北京中医药大学学士毕业论文题目A Study on the Love Tragedy in The Lady of the Camellias from Freud’s Tripartite Structure of Personality从弗洛伊德的三重人格结构理论分析《茶花女》的爱情悲剧系别人文学院英语(医学)专业姓名___________________________________导师____________________________________定稿日期2016 年 5 月3日北京中医药大学人文学院学士学位论文诚信声明本人郑重声明:所呈交的学位论文,是本人在导师的指导下,独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。
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学士论文作者签名:日期:年月日A Study on the Love Tragedy in The Lady of the Camelliasfrom Freud’s Tripartite Structure of PersonalityA Thesis SubmittedBySong XiaohuiToThe School of HumanitiesIn Partial Fulfillment of the RequirementsFor the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsSupervised byAssociate Professor Kong XiangguoBeijing University of Chinese MedicineBeijing, ChinaMay 2016AcknowledgementsI would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Kong Xiangguo for his constructive suggestions and supervision during the development of the thesis and this paper. And I would show my gratitude to my classmate for her advice on grammar.I am also grateful to other respectable teachers at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.AbstractIn 1898, Chinese translator Lin Shu translated the novel The Lady of the Camellias into Chinese. The distinctive love tragedy shocked the Chinese society. Since then, Chinese people have been reading and studying this novel from several perspectives. Sigmund Freud put forward several theories: sub-consciousness, psychoanalysis, theory of Instinct, theory of structure of personality. This thesis studies the cause of this love tragedy from the perspective of Freudian Theory of Tripartite Structure of Personality: id, ego and superego. It will discuss main characters’ id, ego and superego and demonstrate the relation between individuals and the society. The id of Marguerite is love, Prudence’s id is money. At the beginning Armand’s id is the sexual interest to Marguerite then his id became love. The superego of Marguerite is sacrifice which was stimulated by the society’s superego (reputation). Armand’s superego was distrust and it changed to lament to Marguerite after she died.The society is the collection of all or most of people. Therefore the id of the society is the collection most individuals. The id of society is and money and will attack Marguerite’s id because she gave up money for love. After analyzing the novel, a conclusion is made that there were external and internal causes. The external activated her superego and repressed her id. And the inhibition of desire led to sorrow but she would feel guilty if she did not obey the superego. The struggle between id and superego tormented her and to stop the suffering the instinct of death produced destructive behaviors (ignoring illness, unhealthy lifestyle and so on) and caused her death.Key words: The Lady of the Camellias, tragedy, the id, the superego, society中文摘要自1898中国文学家林纾将法国小说《茶花女》翻译称中文(《巴黎茶花女遗事》)以来,中国学者、学生便开始阅读、研究这篇小说,并且从各种角度进行解读。
奥地利心理学家精神分析学派创始人弗洛伊德在其一生中发表了许多著作,也提出许多理论,如潜意识理论、精神分析、本能理论、人格结构理论。
这篇文章将从弗洛伊德人格结构理论的角度分析《茶花女》的爱情悲剧,讨论主要人物的本我与超我,寻找个人与社会之间的关系。
玛格丽特的本我是爱情,普律当丝的本我是金钱。
阿尔芒的本我一开始表现为对玛格丽特的兴趣,就像普通两性之间的吸引,而后转变成爱情,此外还有金钱。
而玛格丽特的超我是牺牲,阿尔芒的主要超我则是对社会道德的屈服——怀疑妓女的真情。
团体的意志体现的是团体中大多数人共同的意志。
所以可以推论,“社会的意志”是社会中大多数人意志的集合。
因此,社会的本我是大多数个人本我的集合,小说中社会的本我是金钱,它将会攻击与之相反的玛格丽特的本我。
玛格丽特的超我被社会的超我所激发,压制本我欲望的表达,为解决这种冲突所带来的痛苦,玛格丽特死的本能派生出了内向性毁灭行为,她无视疾病,寻欢作乐。
这是她死亡以及这个爱情悲剧形成的原因。
关键词:《茶花女》,悲剧,本我,超我,社会Contents Introduction (1)ⅠBook Synopsis and Tripartite Structure of Personality (2)1.1 Book synopsis (2)1.2The id, the ego and the superego (2)ⅡAnalysis of Main Characters’ Id and superego (4)2.1 Id of main characters (4)2.1.1 Marguerite’s id: love (4)2.1.2 Armand’s id: from sexual interest to true love (6)2.2 Superego of main characters (7)2.2.1 Marguerite’s superego: sacrifice (7)2.2.2 Armand’s superego: from distrust to mourning (7)ⅢSocial Personalities and Individual Personalities (8)3.1 The realistic significance of id and superego (9)3.2 The relations and interaction (10)3.3 The causes of the tragedy (11)ⅣConclusion (12)ReferencesIntroductionAlexander Dumas published his first masterpiece La Dame aux Camélias in 1848 and the novel caused a great sensation. Since 1898, when the novel was translated into Chinese by Lin Shu, countless Chinese scholars and students have been always studying it. They studied the love tragedy from several perspectives, such as religion, character analysis, sexology and many other methods. Su Yifeng’s study showed that the cause of the tragedy is the oppression to female in the male-dominated society (Su, 2006). Zhang Shuqin’s study made a conclusion that the misshapen societ y shaped Marguerite’s fate and gave rise to her death (Zhang,2004). Zhou Rong’s study thought that the capitalist society morals led to Marguerite’s tragedy (Zhou, 2011). And Zhao Ying analyzed the tragedy from the perspective of Jung’s Prototype Theory and found that prostitute was Marguerite’s persona and her animus caused her death to some extent (Zhao, 2010). These studies have read the novel and the tragedy well and help people understand the story better. However, as is indicated by the database CNKI, no thesis studies the tragedy from the Freudian Theory of Tripartite Structure of Personality: id, ego and superego. Theory of Tripartite Structure of Personality is concept of the psychology and it can describe mental changes and reveal the relations between individuals and society. Therefore, in this thesis, the love tragedy will be analyzed from the perspective of id, ego and superego.In chapter one, the story will be briefly reviewed and Sigmund Freud and his theory of Structure of Personality will be introduced. In chapter two, the main characters’id and superego and the interaction between them will be analyzed. Chapter three will demonstrate the realistic meaning in the Orleanist Monarchy and show the relation between society and individuals and society’s influence on individuals. Chapter four will conclude the cause of the tragedy from individual and social perspectives. The significance will be described in this chapter, too.ⅠBook Synopsis and Tripartite Structure of Personality1.1 Book synopsisMarguerite Gautier is a kept woman in Paris. She is beautiful, charming, hot and pure. A lot of playboys became her lovers and then went bankrupt. She was popular in one day in the theater, Marguerite got to know a young man, son of a District Collector of Taxes, Armand Duval. Having fallen in love with her, Armand expressed his love to Marguerite and asked her to be his lover. She accepted his love and agreed. In order to be together with Armand, Marguerite moved to countryside with him. What’s more, Marguerite sold her horses, jewelry and Indian shawls and pawned her carriage. Anything was nice and peaceful, until Armand’s father Mr. Duval came. Mr. Duval visited Marguerite and persuaded her to leave Armand in the name of love. Marguerite returned to Paris and continued her life of being kept. Armand went back to his home with father, misunderstanding that Marguerite betrayed their love and was not worthy to be loved.However, he couldn’t help loving and missing Marguerite so he returned to Paris but found that she had become earl N’s lover. Armand was extremely wrathful and he found another lover to revenge upon Marguerite. He insulted her in words and behaviors ignoring her serious disease. At last, Marguerite died with the desire to see her true love again, but Armand was hundreds of miles away because of misunderstanding. After her death, Armand knew the reason she left but it had been too late to regret.The Lady of the Camellias was the first masterpiece of Alexandre Dumas. Though the love between two protagonists was disapproved by the rank and fashion, the love tragedy moved and shocked French and later spread to the world.1.2 The id, the ego and the superegoSigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a psychiatrist and psychologist of Austria and the founder of psychoanalysis. In 1895, he came up with the concept of psychoanalysis. The Ego and the Id was published in 1923(English version in 1927) and in this book he presented the conceptions of the id, the ego and the superego which constitute the three parts of his Tripartite Structure of Personality.His personality theory includes two parts: tripartite structure of personality and personality development. In this thesis, tripartite structure of personality: the id (das Es), the ego (das Ich) and the superego (das Uber-Ich). (Berg 2003,p. 69) will be applied in the analysis of the love tragedy in The Lady of the Camellias.The id refers to the original human, contains the basic desire, impulse and vitality which is necessary to survive like desire of eating, drinking and sex. It is original and the only integration of personality when a baby is born. The id is also the foundation of personality establishment. (Hall, 1954, p.19) The id obeys the pleasure principle and ignores the social morality and external behavior rules. The only requirement of id is to obtain happiness and avoid pain and its aim is to gain individual comfort, survival and reproduction. (Freud, 1961, p.92) Besides, it is unconscious and not be perceived by the individual. However, when somebody behaves impetuously, he/she is under the control of the id. The id is immorally and the embodiment of instinct and desire. In other words, the id is more likely the part of animal in human. If a person is totally controlled by the id, he is more an animal than a human.The ego is conscious and is the junctional complex between the id and external world. The role of ego is to make individual be aware of his ability and restrain and depress the id in order to adapt to the real world. In the book The Ego and the Id, Freud described the relation between the id and the ego as the relation between the knight and horse(Freud,2004,126). Horse provides energy to the knight and the knight controls the direction. Similarly, the id is the foundation and provides energy, and the ego regulates and controls the id and behavior to respond to the external world.Freud thought that the main goals of superego are to comply with the social morality and to restrain the id. Superego not only contains principles, morality but also ideal. But it was not equal to intuitive knowledge. (Berg, 2003, p.70) It could good and could be bad, too. Morality is the requirement of deferring to the society. And ideal is to be better. The superego constantly uses guilt to punish the person when he could not reach the requirement of ideal behavior. Superego tends to pursue moral perfection by any kind of means, which is similar with the id pursuing sexual pleasure (Berg, 2003, p.70). Like the id, the superego has the effect of criticizing and braking on the ego. In addition, the superego is also irrational. They both distort and tamper with the reality. The superego knows things according to subjective. A conclusion can be made that the superego is the product of socialization and the carrier of traditional culture. What’s more, the superego is essentially the compulsion from the external world and pays more attention on obeying morality and depressing desires. Actually, superego always gives rise to destructive consequences.ⅡAnalysis of Main C haracters’ Id and SuperegoMarguerite and Armand were the protagonists and analysis on them can reveal the tragedy better so their personalities will be analyzed. Besides, due to the id and the superego have greater influence on human’s mental state, the main characters’ id and superego will be analyzed in this chapter.2.1 Id of main characters2.1.1 Marguerite’s id: loveThe first chapter of the novel The Lady of the Camellias reveals that Marguerite was a kept woman. In the novel, Marguerite’s sister came from a village and had never been away from her hometown. This indicates that Marguerite’s family was poor and this view was proved in Chapter 25:“Mymother died of consumption, and the way I have always lived could but increase the only heritage she ever left me.”(Dumas,2011, p. 179).But in chapter one of the book, the description of her room and the jewelry, furniture and china indicates that her life was supported by a lot of money, and also shows that she had no lack of money, regardless of the source. Then the desire for money can be eliminated which is the base of basic survival during the period of being kept.She had a lot of lovers so she did not have the desire for sex. This can be proved in the chapter two of the book (Dumas,2011,p. 8):I knew that Marguerite had lived with some of the mostfashionable young men in society, that she spoke of it openly, andthat they themselves boasted of it, so that all seemed equallypleased with one another.Her desire of sex had been fulfilled. Thus the desire for sex can be eliminated. This sentence also proved that Marguerite cared about nothing. She didn’t mind her identity as a prostitute and her action living with many men. Therefore she can “spoke of it openly and boast of it”. She also said that “if I took care of myself I should die” (Dumas,2011,p. 64). It means that she had to forget her conditions and diseases and was indulged in the distorted life to escape from sorrows in the real world as if reflected in chapter ten (Dumas,2011,p. 64):Then as for taking care of oneself, that is all very well for womenwith families and friends; as for us, from moment we can nolonger serve the vanity or pleasure of our lovers, they leave us,and long nights follow long days. I was in bed for two months,and after three weeks no one came to see me.When she spoke of the experience, she was sad because no one truly cared about her. Though she behaved as caring about nothing, she indeed long for concern from others. Her basic life standard had been insured but her heart was lonely. Fortunately, human have the instinct of love. To Marguerite, she desired love and desired to be a common or normal woman. On one hand, she must relyon her life of being kept. however,on the other hand, she admired a normal women’s right to love. Therefore, when Armand showed his concern and love, Marguerite accepted his love. The behavior of love made her satisfied in mortal and pleased in body. Hence, love was most obviously expressed in Marguerite’s id and when she decided to love Armand, she was under the control of love, ignoring the hypocritical social morality.2.1.2Armand’s id: from sex to loveIn the novel, Armand Duval fell in love with Marguerite at first sight though he did not know her very well, her qualities for example. At beginning, he loved Marguerite’s appearance, like any other gentleman in the upper class. He was just interest in her. Besides, Marguerite was popular and his vanity will be satisfied if he was with her. At that time, sex is the id in his love for Marguerite. But the id changed its expression when he visited Marguerite’s house. In chapter nine, he thought that there was a kind of candour in this woman. You could see she was still in the virginity of vice.(Dumas,2011,p. 58).He found her nature that her heart was still pure and truly fell in love with her. His id changed from sex to love. He begged Marguerite that “love me a little”. He showed his love.In chapter sixteen of the book, Armand had spent almost all money and he nearly cannot afford Marguerite’s large expenditures. In this condition, he desires money to maintain the decent life. He gambled to get enough money but he was not addicted in gambling. He just need money and gambling was just a tool to get money. Money, then, was his a part of id but he was not controlled by it. On the contrary, his ego regulated and vented his desire for money.In conclusion, his id showed up as sex and interest in Marguerite at beginning. Then he truly loved her pure soul and the main part of his id became love. And love forced the desire for money, which was another manifestation of his id.2.2 Superego of main characters2.2.1 Marguerite’s superego: sacrificeIn the countryside, Marguerite made up her mind to love and live with Armand. They walked, talked and loved like normal lovers. What’s more, Marguerite sold her horses, jewelry and Indian shawls and pawned her carriage to cut down expenditure and gave up the former lifestyle. After half-year living in Bougival with Armand, Marguerite had a talk with Armand’s father Mr. Duval and had to be faced with the cruel reality. He asked her to leave and scarify her love for Armand’s future and for Miss Duval’s marriage. Mr. Duval told her the bad consequences of their love that Armand’s future would be limited due to their love which was regarded as scandal by the society and Miss Duval’s marriage would be broken off because the family of the man would consider the Mr. Duval’s family as less honourable. Additionally, the superego is essentially the compulsion from the external world and focuses on obeying morality and depressing desires. Consequently, the requirement from external world, leaving Armand, stimulated her superego to comply with the requirement. Besides,she loved Armand, so she was willing to scarify. Therefore, Marguerite repressed her instinct of love and went back to Paris and restarted her life of being kept. The superego administrated and controlled her behavior and she gave up her love for the lover’s promising future.2.2.2 Armand’s superego: from distrust to mourningIn chapter two, in the upper part, Armand’s personality was discussed when he fell in love with Marguerite and expressed his love. And Armand was controlled by his id: love or sexual instinct when he fell in love with Marguerite. But later, he suspected whether Marguerite loved him and was jealous knowing she had other lovers. Chapter one showed that superego is the product of education of reality. He grew up with education of the social morality, which thought prostitutes were bad and it was immoral to associate with them. Then thesuperego tent to achieve perfectionism and forbad him to have moral blemish and disapproved his love to Marguerite. That is to say, unconsciously, the superego tells Armand that prostitutes are unworthy of trust due to all people or almost people thought that and the society instilled the view into his mind. Therefore, on one hand he loved Marguerite but on the other hand he doubted her. As result, when Marguerite left Bougival for Paris, he nearly immediately believed that she betrayed him and felt extremely sad.In the chapter four of the book, Armand said (Dumas,2011,p.22): And when I think that she died before I could see her, and that Ishall never see her again, when I think that she did for me whatno sister would ever have done, I cannot forgive myself forhaving left her to die like that. Dead! Dead and thinking of me,writing and repeating my name, poor dear Marguerite!When Marguerite died and Armand knew the truth, he suffered from regret and sorrow. He regretted insulting her and hated his stupid actions. Besides, he was distraught because of lover’s death. Therefore he looked for Marguerite’s things and relocated her body to a better graveyard. He cried at Marguerite’s grave and his dominant superego distrust had been ineffective at that moment. The death of Marguerite motivated the second manifestation of his superego: moral goodness. This was also the production of society’s education. Morality always has the part of kindness and goodness. Marguerite died for him, so the goodness affected and now the superego had same aim with the id, loving Marguerite. As a result, he mourned her and ignored social prejudice.In summary, Armand’s superego showed up as distrust at beginning and as mourning for Marguerite at last. Both of them consisted with the social morality. Ⅲsocial personalities and individual personalitiesIndividuals comprise the society and inevitably they will be affected by it. Thus the society can have effect on protagonists’ personalities. In this part, therelation between social and individual personalities and individuals’ interaction will be discussed.3.1 The realistic significance of id and superegoTo analyze the story better, an induction was made as follows. If there is a group containing 10 persons and all of them desire money, the team will manifest as wanting money. Furthermore, if the team consists of a hundred of persons and most of them are controlled by the desire for money, the team’s nature will be getting money unscrupulously. Thus, when the group is made by hundreds even thousands of people and most of them have common desire (id), the team will show the id as the team objective. Similarly, if the team is made by people who are kind-hearted and have same morals (superego), the team will manifest as its members. What’s more, if the team can be personalized, it will show the desires and morals of its members. Although the society contains more people and is more complicated than the examples, the society, as a group, always shows the values of majority. In conclusion, the society’s id is the collection of most people’s common id and so its superego is. Besides, social superego (morals) can become the social morality and has influence on individuals.In the novel, Marguerite went to Bagneres to take the waters in the spring of 1842 and died on February 20th, 1847. In the next year, 1848, French Orleanist Monarchy was overturned and was replaced by the French Second Republic (Mason,2015, p.52). In 1840s, the social nature was capitalism and the country was led by the bourgeoisie. Workers wanted to earn more money to raise family and the bourgeoisie wanted to enlarge the property to gain more interest. Thus, the society had the characteristics of early capitalism—money as the first priority.What’s more, typical characters also showed the main appearances of id and superego of people in that era. Marguerite’s neighbor Prudence was a good friend when Marguerite had money. However, when Marguerite was in serious illness even was dying, Prudence never walked in the door of Marguerite’s house. Shewas the representative of common prostitutes and the only thing that she focused on was money. As Liu Yinchuan said in his article “Money worship is the necessity of capital logic and the inevitable end of the development of capitalism.”(Liu, 2015) Money was the most popular desire of people in upper and lower classes so the id of society manifested as money in that age.In the novel, when Mr. Duval tried to persuade Armand, he emphasized the importance of reputation. Then he told Marguerite that his daughter was to marry the man whom she loved and she would enter an honourable family but her marriage would be damaged by their love for the scandal. Reputation is in the field of morality so caring about good reputation is the product of social morality and if Mr. Duval did not maintain his good reputation he will feel guilty for his daughter’s marriage. His behavior was the result he obeyed the social principle so good reputation was Mr. Duval’s superego. Besides, Miss. Duval’s marriage indicated that the family which she would enter also put a high value on good reputation, too. This revealed that families and people in Mr. Duval’s class attach importance to good reputation. However, people always want to have good reputation which symbolized morally good. Thus, the good reputation was the society’s superego.3.2 The relations and interactionThe induction in the last part can be analyzed further. For example, in the team whose members’ id is money, there are some persons who say that money isn’t better than love and even give up money because of love. In the team whose members’ superego is good reputation, there are a few people tending to damage their reputation. What will be the fate of these people? They may have absolute power and control majority of people.Or they are assimilated and have common desires and morals with others. And they probably insist on their own values but are attacked by the team until they leave the team. Marguerite and Armand were different from most of people in the society. Obviously, they had no much power so they had to be affected by the society but in different ways. Marguerite was aprostitute and she did not have a good reputation. Therefore, when she and Armand truly fell in love with each other, her id (prostitute’s love) had stricken the society’s main superego (reputation). So the social superego stimulated the part of superego in her heart. Since she loved Armand and had a kind heart, she sacrificed her peaceful life and right to love. But to Armand, the view that prostitutes only wanted money and had no love had been formed so he doubted that Marguerite cheated him. His superego showed up as distrust which was the production of social morality’s education. When he heard of Marguerite’s death and her sacrifice, he regretted his revenge and felt guilty. It was Marguerite’s superego that stimulated another manifestation of Armand’s superego.3.3 The causes of tragedyIn fact, when they were separated, the tragedy had been initially formed. But Marguerite’s death completely developed the tragedy and they would never restore their relation again. Therefore, the death of Marguerite was regarded as the real tragedy. There were two causes of the tragedy, external and internal. The external cause was the pressure from society’s id and superego because Marguerite’s id was different from its id and would damage its superego. They attacked and stroke Marguerite’s id of love by activating her superego (sacrifice). This made the protagonists separated from each other and formed the prerequisite of the tragedy.The internal cause was the conflict between her id and superego. The external pressure pressed her id and, unfortunately and inevitably, inhibition of desire of love made her painful but she would feel guilty if did not obey the superego. As result, she constantly struggled between pain and guilt, both of them tormented her. What’s more, Armand’s id was represse d, too. The excessive inhibition of desire resulted in the instinct of death led to outwards destructive behaviors which contained that he found another lover to revenge upon Marguerite and insulted her in words and behaviors. Armand’s behaviors intensified Marguerite’s sorrow. Only death could stop her suffering. Thus, theinstinct of death produced the inwards destructive behaviors. She gave herself up as hopeless (as suicide slowly) until eventual death.ⅣConclusionThe Lady of the Camellias is a novel whose female protagonist is a kept woman but it has been widely spread and moved millions of people. Generations of scholars had studied the love tragedy from different angles and had achieved greatly. In this thesis, the love tragedy is analyzed from the theory of structure of personality of Freud and gets the cause of this love tragedy. The society’s id and superego are the collection of most individuals’ id and superego. In the Orleanist Monarchy, the society’s id was money and its superego was good reputation. Marguerite’s id was love, for which she gave up money. Her id was the opposite of the society’s id and would damage the society’s superego so she was attacked by the society. Her superego was activated and repressed her id. Marguerite suffered from the pain caused by the struggle between the id and the superego. Besides, Armand’s vindictive behaviors hurt her again. In this circumstance, the instinct of death led to inwards destructive behaviors and finally gave rise to her death. This is the cause of the tragedy.The concepts of id, ego and superego represent the psyche and the essential needs of human. Causes of tragedy can be found by analyzing stories from this perspective. In the analysis of other stories, by looking for protagonists’personalities and personalizing the society and comparing what individuals have and what society needs, the causes can be explored easily.。