petted; and she was especially fond of petting objects that would think it very delightful to be petted by her. She loved Tom very dearly, but she often wished that he cared more about her loving him.” (Eliot 70)

This “tenderness for deformed things” is also one of the reasons why she feels a sense of attachment to Philip and can’t help but wish to “kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,--like a woman’s” (italics mine) (Eliot 133): “The deepening expression of pain on Philip’s face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity” (italics mine) (Eliot 119). It is interesting that many women while choosing a mate are not too particular about looks. They desire someone who sets a high value by the love they receive. This generalized statement is only a spoke in the wheel. We shall understand the bigger picture involved here if we refer to Horney’s psychological typing. Tom doesn’t seem to care much “about her (Maggie) loving him” because of his dominant-aggressive personality (Eliot 70). He is used to Maggie being the compliant person in the relationship and is not only able to subdue her will and pride but also able to take her for granted. It is this attitude of Tom’s that makes him “cruel” and “unforgiving” in Maggie’s eyes. Tom is indeed akin to the “strong and well made” lamb who “wouldn’t mind so much about being petted” (Eliot

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70). A dominant-aggressive person is often of a rigid mindset (as in the case of Tom here) and would never betray a special fondness of being “petted by” a person compliant to him (Eliot 87). He would rather not reveal gratefulness for something that is his unchallenged right and a matter of course. Maggie can receive this kind of gratefulness only from a person who is compliant to her or in an ideal, healthy relationship devoid of neurosis. I believe that Maggie’s relationship with Philip falls in the latter category although Maggie is motivated to be in the relationship by this very desire of loving an object that appreciates the love and the lover. As the narrator tells us after Philip’s musings: “I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection” (Eliot 70). Maggie felt herself bound to Philip and gradually came to view a relationship with him as a ‘sacrifice’: “She had a moment of real happiness then, --a moment of belief that, if there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more satisfying” (Eliot 133). The idea of marrying Philip was never quite appealing to Maggie. We have already discussed what her actual motivation for this could be. Her subconscious self knows but her mind doesn’t quite appreciate the reality of her relationship with Philip, especially since her relationship with Philip is very important to her. She does love Philip but not in the way that a young woman desires a partner. Philip is not sexually attractive to her. She is attracted to him more for emotional and sentimental reasons. Philip had fulfilled her in some ways, he had supplied some of Maggie’s need for love, empathy, admiration, understanding, affection and intellectual development. No wonder that Maggie later reminisces that she “was adored once” (Eliot 154). Moreover, Philip’s act of kindness towards Tom and other such deeds had left a deep impression on her. Although Maggie had been fooling herself into believing that the idea of having Philip as a life partner was what she found desirable, after meeting Stephen Guest, she realizes with more forcefulness (although she still can’t admit this to herself honestly) that Philip cannot be the person to make her happy forever as a partner: Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her life, receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a person toward whom she herself was conscious of timidity. This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she seated herself. (Eliot 149)

Also, “it was very charming to be taken care of in that kind, graceful manner by someone taller and stronger than one’s self” (Eliot 150). Maggie “had

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never felt just in the same way before” (Eliot 150). When Lucy comments that it is very beautiful that Maggie should love Philip, that “there is something romantic in it” and adds that Philip would adore Maggie “like a husband in a fairy tale” and she would, therefore, contrive to make them life-partners, Maggie “tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden chill” (Eliot 154). Maggie, at that instant, obviously found the idea frightening, though Lucy (as naïve as always) took it as an indication that Maggie was feeling cold. The narrator tells us that “Maggie had been thoroughly sincere” since “her nature had never found it easy to be otherwise” (Eliot 154). I don’t quite agree with the narrator here. I do not believe that Maggie had been “thoroughly sincere” in her revelations, although the narrator asserts so. We’re also told that Maggie “had never before known the relief of such an outpouring” and that “she had never before told Lucy anything of her inmost life” (Eliot 154). Maggie did reveal to Lucy something of her “inmost life”, but not all. I’m not insinuating that Maggie was insincere in her revelation to Lucy. Rather, she was not aware of the discrepancy in her revelation. We cannot expect Maggie to reveal to her cousin Lucy that which she herself has not accepted. The sudden chill that Maggie had felt was involuntary and was a result of the reaction of her subconscious mind. This reveals the inner conflict that is living within Maggie. Had Maggie been a self-actualizing person, she might have been able to resolve her inner conflict. This incident is followed by the narrator telling us that “confidences are sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere” (Eliot 154). Confidences tend to be blinder still when the person confiding is herself blind to her own inner life! Maggie tells Lucy that “it would be unreasonable, it would be wrong”, for her and Philip “to entertain the idea of marriage” and that she has “given up thinking of him as a lover” (Eliot 157). Maggie is able to take this decision because her subconscious mind doesn’t want Philip as a partner. She insists that she is “telling…the truth” and that Lucy has “no right to disbelieve” her (Eliot 157). The “oppressive spell” that Maggie feels when she is with Stephen is due to her discomfort at being alone with a man who is her cousin’s fiancée and whom she is attracted to (Eliot 162). When Stephen mentions Philip’s name, “new images” are “summoned” to Maggie’s mind and she rises from her seat with “a sudden resolution” (Eliot 157). This act of rising from her seat and moving away is her mental act of distancing herself from Stephen. Maggie here reminds herself of her devotion to Philip and the sacredness of the relationship she shares with him. When Lucy asks Maggie: “Is it that you don’t love Philip well enough to marry him?” Maggie tells her, holding “Lucy’s hands tightly in silence

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a little while” while “her own hands were quite cold”: “Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the best and highest lot for me, -to make his life happy” (Eliot 175). Despite Maggie’s “calm decisive” answer, even Philip knows that her subconscious desire (basic need) for a suitable partner and the fact that she doesn’t love him is one of the reasons for her refusing to marry him. Maggie could not have been “open and transparent as a rock-pool” because she had not even opened up to herself (Eliot 178). Is the narrator aware of this? The text indicates that the narrator is aware of the state of Maggie’s mind and heart. Telling Stephen that “her whole heart was Philip’s” was only an excuse and a means of escape (from her predicament) for Maggie (Eliot 178). But even this “her lips would not utter” because it was not the truth and who would know this better than Maggie herself (Eliot 180). Maggie always ends up giving less priority to her own desires, and finds it difficult to assert her rights. Philip has already diagnosed this aspect of Maggie’s character. As Maggie tells Stephen: “You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds” (Eliot 180). Philip is insightful for “his imagination wrought out the whole story” (Eliot 185). He sometimes acts compulsively in love, as a young man may be expected to do, but he deduced Maggie’s predicament. Philip realizes that he has “been thrusting himself on Maggie all along” (Eliot 185). In poor Maggie’s mind, affection had become akin to self-sacrifice. Whenever she became attached to another person, she found herself in a situation where she was expected to sacrifice her affection and its object. All pleasures that Maggie had experienced in life, seemed to her to be “transient” (Eliot 189). Her moments of happiness seemed to be like “oblivion”: “Philip had been right when he told her that she knew nothing of renunciation; she had thought it was quiet ecstasy; she saw it face to face now” (Eliot 189). The narrator knows, and even Maggie is now conscious that she “knew nothing of renunciation” (Eliot 189). Her previous belief was but an illusion (Eliot 189). Maggie is finally able to confess to herself and Stephen that she “does care for Philip” but “in a different way” (Eliot 192). Her feeling of obligation towards Philip stems from the fact that Philip thinks of her “as the one promise of his life” (Eliot 192). It is an indication of Maggie’s sense of righteousness and her morality that even though she was deeply in love with Stephen her “whole soul” had “never consented” to her “elopement” with him or to have any relation with him (Eliot 192).

CHAPTER FIVE ANALYSIS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË’S JANE EYRE

The Brontë family, tracing its origins to the Irish clan Ó Pronntaigh, “were a family of hereditary scribes and literary men” (“Brontë family”). Patrick Brontë “was the first born of a family of ten children” and through the dint of sheer hard work and talent “went to Cambridge University and became a Minister of the Church at England” (Cannon). All his children were born in Yorkshire “and the novels written by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, are truly Yorkshire in spirit and in feeling” (Cannon). During their childhood years, the young Charlotte and her brother and sisters exercised their active imaginations through oral storytelling sessions. They went on to collaborate on the writing of stories set in a world created by their fantasy and progressed to writing stories independently of the others. While all of them went on to become artists, it was Charlotte who won the greatest recognition. Her “art had more apparent ties with ordinary life and easier reached the audience and a wider one, at that” (Diakonova). Amongst novelists, Charlotte Brontë was one of a kind. The “most popular” of her works by far was Jane Eyre, “the story of a poor governess who by sheer force of personality won a decisive victory in the fierce battle she had to fight for love and happiness” (Diakonova). The sense of life and reality that the story evokes is perhaps unparalleled. What makes the work even more valuable is that Brontë manages to do so while also incorporating Gothic and elements of fantasy in the novel. The work is drawn from the author’s own experiences in Life, but even in its origins, Jane Eyre is a work of contrasts, for it is as clearly a product of the author’s mind, imagination, and fantasy. In life, Charlotte had to undergo repeated tragedies and incidents of bitter misfortune. She was destined to witness the deaths of her mother, her brother, and her four sisters. The dreariness of her existence marked her profoundly and influenced her writing, as did the relative isolation in which she was raised. Jane Eyre portrays the quest of a highly individualistic female protagonist, and the monologue narrative style permits a revelation of her inner life allowing

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the reader the privilege of experiencing her trials and psychological conflicts. Jane is essentially an orphan, her early years are unhappy, lonesome and full of struggle – and the rest of her life is bound to be a search for the happiness that she has never found. All the characters in the story revolve around Jane and are seen in the light of their relationship to her. Much as Jane would like to have a family, it is only at the end of the story that she gets one, together with a sense of belonging. Enclosed in her room, suffering through ill-health, and often nursing her kin, writing Jane Eyre is possibly the best that young Charlotte could have done for herself. And she did it well – for it was through the trials and tribulations of Jane, and the flowering of her desires that she lived her life anew. Sometimes visualization takes a backseat and imagination comes to the fore in this act of creation and portrayal. How else to explain the extraordinary gap between the limited, sorrowful, and lonely life of Charlotte Brontë and the richness of her achievement. Charlotte Brontë’s psychological insight coupled with her intimate narrative style has been commended by literary analysts for decades. Even though she started with poetry and Byronic stories in her childhood and adolescence, she gradually developed a preference for realistic literature which she nurtured and experimented with. She was gifted with a keenly perceptive nature which allowed her to explore the complexity of the characters she drew. Throughout the book, the narrator directly addresses the “reader”: “A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote” (Brontë 80). In Jane Eyre, the narrator seems conscious of the effect that her personal account will produce on the reader and intentionally accentuates the ‘truth’ in her narrative by making the reader privy to her innermost feelings. The address to the reader is a part of this effort. She also renders reality to her story by encouraging the reader to be a witness to the story through his mind’s eye: “All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table” (Brontë 80). Charlotte Brontë weaves an air of psychological reality into the story through her distinctive narrative style itself. No wonder then that after reading Jane Eyre, G.H. Lewes had famously declared – “Passages read like a page out of one’s own life” (Glen 65). Her publisher, George Smith, “found the work so fascinating that in order to finish reading it he canceled an appointment and bolted his dinner; and his response was not unusual” (Blom 156). The strength of character that is revealed in Jane’s selfrighteous path to a meaningful life, her search for belonging and quest for

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entitlement is such that it has drawn readers to it again and again. The illusion of lifelikeness that this Bildungsroman generates is such that one almost abhors considering it a mere ‘story’. Readers are often left overwhelmed and overawed by their own psychological involvement in the narrative, and a deep interest in the fate of the protagonist. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte utilizes a very atypical medium – the supernatural element – to influence this realistic novel’s atmosphere and feel. Probably the only other well-known writer to have incorporated this medium in a realistic work was Thomas Hardy – more famously in Tess. Just after the confession of Jane’s and Rochester’s love for each other, the weather suddenly undergoes a dark change: “But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us” (Brontë 225). Critics have noted that melodramatic elements are intrinsic to the structure of Jane Eyre and for the working out of the plot. This is quite true and I’ve drawn attention to one such crucial aspect of the story at the end of my analysis. Equally noteworthy is the manner in which Brontë weaves realistic elements together with gothic and melodramatic elements, to create a story unified throughout in its wholesomeness and freshness. Crucial moments in the life of the protagonist are intimately revealed to the reader through the use of interior monologue. After her marriage ceremony with Edward Rochester is broken off, Jane leaves Thornfield and travels as far away as she can. The helpless, weak and hungry Jane can hardly help but converse with herself in her pain and “sense of desolation”: “I feel I cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night?” “And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid! -direct me!” (Brontë 291)

Analyzing Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Lewes found in it a “balance of (the) subjective and objective” (Blom 156). He climaxed his review by calling attention to the novel’s remarkable realism: This faculty for objective representation is also united to a strange power of subjective representation. We do not simply mean the power over the passions - the psychological intuition of the artist, but the power also of connecting external appearances with internal effects - of representing the psychological interpretation of material phenomena. (Blom 156)

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Though the temptations and desires that are evoked in the young Jane (by the dark and passionate Edward Rochester, and (to a much lesser extent by) the brooding, repressed evangelist St. John) are strong, the resistance that they meet from her moral force is equally powerful. Brontë’s deep and psychic understanding of human relationships is revealed at several points in the story. Jane’s dramatic relationship with Rochester, magnetic in its effect, and passionate and moralistic in its consequences, has drawn much attention. However, more intriguing and psychologically revealing is the unsettling relation she experiences with St. John Rivers. Even though the story is essentially Jane’s, the richness of the character portrayals (St. John and Aunt Reed, for example) is an exceptional achievement in psychological realism. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre subtly takes up the issue of feminine confinement and freedom. This aspect is personified in the life-story of the protagonist herself – right from the troubled days of her childhood at Gateshead Hall which she cannot break away from, her confined existence at Lowood, at the end of which she wishes nothing better than an escape into the lands beyond the mountains that are but faintly visible, to her time with the Rivers, where she is expected by St. John to lead a subdued and monotonous life. The protagonist almost betrays an insatiable need for freedom and adventure, after successive confinements at Gateshead and Lowood School. Even after finding a “change” in her environment and situation at Thornfield, Jane was not altogether satisfied or relieved of her desires: Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented (italics mine). I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it…and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended - a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence. (italics mine) (Brontë 95)

Pointing out that “Jane’s art has an aura of sexuality in its content and its context”, Rosemary Babcock claims that the jealousy which leads Jane to produce Blanche’s portrait is indicative of a sexual attraction for Rochester: “Her watercolors are steeped in sexuality in their subject and interpretation” (“Jane Eyre Literature”). Jane’s art is associated with fantasy, and that fantasy includes an expression of her sexuality. Jane Eyre also reveals Charlotte Brontë’s understanding of child psychology. Even as a child, Jane feels “humbled” by the consciousness of

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her “physical inferiority” (Brontë 3). Jane is an intelligent child and has a fine understanding of morality and righteousness. Her young life’s travails have lent a maturity to her grave and somber nature. Her aunt uses this as an excuse to ill-treat and humiliate the orphaned child, who, she feels, should have a more “sociable and childlike” disposition (Brontë 3). Since Jane’s immediate environment doesn’t offer any source of affection, her loneliness finds succor in books alone: “Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive” (Brontë 4)…“With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way” (Brontë 5). Even at the tender age of ten, Jane was subjected to “terror” and “inflictions”: “He (John Reed) bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually…every nerve I had feared him. I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions…” (Brontë 5) However, it is not just John who has an antipathy to Jane, but Mrs. Reed herself, who is only bringing up Jane as an act of obligation to her dead husband: “Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back” (Brontë 6). That this attitude of Mrs. Reed has percolated into the children’s psyche is evident when John Reed tells Jane Eyre: “You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense” (Brontë 6). Even while reading about cruel emperors like Nero and Caligula in the History of Rome, Jane’s innocent mind could not help but draw comparisons to her insensitive cousin John: “I had drawn parallels in silence” (Brontë 6). That Mrs. Reed is an ineffective parent is evident in the way she is bringing up John and the way she covers up his mistakes and directs her fury on Jane. John grows up into an irresponsible adult and an errant human being, and his mother must share a part of the blame. Jane was always being made to feel that she was under obligations: “This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible” (Brontë 8). Even Miss Abbot insinuates to Jane that if she meets an untimely death, she could go to Hell. As a child, Jane was unable to answer her ceaseless inward question: why she “thus suffered” (Brontë 10). Her insensitive environment left the child in a “habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt and forlorn depression”, thus adversely affecting her psychological

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development (Brontë 11). Jane’s stifled existence at Gateshead can be judged from the following passage: “I felt an irrepressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed” (Brontë 13). The red room incident gave Jane’s nerves such a shock that she felt the reverberations “to this day” (Brontë 14). After the red room incident and Jane’s subsequent illness, Mrs. Reed appointed “a small closet” for Jane to sleep in by herself and Jane also had to take her meals alone (Brontë 20). Jane recalls the red room incident and the emotions associated with it, long after she has left Gateshead and is at Lowood: “…nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber” (Brontë 60). Jane is deeply conscious of her average, unattractive looks and of being “rarely noticed” in society (Brontë 22). Jane suffered from a deep sense of loneliness and lack of affection. Human beings have the need to love and also the need to be loved. Jane’s latter need remaining altogether unmet and unsatisfied during her days at Gateshead, and not being allowed to satisfy the former (“human beings must love something”) need on anyone in her immediate environment, she lavished her attention on a “faded graven image” of a doll (Brontë 22): “It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation” (Brontë 22). When she heard her aunt’s conversation with Mr. Brocklehurst, though still a child, Jane “dimly perceived” that her aunt “was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined” her to enter (Brontë 27). After Mr. Brocklehurst leaves Gateshead, the reader is witness to Jane’s developed sense of righteousness: “Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn…” (Brontë 30). After her outburst, Jane feels a sense of elation: “Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty” (Brontë 30). Prior to this incident, Jane’s anger and rebellion at her treatment at the hands of her aunt and cousins had mostly been internal. She hardly ever retaliated sufficiently and effectually, neither was she ever allowed to do so. It is this seething, unexpressed anger that makes her “tremble so violently” when she finally retaliates against her aunt (Brontë 30). Her inward sense of injustice finds an outlet. This gives her young mind a

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psychological relief. This was also the first time that she had tasted “something of vengeance” and it was also the “first victory” that she had gained (Brontë 30). However, her delicate nature was not programmed for “vengeance” and the incident momentarily left her feeling “poisoned” (Brontë 30). Jane is deeply affected by her friendship with Helen Burns, who suffers under an unjust teacher. She is initially mystified by Helen Burns’ “doctrine of endurance” and policy of returning “good for evil” (Brontë 47). Jane’s strong and passionate retaliation against her aunt was a singular and unique experience of her childhood. That it has had a lasting impact on her psychology can be inferred from her statement to Helen Burns: …you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again. (Brontë 48)

Jane Eyre’s struggle continued with her experiences at Lowood: “My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age - an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles” (Brontë 50). It is now established that Charlotte Brontë’s narration of events at Lowood is based on her own experiences at Cowen Bridge. It is therefore quite heart-rending to read the conditions that Jane and the other girls of Lowood had to put up with: From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread…with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger. (Brontë 50)

Other than the physical hardships of her lot at Lowood, Jane also had her psychological demons to contend with. Her passionate, loving nature and a desperate lifelong need for affection are revealed in her outburst to Helen Burns: I know I should think well of myself, but that is not enough: if others don’t love me I would rather die than live…to gain some real affection from you,

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or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken,…or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest. (Brontë 59)

Helen was right in saying that Jane thought “too much of the love of human beings”, whereas she herself found peace, solace, and security in the idea of a life beyond death, in life eternal (Brontë 59). Mr. Brocklehurst’s ‘telling’ on Jane Eyre could have psychologically scarred her for life, had it not been for the benign presence and companionship of Helen Burns and Miss Temple. When Jane had been sentenced to her “pedestal of infamy”, Helen passes her by and her presence uplifts Jane spiritually and morally (Brontë 57): “What my sensations were no language can describe…How the new feeling bore me up!” (Brontë 57) Helen’s calm presence and attitude towards life also lend Jane the psychological strength to deal with her condition with some stoicism. Jane Eyre’s association with Helen is crucial to her psychological development and she also cherished for her “a sentiment of attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated my heart” (Brontë 66-67). Jane is deeply aware of her unimpressive appearance and she also suffers from low self-esteem. “…I am a defective being, with many faults and few redeeming points” (Brontë 66). The narrator is quite aware of her passionate and restless nature. We know that her “thoughts” were not inclined to be harmonious, and her “feelings” were not altogether “regulated” (Brontë 72). Jane only believed herself to be “content”, but wasn’t altogether content. And while she “appeared” to the “eyes of others” and “usually” even to her own as a “disciplined, and subdued character”, her impulsive and passionate nature not altogether conformed to this (Brontë 72). Jane idolized Miss Temple, “to her instruction” she owed the “best part of her acquirements” and it was Miss Temple’s presence that had “made Lowood in some degree a home” to her (Brontë 72). With Miss Temple’s departure “the reason for tranquility was no more” and Jane now finally left in her “natural element” began to “feel the stirring of old emotions” (Brontë 72). It is my contention that Jane Eyre’s “hopes” and her desire for “sensations and excitements” were not engendered suddenly on Miss Temple’s departure (Brontë 73). These lay at the very base of Jane’s imaginative, impulsive and passionate nature. But she had subconsciously subdued these “stirrings” under the tranquil influence and guiding presence of Miss Temple (Brontë 72). Although long subdued, these desires were as alive as ever. When Jane speaks of seeking “real knowledge of life amidst its perils”, we know that she has an adventurous and reckless side to her nature (Brontë 73). Her longing to “surmount” the blue peaks around Lowood and to explore the world

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outside this “prison ground” and “exile limits” was the accumulated, inner secret feeling of eight long years for “an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since” (Brontë 73). At Miss Temple’s departure, Jane underwent a psychological “transformation” and she “tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon” (Brontë 73). She now desired “liberty” and “change”; for “liberty” she “gasped” (Brontë 73). We realize that Jane’s young years felt stifled at Lowood and “gasped” for “liberty” (Brontë 73). Through this psychological transformation, Jane was able to view her desires afresh, and with more honesty than before. The fact that she did not look very impressive could not have added to her self-esteem for “at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification” (Brontë 79). The narrator acknowledges that “externals have a great effect on the young” and she herself was no exception to the rule (Brontë 85). The “something pleasant” that Jane’s faculties expected “at an indefinite future period” was nothing else than love and a fulfilling family life, for she was all of eighteen and ready for love (Brontë 85). Jane wished she were beautiful and could be seen as a desirable partner: It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. (Brontë 85)

Since Jane doesn’t know much about the mysterious Mr. Rochester and he himself reveals but little through his words and actions, it is Mrs. Fairfax who gives some definite introduction to Mr. Rochester’s character. She attributes Mr. Rochester’s “peculiarities of temper” and “changeful and abrupt” manner to his nature and partly because he has “painful thoughts…to harass him…and make his spirits unequal” (Brontë 111). She also knows him to be “not very forgiving” of nature (Brontë 112). He is also “sarcastic” and ironical in his speech (Brontë 112). Later, Mr. Rochester himself gives an indication of his singularly painful thoughts when he tells Jane to “divert” his thoughts, which were “galled with dwelling on one point - cankering as a rusty nail” (Brontë 117).

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Brontë, in fact, has moulded Edward Rochester as a “Byronic Hero” and this is evident from his character, utterances, and behavior: In Rochester we see the kind of hero that the Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, created in Manfred (1817) and Don Juan (18191824). Lonely, defiant, angry at the universe and God for his alienation and disappointments in life, and (above all), brooding, ruggedly handsome, physically powerful, sexually attractive, and mysterious because of some secret associated with his past, the Byronic Hero rejects the judgments and conventions of his society. (Allingham)

Mr. Rochester is charmed by Jane’s frank, and unaffected manner, her bold answers and her sense of righteousness: I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarseminded misapprehension of one’s meaning are the usual rewards of candour. (Brontë 118)

The “detailed exploration of a strong female character’s consciousness has made readers and critics in recent decades consider Jane Eyre as an influential feminist text” (“Jane Eyre: Reader’s”). The novel works both as the “absorbing story of an individual woman's quest and as a narrative of the dilemmas that confront so many women” (“Penguin Groups”): As an adult, Jane faces the romantic prospects of a young woman lacking the social advantages of family, money, and beauty, and therefore especially vulnerable to the allure of admiration and security. By creating two suitors who exemplify opposing threats to Jane’s selfhood, Brontë dramatizes Jane’s internal struggles against competing temptations, and Jane’s efforts to resist both the ascetic St. John Rivers and the sybaritic Rochester provide the most powerful drama in the book. In Jane, Brontë gives us a character able to withstand St. John’s missionary call to selfimmolation in a marriage to serve humanity and Rochester’s attempts to persuade her to indulge her sexual and romantic desires at the expense of her own moral code. (“Penguin Groups”)

Mr. Rochester himself seems to unconsciously guide Jane’s future course of life and decisions when he tells her: “Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life” (Brontë 119). Mr. Rochester lives in remorse of his actions and his past life, and unlike the young and inexperienced Jane, he is right in believing that “repentance”

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is not a cure for remorse (Brontë 119). He rather pines for reformation which he feels can be brought about in him through the right companion, though he does not spell this out to Jane. The notion that had “flittered across” his brain was not an “error” or a “temptation”, but an “inspiration” (Brontë 119). The “fair notion” that asks “entrance” to his heart bears the message of love (Brontë 119). But he realizes that it is little use “thinking” of it since he is bound to a previously sinful and now mentally deranged and malignant wife (Brontë 120). Although deeply troubled by his circumstances as well as his past life, Edward Rochester is hopeful of the “reformation” he needs: “You seem to doubt me; I don’t doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives are…both are right” (Brontë 120). Even after a few meetings and conversations, Mr. Rochester understands Jane Eyre’s character well: “I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat” (Brontë 121). He realizes that she is like “a vivid, restless, resolute captive” bird, who “were it but free…would soar cloud-high” (Brontë 121). His reading of Jane could not have been closer to the truth. Mr. Rochester has a remarkable gift of observation as well as psychological perspicacity. He makes Jane his confidant because he is quick to understand that with her “gravity, consideration and caution” she was “made to be the recipient of secrets” (Brontë 125). He also feels that her mind would not “take infection” and while he could not “blight” her with his conversations, she might “refresh” him (Brontë 125). There is also something extraordinary and spiritual about Jane Eyre’s artwork. Denney contends that her art offers “one means, among many, of charting her growth to maturity” (Denney, “Jane’s Art”). In “her story, Jane’s solitary pastime sometimes operates as an outlet of past or present pain and often offers her a chance to deal with unpleasant memories and emotions” (“Charlotte: Jane Eyre’s Artwork”). There are “five scenes in the novel that define the importance of art to Jane’s growth: her three watercolors viewed by Rochester at Thornfield, the miniature of Blanche Ingram that precedes their meeting, her unconscious pencil sketch of Rochester during her return to Gateshead, Rosamund Oliver’s request for a portrait at Morton, and St. John’s viewing of her work, which leads to the discovery of her identity near the end of the novel” (“Charlotte: Jane Eyre's Artwork”). These “scenes occur throughout the novel, giving her art a prominence in the story, and there are also several references to her unique artistic ability” (“Charlotte: Jane Eyre’s Artwork”). Jane’s imagination is her power, and from that power, she produces a sketch of Mr. Rochester, and declares: “There, I had a friend’s face under

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my gaze: and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me?” (Brontë 205). Rather than an act of reason to counter feelings of jealousy and resentment, here Jane executes a drawing, unplanned and unforeseen, which leaves her “absorbed and content” (Brontë 25). The imaginative mind is the source of content for Jane, not reason. There are three watercolors painted by Jane that are described in detail in the novel. The interpretation of these watercolors has given rise to some debate amongst literary analysts and scholars. The fact that these works are delineated in great detail by the narrator seems to suggest that their subject-matter is significant to the mind of the protagonist as well as to the structure of the story. Some interpretations have seen the paintings encoded with prophetic messages that come to fruition later in the narrative. There is certainly not a single, overarching interpretation for these works and that is why scholars implicate multiple sources and apply numerous readings. The main sources appear to be Milton’s Paradise Lost and Bewick’s History of British Birds, which are two texts that are prominent in the novel. Neither, however, fully elucidates these complex, enigmatic paintings. Some agreement among scholars is noted in the interpretation of the paintings as prophecies that foreshadow future events (and their accompanying emotions) in Jane’s story. The paintings incorporate a surrealistic, multi-layered vision that is at once Jane’s past and her future: Jane creates the paintings at Lowood and they reflect her state of mind while she is there, and they connect also to future events in the novel. (Denney, “Toward an Interpretation”)

The first painting shows a “half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet, set with gems” and “sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water” (Brontë 109). The “Miltonic aspect of this painting is the cormorant, which is present as a symbol of deception and greed in Paradise Lost” (Denney): The image is of Satan, and here he is entering Paradise in disguise just prior to tempting Eve thereby setting in motion the Fall of Man. Therefore, the cormorant is “an image of temptation,” a “sinister figure” who holds the property of the drowned woman like a greedy devil. This interpretation is reinforced by the Oxford English Dictionary, which states that the “cormorant” is a term for an “insatiably greedy or rapacious person,” which is the definition in the early 19th century when the novel was published. Temptation and deception are markers of Jane’s early relationship with Rochester, where Rochester tempts Jane to the altar while he is already married, and desired to adorn her with jewelry and clothing prior to the wedding. (Denney, “Toward an Interpretation”)

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There is “yet another instance in the text which suggests that this painting is negative and prophetic” (Denney). This comes “as Jane and Rochester’s wedding is called off, and Jane returns to her room after meeting the current Mrs. Rochester” (Denney): “My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow…in full, heavy swing the torrent poured over me…I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me” (Brontë 261). Jane associates drowning with the overwhelming emotion of despair. The “cormorant and its bracelet, then, would symbolize the sinfulness of Rochester’s failure to disclose the fact that he is already married” (Denney): “This act eats away, as the cormorant eats the bracelet, her chance for happiness and security in wealth symbolized by that bracelet” (Denney). This leads to an interpretation of the second painting, with its prominent eyes, which has a conspicuous effect on Rochester. Pickrel asserts that this figure is a vision of Bertha Rochester, “her eyes shining ‘dark and wild’ and her hair streaming ‘shadowy’”; in Bertha’s final scene in the novel her ‘long black hair’ is ‘streaming against the flames’ just before she jumps to her death from the roof of Thornfield (Gilbert 175). This is a valid interpretation, if only a partial one, for Rochester observes Jane’s eyes to be just as powerful. These interpretations help explain Rochester’s abrupt reaction to this particular work where he commands Jane to “put the drawings away!” after he cannot bear to think about them any longer (Brontë 110). Lisa Denney claims that the “paintings are founded on ideas from Bewick, Milton, Greek mythology and the Bible, and this foundation allows one to move toward an interpretation of the paintings”: “Images of temptation, desolation, isolation, and sexuality dominate these three works much as they do the text as a whole. The paintings’ interpretation leans heavily toward their premonitory power based on their suggestiveness to other events in the novel” (Denney). Mr. Rochester is struck at the contrast between Jane and his former lover and Jane’s lack of deceit and affectation: “Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she called ‘my beaute male’: wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time…” (Brontë 126). Jane is not left untouched by this “new interest” in her life. The narrator finally gives us her (Jane’s) opinion of Mr. Rochester: So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred…his presence in a room was more

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cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults…But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality had their source in some cruel cross of fate. (Brontë 128-129)

It is very plausible that Mr. Rochester had looked on Jane as a future companion quite early in their association. Even the messenger of love that he speaks of in his second meeting with Jane could have heralded her coming into his life, in his imagination. On Mr. Rochester’s part, it was not quite unlike love at first sight. He had indeed grown affectionate of Jane. He acknowledges as much when he says: “I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time; I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing...Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look” (Brontë 132-133). After Jane saves his life, Mr. Rochester is unwilling to let her leave his presence. The narrator reveals Jane’s after-thoughts beautifully. Without revealing her thoughts directly, she still manages to convey her psychological state: I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy – a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned. (Brontë 133)

Jane reciprocates Rochester’s kindness by calling him her ‘Master’ and ‘Sir’ equally often. Godfrey notes Jane’s submissiveness around Rochester: Jane Eyre is also a young woman with a strong will and a temper to match, and yet when in the presence of her master, as she calls him, Jane becomes passive and obedient, even child-like, as Rochester himself is fond of noting…Rochester, having secured Jane’s love, almost reflexively begins to treat her like an inferior...his “mustard-seed,” his “little sunny-faced... girl-bride.” “It is your time now, little tyrant,” he declares, “but it will be mine presently”. This unequal power dynamic, incongruously coupled with Jane’s selfgovernment, complicates Jane’s independence and foreshadows her eventual hybridization as Rochester’s mother and child. (LeMaster)

When Jane receives knowledge of Blanche Ingram’s beauty and her standing in society, she feels that the sentiments that she had been

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cherishing for Rochester were nothing but a straying of “imagination’s boundless and trackless waste” (Brontë 140): “YOU,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? YOU gifted with the power of pleasing him? YOU of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me” (Brontë 139). Jane is quick to arrive “into the safe fold of common sense” (Brontë 139). This reflects Jane Eyre’s low self-esteem. She is incapable of seeing herself as a worthy competition to a beauty like Blanche Ingram, despite receiving Mr. Rochester’s attention. Her spiting herself for her “folly” is a sub-conscious way of self-preservation and self-defence against any future hurt. She wants to thrust away those dreams that might have little chance of being realized: “…it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it” (Brontë 140). To always be reminded of the difference between herself and Blanche Ingram, Jane draws a portrait of herself (‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor and plain’) and Blanche Ingram (‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank’) (Brontë 140). Jane Eyre’s lack of self-esteem derives from several factors: her lack of physical beauty, her lack of a family and sense of belonging (and thereby social standing), her poverty and her situation of a “dependent and novice” (Brontë 139). However, this act of self-preservation does little to assuage the love and strong attraction that she felt for Mr. Rochester. When a letter arrives from Mr. Rochester after he has been away a fortnight, and while Mrs. Fairfax attempts to open the seal, Jane’s “hand shook”: “why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider” (Brontë 141). In hindsight, the narrator understands her state of mind then. Jane is a kind, noble, forgiving person, and doesn’t have a vindictive personality. She believes that “sympathies…exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension” (Brontë 193). It is true that as a child Jane had felt resentment and even a degree of vindictiveness (towards the Reeds): On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart - a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation…The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of

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resentment extinguished. (Brontë 200) …I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated. (Brontë 203)

After her first meeting with her aunt, Jane realized that “she was resolved to consider” her “bad to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification” (Brontë 203). It is interesting that although it has been eight long years since Mrs. Reed abandoned Jane at Lowood, at her deathbed, her strongest and most troubling recollections deal with her: “I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition” (Brontë 203-204). Mrs. Reed is still as unforgiving as ever: “The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did - I wish she had died!” (Brontë 204). Mrs. Reed is an excellent example of the aggressive-vindictive personality, as laid down by psychologist Karen Horney. Jane as a child had chosen the compliant solution since she was not naturally aggressive, but rather meek and nervous in the face of oppression. This frightened, shy behavior of hers somehow enraged the people in her environment even more (as Bessy told her once, we recall). However, there was a seething sense of injustice within Jane, which grew with the passage of time and with the increase of her ill-treatment. In the compliant person, says Horney, there are “a variety of aggressive tendencies strongly repressed” (Paris, Imagined 21). When Jane finally could bear it no more and “poured out the venom” of her mind (as Mrs. Reed puts it), it was too much of a shock for the aggressive Mrs. Reed (Brontë 210). She had never expected the compliant child to retaliate in a manner that would wreak havoc on her nerves: “I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice” (Brontë 210). She could never forgive such retaliation from a person who had till then been compliant to her. As she tells Jane Eyre, “You have a very bad disposition, and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and

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violence, I can never comprehend” (Brontë 211). Also, as we have come to see in the adult Jane Eyre, she had something of that blunt and straightforward manner even as a child. The truth in her words had left an impression on Mrs. Reed’s subconscious mind and made her feel guilty despite herself. It was all the more painful because Jane’s outburst dealt with Mrs. Reed’s having broken her vow to her husband. It is little wonder then that although Mrs. Reed herself is aggressive and unprincipled, her subconscious mind has been playing tricks on her behind her back and given rise to feelings of remorse. However, since Mrs. Reed’s aggressive-vindictive nature is not equipped to handle remorse in a mature and self-actualizing manner, it stays in her subconscious and haunts her like a phantom in the confines of her delirious mind at her deathbed. For Mrs. Reed, apologizing to a person who had been compliant to her and for whom she has a deep-seated aversion is not easy: “I may get better, and to humble myself so to her is painful” (Brontë 210). When Jane’s uncle had written to Mrs. Reed from Madeira, expressing his wish to “adopt her” during his life, she had replied with false information (Brontë 210). Mrs. Reed confesses that it was the profound vindictiveness of her nature that made her do it: “I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in helping you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane – the fury with which you once turned on me…I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge…I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood” (Brontë 210-211). Unable to reconcile herself to her sin and folly, and unwilling to ascribe the cause for the same to her own defective, vindictive nature, Mrs. Reed blames Jane for her troubles and pangs of conscience: “You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit” (Brontë 211). Jane’s memories of Gateshead are filled with injustice and extreme cruelty: “I looked into a certain corner near, half expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck” (Brontë 202). Despite this, Jane has grown up into a mature, forgiving, self-actualizing person. In her delirious state, and on Jane’s prompting, Mrs. Reed reveals the source of her deep-seated aversion for Jane: I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband’s only sister, and a real favourite with him: he opposed the family’s disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I entreated him rather

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to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it - a sickly, whining, pining thing!...Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. (Brontë 204)

However, even till her last moments, Mrs. Reed remains unaware of her contribution in spoiling her son: “John gambles dreadfully, and always loses – poor boy! He is beset by sharpers” (Brontë 204). Towards the end of her life, Mrs. Reed has had to face many troubles and heartbreaks: “He threatens me – he continually threatens me with his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?” (Brontë 204) Mrs. Reed lay at her deathbed “almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent attention” (Brontë 208). Mrs. Reed’s delirious conversation with Jane drained her so much, that she could not have another for ten days. It is to be noted that none of Mrs. Reed’s children grew up into psychologically mature human beings. While John Reed met an untimely death through dissipation, Georgiana had grown up into a vain woman and Eliza into an unsympathetic and selfish misanthrope. It is only in her last hours, that Mrs. Reed is finally able to express her regrets to Jane. Jane has more positive associations with Thornfield than she could ever have with Gateshead. At an interesting turn in the narrative, which depicts Jane returning to Thornfield after a long gap, we are impressed by Brontë’s usage of interior monologue, how it conveys the longing that she feels for Mr. Rochester and the anticipation that finally leads to the discovery of his presence: They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates…I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar…I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see-Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing. (Brontë 215)

As Jane herself tells the readers, all her life she has been a wanderer on the face of the earth, and hasn’t ever experienced what it feels like to return home. She hasn’t ever had a loving family and it is only after

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coming to Thornfield that she gets some affection from Adele and Mrs. Fairfax, but most of all from Edward Rochester, who has kindled in her heart a deep kindred feeling and affection. She is deeply moved when she sees Mr. Rochester after a gap of one month, sitting on the stone steps at the entrance to Thornfield Hall: “Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery…scarcely cognizant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face – which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal” (Brontë 215). Mr. Rochester is well-aware of Jane’s low self-esteem. He tells her that after their wedding he shall take her away to “French vineyards and Italian plains” and “she shall taste” the “life of cities” and “shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others” (Brontë 228). After his mistake of marrying a highly incompatible woman who later turns out to be an adulterous imbecile, Edward Rochester was skeptical and judging of women. Experience had taught him not to be taken in by “faces” and he spent long years wandering in search of the ideal mate who had the innate humane qualities that his noble nature desired: To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts - when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break - at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent - I am ever tender and true. (Brontë 229)

Jane Eyre was right in deducing that her relationship with Mr. Rochester could not be desirable and long-lasting if she entered it with the status of a mistress. Edward Rochester himself, unwittingly, gives away this information: “Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara” (Brontë 275). Mr. Rochester said this with little consciousness of the effect it could have on Jane. In his mind, he loved Jane and had found in her the kind of woman, the benevolent, sensible “companion”, the “friend”, the “angel” that he had sought all his life (Brontë 278). Although the position he was offering Jane would make her a “mistress”, Mr. Rochester himself, in the passion, alarm, and despondency of the moment and in his great love and affection for Jane, seems to be oblivious of this. Jane, however, draws a “certain inference” from this: “I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them

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the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and…through any temptation - to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory” (Brontë 275). When Jane decides to leave Thornfield and Mr. Rochester, she was well aware of the danger of his going to ruin: “Oh, that fear of his selfabandonment - far worse than my abandonment-how it goaded me!” “It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in” (Brontë 284). But even in her “pain of heart”, her “frantic effort of principle” triumphed, although she almost “abhorred” herself for that (Brontë 284). In this time of trouble, Jane submits her life to God’s care and sees Nature and Life as a manifestation of his divine will. Looking at the “mighty Milky way”, Jane “felt the might and strength of God”: “Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits” (Brontë 286). The adult Jane has a well-balanced, mature and self-actualizing personality. She is not compulsively compliant or dominant. But she doesn’t mind being compliant to an authority that is benevolent and fair, wherein she doesn’t have to compromise with her “conscience and selfrespect”: “Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will” (Brontë 304). St. John Rivers doesn’t have a personality that is easily judged from appearance, unlike his sisters: “St. John’s eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s thoughts” (Brontë 305). Despite his missionary zeal and philanthropic nature and his occupation of a parishioner, St. John Rivers lacked “mental serenity” and “inward content”, and Jane was quick to read this: “Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist” (Brontë 310-311). As we have observed before, Jane has a penchant for psychological observation and analysis. She had an opportunity of gauging St. John Rivers’s mind “when she heard him preach in his own church at Morton”: “…the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment - where moved troubling

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impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers - pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was - had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding” (Brontë 311). St. John confesses his discontent to Jane at a later date: “I, who preached contentment with a humble lot…I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means” (Brontë 315). He also confesses about his “insatiate yearnings” (Brontë 311): “It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience” (Brontë 319). The source of St. John’s “insatiable yearnings” and his despondency was revealed at the appearance of Miss Oliver. Although he was in love with Ms. Rosamond Oliver, he had set his mind on becoming a missionary and found her unsuitable to be a partner in his vocation. St. John responded “neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him” and always spoke to her “like an automaton” (Brontë 322). He “himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to refuse” (Brontë 323). In his love for Ms. Oliver, St. John clearly resorts to selfdenial: “She went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all” (Brontë 323). Jane being a witness to this, understood St. John’s mind well: “This spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own…” (Brontë 323). St. John is an introvert but Jane “knew his thoughts well and could read his heart plainly” (Brontë 328): “With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within expresses, confesses, imparts nothing” (Brontë 328). Jane’s life at Morton doesn’t divert her from her deep-seated grief and sweet memories. While outwardly composed, she suffered inwardly: I used to rush into strange dreams at night…dreams where…, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, loving him, being loved by him - the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o’clock the next morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day. (Brontë 324-325)

St. John feels that Jane Eyre is “not timid”, and we know this to be true (Brontë 331). Her frank, intelligent, and daring answers had left a mark on Mr. Rochester as well. In contrast, we will recall that Bessy, as well as Aunt Reed, knew of Jane as a timid creature. Jane Eyre though was never

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timid of spirit. It was her situation of dependency and want (unloved as she was) as well as her being but a child (during her years at Gateshead) that had constrained her into being a submissive and nervous creature in the face of ill-treatment and unfair, biased judgment. However, the positive experiences that she later had with Helen Burns and Miss Temple activated her innate self-actualizing potential and instead of regressing into a shy, nervous adult, she grew into a self-righteous woman. She still had her insecurities but had immense faith in the strength of her understanding and morality. As St. John tells her: “You are original…and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye” (Brontë 331). Jane Eyre has been brought up as an orphan by unkind relations and hasn’t really had any emotional attachments. Her need for love and her need to love were unsatisfied throughout. The realization that she would have as relations those whom she already adored as friends, affected her deeply: “With me…it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so (Brontë 342)…And you…cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home” (Brontë 343). Jane has self-respect, but she lacks in self-esteem owing to her acute awareness of her plain looks and standing in society. As she confesses to St. John: “No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation. And I do not want a stranger unsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-feeling” (Brontë 343). St. John’s hopes of working to substitute “peace for war”, “freedom for bondage”, “religion for superstition” are all driven by his “hope of heaven” and “fear of hell” (Brontë 331). He is inordinately ambitious and he wants to have a life that can be a “foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven”! (Brontë 331) Jane Eyre comments that it would be hard for her to say whether St. John operates out of a sense of duty or a sense of love. It is my contention that he operates solely out of a sense of duty. He somewhat lacks the love and sense of empathy for fellow beings that would suit his vocation more. Out of his own admission, he is a “cold, hard man” (Brontë 332). St. John showcases the religious, moral propensities and strict doctrines of that era. He clearly appears to be God-fearing rather than God-loving. St. John only sees “selfish calm and sensual comfort” in civilized affluence (Brontë 346). He exhorts Jane to take a missionary path instead of clinging “tenaciously to ties of the flesh” (Brontë 346). We see the rebel in Jane’s character when she replies by saying: “I feel I have adequate

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cause to be happy, and I WILL be happy. Goodbye!” (Brontë 346) Later, commenting on him, she says: “St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold” (Brontë 347)…“Literally, he lived only to aspire - after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him” (Brontë 347). Jane Eyre’s relationship with St. John is the second aggressivecompliant relationship that she is in. However, as in her earlier relationship with Mrs. Reed, here too the aggressor hasn’t fully comprehended the rebellious and self-righteous nature of Jane’s spirit. That St. John is a dominant-aggressive personality is easily established by instances in the text: “St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented” (Brontë 352): By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him...I fell under a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me. (Brontë 352) ...I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted…and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him - I could not resist him (italics mine). (Brontë 353-354)

In the following paragraph the narrator makes what I believe to be possibly the most psychologically interesting comment of the story: I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt (italics mine). I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions. (Brontë 354)

Here Jane expresses her dilemma at her inability to deal constructively with “positive, hard characters, antagonistic to” her “own”. It is this, along with Jane’s inherent character that lies at the root of Jane’s compliant solution.

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Although St. John has made Jane his “study for ten months”, he has failed to understand her well enough (Brontë 357). When he sees Jane as “docile” and “disinterested”, we know he is mistaken (Brontë 357). It was only Jane’s seeming compliance that gives him this impression, but he is unable to empathize with the troubles and conflict that his domineering and exacting nature is causing in her psychological life. When Jane imagines a life with St. John, she imagines it well, since she has lately been under his influence. When at his side, she would be “always restrained, and always checked - forced to keep the fire” of her nature “continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital” (Brontë 361). It “would be unendurable” (Brontë 361). If Jane feared to be persuaded by St. John to join him in marriage, it was because she was confused about her calling. If Jane has been compliant to St. John, it is because she does admire him in certain ways and likes to have his approval: “By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I SHALL satisfy him - to the finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations…He will never love me; but he shall approve me” (Brontë 358). As Jane later contends: “I deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me severely…” (Brontë 365). St. John’s desire to have a wife he can dominate, subjugate and mold solely as per his own wishes is evident: “I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death” (Brontë 359). Jane is repulsed and frightened by this: “I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow - his hold on my limbs” (Brontë 359). While Jane’s ‘compliance’ to Aunt Reed had been out of fear, her ‘compliance’ to St. John had been inspired and driven more by “awe”: I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them.” (Brontë 360)

She now realizes that St. John was but “an equal”, one with whom she “might argue”, and one whom she “might resist” (Brontë 360). Till now, she had had for St. John “a neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant” (Brontë 361). Jane’s outburst against St. John does take place though not with as much force as against Mrs. Reed. This is because she doesn’t feel wronged

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by St. John: “‘I scorn your idea of love,’ I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock” (Brontë 362). “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it” (Brontë 362). This outburst happens because St. John has been trying to take a psychological hold on Jane’s mind and now on her future by dominating her. But Jane, in her mind, has already started to break free from the yoke of compliance and feels that St. John hardly has the moral ground to dominate her. St. John’s unreasonable and unkind nature is revealed, when failing to influence Jane into marrying him and joining him in his missionary aims, he ends by almost resorting to threats: …consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels! (Brontë 362)

Although St. John does believe honestly in what he is saying, his words reveal to us his flawed reasoning, selfish motivation and lack of empathy for the feelings of a fellow being. Interestingly, the statement quoted above also reveals the stubbornness and subconscious vindictiveness of his aggressive-dominant personality. St. John’s unforgiving nature is also reflected in his attitude toward Jane after this meeting: “As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission” (Brontë 362). The words “despotic nature”, “resistance”, “submission”, “disapprobation”, “coerce” and “obedience” in the paragraph referenced (thoughts of Jane - the narrator) easily stand out (Brontë 362). It is interesting that the author-narrator is herself aware of the dynamics of the relationship which exactly correspond to the rules and theory of dominant-compliant relation that Horney was to propound much later. It is my contention that the narrator’s attempts to absolve St. John of any feeling of “vindictiveness” is driven by her empathy for the character: Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they

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sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me. (Brontë 363)

This is the one point in the narrative where we find a discrepancy between Brontë’s representation and interpretation. However, as pointed out above, this discrepancy is only driven by Brontë’s empathy for the character of St. John Rivers and cannot be entirely attributed to flawed interpretation. The paragraph above clearly shows that despite what the narrator would have us believe, there was a strong undercurrent of subconscious vindictiveness (as already exemplified) in St. John’s psyche. More than once, the narrator reveals the dominant-aggressive-vindictive personality of St. John through her thoughts: “Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?” (Brontë 365) Therefore, it is interesting and not surprising to note that St. John’s reaction to Jane’s rebellious and negative answers are similar to what Mrs. Reed’s were (at Jane’s childhood outburst): “His lips and cheeks turned white - quite white. I SHOULD KILL YOU - I AM KILLING YOU? Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable...” (Brontë 365). That non-compliance from an erstwhile compliant person can leave a “deeper impression” in the psyche of dominant-aggressive personalities the narrator seems to be subconsciously aware of (Brontë 365). She might even have associated St. John’s behaviour with Mrs. Reed’s. I definitely did: I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in. “Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you”...A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth.…I knew the steely ire I had whetted.” (italics mine) (Brontë 365)

It also needs to be understood that St. John’s ire was not entirely to do with Jane’s manner of refusal and choice of words on the two occasions. He was perturbed and furious with the refusal itself. This is evidenced in their second meeting where after every rebellious and harsh answer and retort from Jane, St. John repeatedly asks her whether she still intends to stick to her decision of not accompanying him to India as his wife.

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Even Diana is taken in by Jane’s predominantly compliant solution: “I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand” (Brontë 368). As Jane tells Diana: “He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views” (Brontë 368). As I asserted before, the narrator is well-aware of St. John’s unforgiving and vindictive nature: “No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more” (italics mine) (Brontë 369). Due to her “veneration” for St. John and his influence over her, even after her ‘revolt’, Jane is still driven towards an attitude of compliance: “I felt veneration for St. John - veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him - to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own” (Brontë 370). That the narrator is partial to St. John Rivers is evident from the fact that she paints a grand and heroic image of him at the end of the narrative. In contrast to her relationship with St. John Rivers, her relationship with Edward Rochester allows her to be herself and grow through the selfactualizing potential of her nature. It is a testament to Jane’s and Rochester’s “kindred” feeling that with him she felt completely unrestrained (Brontë 343): “There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine” (Brontë 387). This is because Jane shared a healthy rather than a neurotic relationship with Mr. Rochester. St. John’s character reminds us of Elizabeth Reed. Both of them have decided to spend their lives as missionaries, however, neither of them, seem to have taken the decision with a mature, wholesome mind. Elizabeth Reed is curiously lacking in sympathies, kindred feeling and affection for her fellow kind. Her decision is inspired more from her antipathy for society and her decision to spend her time fruitfully, occupied and “unmolested” (Brontë 212). Compared to her vain sister, Elizabeth is a ‘sensible’ lady, but she hardly has the humane qualities that would be desirable in a lady who intends to take the veil. Like Elizabeth Reed, St. John Rivers was “zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits” (Brontë 310). However, he was himself a troubled and dissatisfied man and even his preachings betrayed his “disappointment” and “troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations” (Brontë 311). There is a similarity in their desire for a life of solitude, in

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their religious and missionary zeal and in their contempt for “selfish” society (Brontë 346). Both of them lack the natural sympathy and love that we would want to associate with those who work for God’s “cause” (Brontë 346). Both have insipid and rather insufficient reasons for taking up the vocation that they do. St. John is troubled by the passionate side of his nature and unfulfilled worldly desires. After a study of Elizabeth Reed’s character, I believe she had similar unfulfilled desires, though in the absence of admiration and suitors she thought it fit to shun relationships and take “the veil” (Brontë 213). I have already drawn a parallel between St. John’s character and that of Mrs. Reed’s, based on both having a marked dominant-aggressivevindictive personality, and there are instances in the text that point to this. As for Elizabeth, I believe she was jealous of her sister Georgiana’s beauty and desirability in society, though she was also aware of her sister’s incipient and dull, vain nature. Her ‘telling on’ Georgiana’s doings in society to her mother, I believe, was mostly inspired by this vindictiveness. Also, she is clearly the dominant one amongst the two sisters and her aggressive comments to Georgiana in Jane’s presence show her propensity for preaching and her dominant-aggressive character. I’ll end my analysis of Jane Eyre with a reference to the incident that sets its troubled characters free. I believe that the incident of fire that causes the defacement and destruction of Thornfield Hall is not merely an accident. For the author and her story, it is a necessity, for it enables the union of Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, in two ways. Firstly, through the death of Bertha Mason, it removes the one physical, legal impediment to their union and marriage. Secondly, it causes the amputation, disfigurement, and blindness of Edward Rochester. I believe that Jane’s acceptance of Rochester despite his physical shortcomings is neither heroic nor an epitome of romantic love and devotion. To Charlotte Brontë’s consciousness, this disfigurement of Rochester put him at a disadvantage that made Jane a more suitable companion for him. Even before the disfigurement, the hero that Charlotte had chosen (Rochester) was someone who would probably be viewed as an “ugly man” (Brontë 116). But the narrator is deeply conscious of the inadequacy of her external appearance and the disfigurement of Rochester lends a psychological reality (in her consciousness) to her compatibility with Rochester. It also springs from her feelings of inadequacy and her fear (despite the preference and sense of attachment that Rochester feels for her) that Rochester’s love for her may not last the test of time. His dependence on her is engineered by the author to ensure that he will always be faithfully and lovingly attached to Jane as a partner for life.

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