INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI Bell & Howell Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Growing Up In Glass Town: An Investigation of Charlotte Bronte’s Individuation Through her Juvenilia by Robin St. John. Conover A.B., Smith College 1991 M.A., University o f Victoria 1992 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Department of English We accept this dissertation as conforming to the required standard Dr. Margq ms. Supervisor (Department of English) Dr. Lisa her (Department of English) Dr. Nelson C. Smith, Departmental Member (Department of English) _____________________________ Dr. Peter G. Liddell, Outside Member (Department of Germanic Studies) Dr. JuIietMcMaster, External Examiner (Department of English, University of Alberta) © Robin St. John Conover, 1999 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopying or other means, without the permission of the author. GROWING UP IN GLASS TOWN: AN INVESTIGATION OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S INDIVIDUATION THROUGH HER JUVENILIA Supervisor; Dr. Margot K. Louis ABSTRACT The writings of Charlotte Bronte are often thought by critics to be psychologically revealing of the author; certainly her juvenilia, read in chronological order, illuminate several stages in Charlotte’s psychic maturation, both as a writer and as a young woman. They also anticipate, in large part, Carl Jung’s system of individuation, deviating from his dialectic at those points so often raised by Jung’s feminist critics. Hence, the juvenilia offer a test case which generally supports Jung’s theories on development, while at the same time indicating the need for a feminist corrective to those theories. Adopting a male persona at thirteen, Charlotte joins in collaboration with her brother, Branwell, in the creation of the AJfrican kingdom, Angria. Both siblings then fashion daemonic, swashbuckling archetypes, which undergo a demonic modulation, and threaten to engulf and possess their creators’ young psyches. Charlotte’s dark side, personified by Zamoma, King of Angria, embodies all that Charlotte yearns to express, but finds, as a young nineteenth-century woman, she must sublimate. Zamoma represents Charlotte’s rebellious, passionate spirit, her suppressed anger, and her libidinal urges—all of which are incompatible with her role as dutiful daughter, expected to set aside such proclivities in order to promote her brother’s career in the world. In time, filled with much self­ conflict, Charlotte finds herself possessed by this “inflated archetype,” this shadow side, prompting her spiritual crisis of 1836, when she must test herself against this demonic agency, and synthesize these colliding worlds. In leaming how to confiront, then integrate this dark side of herself, Charlotte initiates a reconciliation with her gender and her straitened circumstances as a woman without means or social standing, obligated—as the eldest surviving child—to sacrifice her own destiny for that of her yoimger siblings. She leaves the decade-long collaborative partnership and begins creating stories of her own making. These novelettes are imbued with a new realism and more viable personae who serve as her future role models and become her lifeline in this individuation process, anticipating those strong-willed heroines foimd in the adult novels, and allowing Ill Zamoma to take his more rightful place as Charlotte’s positive animus, a muse-like role he will play for the remainder of her writing life. A number of noted critics—Sally Shuttleworth and Helene Moglen among them—have explored the culture of selfhood in Charlotte’s writings, though none but the Jungian Barbara Hannah have studied her work through a Jungian lens, nor have any concentrated solely on a detailed analysis of Charlotte’s juvenilia, where the process of individuation begins. By examining this psychological journey through the childhood works, taking into account the biographical information of Charlotte’s life, as well as her correspondence and journal entries composed during her formative years, we can better understand the motivation and mechanisms which lie behind her adult work. In the juvenilia, and later, in the published novels, we find Charlotte was documenting her own interiority and maturation process, making of them works of art, like an Entwicklungsroman. In viewing her narratives as a psychic map, we discover them opening up to us in entirely new ways, allowing us to perceive the artist undergoing individuation as no other body of work does. Moreover, we begin to appreciate the importance of reading the juvenilia alongside the adult work. Without them, we are reading only half a life. The juvenilia, like a cipher, contain the key to the psychological meaning of the dream-like narratives, the dense imagery, and the complex symbolism found in Charlotte’s later novels. Exami ^— Dr. Ma%ot K. ^ u is . enj^f English) Dr. Lisa A. Sumdge, D ember (Department of English) Dr. Nelson C. Smith, Departmental Member (Department of English) __________________________________ Dr. Peter G. Liddell, Outside Member (Department of Germanic Studies) Dr. Juliet McMaster, External ExamiExaminer (Department of English, University of Alberta) IV Growing Up in Glass Town: An Investigation of Charlotte Bronte’s Individuation Through her Juvenilia Title Page................................................- ....................................................................... i Abstract............................................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents............................................................................................................ iv List of Abbreviations and Symbols............................................................................. vii Acknowledgements....................................................................................................... viii Dedication......................................................................................................................... ix Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Notes...................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter One: The Narrative Voice and the Telling of the Tale: Charlotte’s Persona and Story-telling Techniques........................................................ 25 1. Charlotte’s Early Projection on to Her Persona ......................................... 27 2. Charlotte’s Use of the Male Persona .......................................................... 33 3. Theatricality in Charlotte’s Narrative Persona ........................................... 42 4. Charlotte’s Creative Uses of Narrative Devices......................................... 46 Notes...................................................................................................................... 51 Chapter Two: The Demonization of Zamoma: Charlotte’s Shadow Self 59 1. The Genesis of Zamoma’s Demonism ........................................................ 62 2. Racism and Bestiality as Elements of the Demonic ................................... 70 3. Charlotte's and Zamoma's Emerging Shadows ......................................... 83 4. Alexander Percy as Demonic Foil and Demonic Twin to Zam om a 87 Notes.................................................................................................................... 94 Chapter Three: The Origins and Signiflers of Demonic Behavior .................... 103 1. Sources of Insanity as a Literary Thematic Device ..................................... 106 2. Issues of Susceptibility to Insanity in Charlotte’s Own Life ...................... 112 3. Theological Debates in the Juvenilia .............................................................118 4. Charlotte’s “Spiritual Crisis” ..........................................................................124 Notes......................................................................................................................135