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A Psychoanalytical Study of Byronic Heroes Dominican Scholar Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects Student Scholarship 12-2018 Immortal Melancholia: A Psychoanalytical Study of Byronic Heroes Kathryn Frazell Dominican University of California https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2018.hum.10 Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Frazell, Kathryn, "Immortal Melancholia: A Psychoanalytical Study of Byronic Heroes" (2018). Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects. 357. https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2018.hum.10 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Immortal Melancholia: A Psychoanalytic Study of Byronic Heroes A culminating thesis submitted to the faculty of Dominican University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Humanities By Kathryn Frazell San Rafael, CA December 2018 This thesis, written under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor and approved by the Chair of the Master’s program, has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of Graduate Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Humanities. Kathryn Frazell 12/10/2018 Candidate Joan Baranow, PhD 12/10/2018 Graduate Humanities Program Director Perry Guevara, PhD 12/10/2018 Primary Thesis Advisor Mojgan Behmand, PhD 12/10/2018 Secondary Thesis Advisor ii Copyright © 2018 by Kathryn Frazell All Rights Reserved iii Table of Contents Descending into Darkness: ............................................................................................................................... 3 Review of Literature .......................................................................................................................................... 5 History, Affect, and Psychoanalytic Theory ................................................................................................ 12 Chapter One......................................................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter Two ........................................................................................................................................................ 33 Chapter Three ...................................................................................................................................................... 42 Chapter Four ....................................................................................................................................................... 48 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................ 58 iv Abstract This culminating project examines Byronic heroes using psychoanalytic theory across four case studies in media, including classic literature, theater, film, and television. The Byronic hero is a literary archetype inspired by the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824). Typical characteristics include angst, arrogance, cunning intelligence, criminality, desire, passion, dominance, and otherness. The characters I have chosen to study include Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre (1847), the Phantom from the 2004 film The Phantom of the Opera, James Bond from the 2012 film Skyfall, and Damon Salvatore from the hit television series The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017). Through examining the actions of these characters through a psychoanalytic lens, I argue that the Byronic hero is driven by his experience of intense loss and state of melancholia, as defined by Freud. When a subject is in a state of melancholia, they have lost an ideal or love object, and they fail to move on with this intense loss. They become outcasts of society through this loss. In addition to Freud, I also incorporate psychoanalytic theories and ideas from Melanie Klein and Silvan Tomkins. The purpose of my study is to examine how Byronic heroes, who are in a state of melancholia, deal with the losses they have suffered from. 1 Acknowledgements I wish to express my most sincere gratitude to the entire faculty and student body of the Department of Humanities at Dominican University of California. I would like to especially thank Dr. Perry Guevara, Dr. Mojgan Behmand, and Dr. Amy Wong for their guidance and support with this project. This project would be impossible without their encouragement and knowledge. I would also like to thank Thomas Burke and Dr. Leslie Ross for their continuous support. I am grateful to my family and friends for their constant love and support of my education. Lastly, I would like to dedicate this thesis to Lord Byron. Thank you for showing the darker sides of humanity, and for inspiring generations of artists. 2 Descending into Darkness: An Introduction The Byronic hero is a pervasive figure in popular culture, although many people don’t recognize these characters as ‘Byronic.’ The Byronic hero is an archetype based on the nineteenth-century Romantic poet, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824). Byronic refers to the types of characters Byron created in his stories and poems, and since his characters were often a reflection of himself, Byronic refers to the poet as well. Byron was a dark, brooding, passionate, complex figure, who never fit cleanly into society. Byron was neither a good man, nor a typical selfless hero, and yet audiences are continually drawn to him and the heroes that he has inspired. In each Byronic hero, there is a darkness, or melancholia, that threatens to overwhelm the corresponding heroine or audience. Byronic heroes first appeared in novels — Byron’s own works, the Brontë sisters’ works, and various novels in the romance genre all depict these dark figures. As our world of technology has evolved, and fiction has adapted into new media, the Byronic figure has continued to be a presence in theater musicals, films, and television. Many scholars have investigated Byronic heroes in fiction, film, and television. Three critical contemporary scholars I have studied are Deborah Lutz, Atara Stein, and Sarah Wootton. Lutz has done tremendous work in defining the dark lover archetype in fiction, and both Stein and Wootton have made Byronic heroes relevant to adaptation studies and multimedia studies. While there has been research done on specific Byronic heroes, there have 3 been very few connections made between the ideas of psychoanalysis, modern media, and Byronic heroes. My contribution to this field of study is an interdisciplinary critique of Byronic heroes across four media types using the theories of psychoanalysis. I treat each medium as a case study, which includes Fiction: Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë (1847); Theater: The Phantom of the Opera, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1986); Film: Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes (2012); and Television Series: The Vampire Diaries, created by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec (2009-2017). By using a case-study methodology, I will illustrate not only the prevalence of the Byronic hero in contemporary culture but also how an intense sense of loss or melancholia drives the Byronic hero. My investigations will be supported using the psychoanalytic ideas of melancholia, affects, repression, desire, mourning, anger, and shame, as outlined by psychoanalytic theorists Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Silvan Tomkins. Byronic heroes represent operations of desire, repression, and loss in literature that can be apprehended through frameworks in psychoanalysis and affect theory. In using psychoanalytic theory, I hope to explain not only why these characters act in the way they do, but to also gain an understanding of why we, as an audience, connect to the characters so deeply. The dark qualities of Byronic heroes are drawn from a sense of intense loss. This state of melancholia drives these characters to act out in ways that they feel are completely justifiable. As an audience, we recognize these feelings of mourning and melancholia, and are drawn to these characters’ sense of loss. When we experience stories with Byronic heroes, we can surrender to our own sense of loss in a safe space. 4 Review of Literature The intertextuality of Byronic heroes, psychoanalysis, and multimedia studies is the basis for my research. The aim of my thesis is to explore the ways in which the state of melancholia drives Byronic heroes in four case studies of fiction, film, musical, and television. These distinctive case studies reveal how Byronic sensibilities continue to persist in media and entertainment. How have these different media forms appropriated the Byronic archetype? How can psychoanalytic theory further our understanding of this archetype, and why we are drawn to it? I will briefly explain key theories and terms developed by Freud, Klein, and Tomkins in order to create a cohesive foundation of psychoanalytic theory so that I can apply it to the aforementioned case studies. I have also investigated related studies of Byronic heroes by contemporary scholars Lutz, Stein, and Wootton. George Gordon, Lord Byron lived between 1788 to 1824. The chronology of events in Byron’s life is unique; Byron lived during a poignant time of artists coming to terms with the contrasting values of scientific reason and
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