A Psychoanalytic Analysis of the Figure of The Orphan in Frankenstein, Villette, Wuthering Heights and David Copperfield

The figure of the orphan was always present in national literatures. The oldest examples can be found in the ancient times. These parentless protagonists became very popular among the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English novelists, as well. They were central figures, however, their roles and characteristics were changing in the course of time. Their stories usually started with the loss of their parents, and this way they had to discover the world all alone. The various adventures and hardships formed their personalities till they finally found their happiness at the end of the story. As they grew up, they became “normal” adults with certain values accepted by the society. From the end of the eighteenth-century a new literary genre emerged which depicted another kind of orphan who was not able to process his childhood traumas. Consequently, Gothic fictions were full of orphan characters who suffered from mental disturbances and anxieties. Their extreme behaviour came to the front which provided an abundant source of investigation for another newly found theory, namely psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, the father of this new conception, was also devoted to literature. He was the first who tried to “scientifically” investigate the relationship between the author’s unconscious mind and his creative writing. According to his theory, the repressed feelings and thoughts reappear in the process of creation. Unfortunately, many of the prominent nineteenth-century writers were personally attached concerning parentless situations. Their experiences are reflected in their novels, as well. The aim of my thesis is to investigate the way how Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens depicted their own “orphanhood” trough their most famous orphan characters. To analyze Frankenstein, Villette, Wuthering Heights and David Copperfield, I apply the Freudian psychobiographycal approach. By this, I make an attempt to discover the relationship between the authors’ unconscious mind and the figure of the orphan in the novel.