Never Marry A Girl With A Dead Father: Hysteria in the 19th Century Novel

Freud's "discovery" of hysteria was both anticipated by, and grounded in, 19th-century realist fiction. Here, the author reveals how the dark continent that Freud called femininity was brought to life by these realist novelists. The hysterical character, she argues, conceives of every relationship as tragic, imaginatively doomed - hence the warning which forms the title of this book. Yet this character speaks for everyone. The insights of Anna Karenina, Gwendolen Harleth, or Cassandra give to them a dignity beyond pathology or their social position. They are not merely literary "femmes fatales". It is part of being civilized, the author argues, to fear the people and things we love, particularly when they are intimate to us. Knowing this, each person is responsible for the form this apprehension takes - whether awe or panic, respect or protest, desire or denial. She develops these ideas through of texts by Balzac, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Tolstoy and Florence Nightingale, demonstrating her contention that these narratives are rich sources for understanding hysterical states of mind because they offer scope for interpretation that involves everyone as readers. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 7 1 Introduction......Page 8 2 The Hysterical Daughter: Balzac's Eugenie Grandet......Page 24 3 'My nerves disdained hysteria': Charlotte Bronte's Villette......Page 40 4 Childhood, Boyhood -- and Womanhood in Tolstoy's Early Novels......Page 62 5 Seeking Help: George Eliot's Daniel Deronda......Page 82 6 'An old woman at thirty': Florence Nightingale's Cassandra......Page 102 7 Femininity Against Itself......Page 122 Notes......Page 144 Index......Page 160 The author reveals that the hysterical female character of the 19th-century novel is more than just a literary "femme fatale", and contends, using readings from Balzac, Eliot and others, that these narratives are sources for understanding hysterical states of mind. Helen Hayward reveals how the dark continent that Freud called femininity was brought to life by these 19th century realist novelists. The hysterical character conceives of every relationship as tragic, hence the warning in the book's title