THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SELF IN DICKENS'S MAJOR PROTAGONISTS

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the psychological understanding of 'self in Dickens's major protagonists. It is validated through the use of certain psychoanalytic paradigms and psychological theories found in the works of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, ego psychologists, object relations theorists, Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan. It is an attempt to show the development of self and the establishment of identity in Dickens's major protagonists in both his early and later works, and to show the psychological validity of Dickens's methods of characterisation. By undertaking such a study, I also wish to refute the frequent charge made against Dickens: that most of his protagonists are 'flat characters,' consisting of noble heroes and irredeemable villains who are incapable of psychological development and change. Four of Dickens's novels, The Pickwick Papers (1836-7), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1), David Copperfield (1854-50) and Great Expectations (1860-61) will be analysed to show the development of Dickens's art in his presentation of his major protagonists. They are also to be studied in conjunction with psychoanalytic theory. They are to be discussed in terms of their intrinsic interest and in reference to one another. This will involve the examination of the protagonist's psychological being, the emotional and mental stresses s/he undergoes and finally the psychological integrity and wholeness of an inward self that allows for the movement of self-development and authenticity. In my Introduction, I will explain my reasons why I used a psychoanalytical approach to study Dickens's major protagonists. I will also show how I formulated my paradigm of a psychological self for each Dickensian protagonist presented in this thesis. The chapters that follow deal in detail with the protagonists' self development in the selected novels chosen. Most of Dickens's protagonists live, like Paul Dombey, 'with an aching void in [their] young heart(s) and all outside so cold and bare and strange (p. 54).' Frequently, Paul finds himself alienated from others and even himself, viewing his own consciousness as something mysterious and separate from himself. Beginning in isolation, each Dickensian protagonist moves through successive adventures which are essentially attempts to understand the world, to integrate himself into it and by extension of that integration to find his 'true' self. In his search for his 'real' self, he discovers layers of his self-consciousness and in those depths lie the regions of his dreams or that hallucinated vision of things and people which is so characteristic of Dickens's art. The realms of images, where self is given a material form and from where things are transmuted into emblems of the self, is the very domain of the unconscious within which reality may be momentarily apprehended. This thesis is an attempt to understand that psychological unconsciousness and touch those depths which transfigure the Dickensian self and thus validate it.