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Doubling, Splitting And Fragmentation In Bleak House, Mary Cleopatra Lloyd Da Silva

Theses : Honours

This thesis draws mainly on psychoanalytic theories, and explicates the doubling leitmotiv in Bleak House (1971), which portrays Victorian personality as split and its society as fragmented. This is seen as a suggestion of Dickens' conception of human identity as fragile and vulnerable. Each autonomous character represents a single aspect of personality, so that conflict, when it occurs, is in fact intra-psychic, rather than inter-psychic. The study investigates the problem of the dual or split personality via the quest for identity, and addresses Dickens' perceived need to reward self-effacing characters and punish the assertive. It explores the psychological ramifications of …