Gothic Fiction, Mental Science and the Fin-De-Siècle Discourse Of
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Disintegrated Subjects: Gothic Fiction, Mental Science and the fin-de-siècle Discourse of Dissociation by Natasha L. Rebry B.A., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2003 M.A., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Doctorate of Philosophy in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) [English/History of Psychology] THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) March 2013 © Natasha L. Rebry, 2013 ii Abstract The end of the nineteenth century witnessed a rise in popularity of Gothic fiction, which included the publication of works such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1894), Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan (1894) and The Three Impostors (1895), and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897), featuring menacing foreign mesmerists, hypnotising villains, somnambulistic criminals and spectacular dissociations of personality. Such figures and tropes were not merely the stuff of Gothic fiction, however; from 1875 to the close of the century, cases of dual or multiple personality were reported with increasing frequency, and dissociation – a splitting off of certain mental processes from conscious awareness – was a topic widely discussed in Victorian medical, scientific, social, legal and literary circles. Cases of dissociation and studies of dissociogenic practices like mesmerism and hypnotism compelled attention as they seemed to indicate the fragmented, porous and malleable nature of the human mind and will, challenging longstanding beliefs in a unified soul or mind governing human action. Figured as plebeian, feminine, degenerative and “primitive” in a number of discourses related to mental science, dissociative phenomena offered a number of rich metaphoric possibilities for writers of Gothic fiction. This dissertation connects the rise of interest in dissociation with the rise of Gothic fiction in the fin-de-siècle, arguing that late-nineteenth-century Gothic fiction not only incorporated and responded to the theories of Victorian mental scientists on dissociation but also intelligently grappled with and actively challenged the often hegemonic and regulatory nature of such theories by demonstrating the close proximities between normal and so-called deviant psychologies. iii Fin-de-siècle Gothic fiction posed a fundamental challenge to predominant views on the dissociative subject by demonstrating that Englishmen were not exempt from the experience of multiplicity and psychic fragmentation, hence not as different from women, “degenerates” and “primitives” as they believed. Furthermore, Gothic texts at times even influenced the theories of mental science, providing mental scientists with a language for the expression of the distressing nature of mental disunity, thus demonstrating the circuitous nature of the relationship between mental science and Gothic fiction. iv Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ vi Dedication .............................................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Terrains of Emergence ............................................................................................. 7 1.2 Gothic and Mental Science: The Moebius Strip ..................................................... 29 1.3 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 2: From Doubles to Multiples: R.L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Alternate Consciousness Paradigm in Psychology and Gothic Fiction…………………………..……………………………………………………………62 2.1 “The Second Self” in Psychology and Fiction .......................................................... 76 2.2 The Tenuous ‘I’ of Dissociative Narrative ............................................................... 97 2.3 Multiplicity and Masculinity.................................................................................. 113 Chapter 3: Manliness, Mesmerism and Empire in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle……..129 3.1 Mesmerism, Hypnotism and the Question of Self-Control ................................ 134 3.2 Richard Marsh's The Beetle ................................................................................... 158 Chapter 4: Animal Magnetism and the Question of Will: George Du Maurier’s Trilby ………………………………………………………………………………………………193 4.1 Dissociogenic Practices and the Limits of Knowledge ........................................ 194 4.2 George Du Maruier's Trilby ................................................................................... 208 Chapter 5: Gothic Brain, Uncanny Mind: Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan .…..253 5.1 Arthur Machen's Gothic Brain ............................................................................. 257 5.2 Finding the Soul in the Brain ................................................................................. 268 5.3 Shock and the Debilitating Brain .......................................................................... 282 v Chapter 6: Conclusion: “The Ramblings of a Mind Terminally Damaged”: Contemporary Narratives of Dissociation ………………………………………………300 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 322 vi Acknowledgements I could not have written this dissertation without the help of my supervisor, Jodey Castricano. Throughout this process she taught, challenged and supported me. Our work together, both before and during the dissertation process, made me the scholar I am, and I cannot thank her enough for her endless patience and encouragement. My committee members, Oliver Lovesey and Cynthia Mathieson, and my instructors and colleagues in the Critical Studies Department were important parts of this process, and I would like to thank them as well. A special thanks goes to Elizabeth Ihrig and the staff at the Bakken Museum and Library in Minneapolis. Without the help of the Bakken’s Research Travel Grant and the library’s outstanding collection of resources on electro-magnetic medicine, much of my work on hypnotism and animal magnetism would have been incomplete. I would also like to thank my students. Many of my ideas in the dissertation were refined in the classroom, in response to their questions and comments. Our discussions often allowed me to see these issues in new and interesting ways. I hope this process has made me a better and more knowledgeable teacher. Finally, I would like to thank my mother Darlene, my partner Clay and my companion Chantal. Without their help and support during the dissertation process, this document would simply not exist. Thank you all: I could not have done it without you. vii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the influential women in my life, especially my nana, whose kindness, generosity, patience, support and enduring love helped me to believe that all things are possible. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction It is characteristic of the human condition that each of us thinks of himself as a unity, all the while experiencing the greatest multiplicity. 1 In the fall of 1888 a Parisian lawyer named Emile became the subject of both legal and scientific interest (Hacking, “Automatisme Ambulatoire” 40). This interest began when Emile, acting contrarily to his usual character, destroyed his uncle’s furniture, tore up his uncle’s books and manuscripts, and incurred 500 Fr of gambling "debts," which led to a charge of swindling. Since he could not be located by authorities, he was tried and convicted in absentia. After stealing a small sum of money, he was apprehended and charged with theft. Both charges were later dismissed when evidence was produced that Emile was not fully present during these events, that is to say that Emile had become someone else. In describing his experience, Emile claims, "A new life, a new memory, a new me, begins. He walks, takes the train, makes visits, buys things, gambles, etc." (emphasis added, qtd. in Hacking, Automatisme Ambulatoire 39). Emile was diagnosed with Automatisme Ambulatoire, or as it is understood today, dissociative fugue, a state in which the subject suffers from amnesia, takes on a new personality and travels beyond his or her typical everyday range of movement. This story was presented to the Académie des Sciences Morales on 20 January 1890 as a case of ambulatory automatism in an hysteric by the highly respected professor of medicine and hygiene, Dr. Adrien Proust (Hacking, “Automatisme Ambulatoire 40). Commenting on this case, English psychical researcher Frederick Myers noted that Emile’s condition was a classic case of double or multiple 1 Adam Crabtree Multiple Man: Explorations in Possession and Multiple Personality. Toronto: Somerville House, 1997. 2 personality, a state in which a “secondary consciousness” takes over the usual consciousness of the subject (Qtd. in Link-Heer 20). As Adam Crabtree explains it, “In multiple personality disorder