Esther Summerson Rehabilitated

PMLA ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Zwerdling
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Development ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Childhood Experience ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Bleak House ◽  
Parental Love ◽  
Adult Personality ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Many

Esther Summerson is not the sentimental, insipid character she is usually taken to be. Dickens uses her as the unconscious spokesman of the many characters in Bleak House who have never known parental love and makes her tale the most important illustration of one of the novel's major concerns—the breakdown of the parent-child relationship. His attitude is essentially clinical: he is interested in recording a complex pattern of psychological development in detail. Esther's story demonstrates both the immediate and the long-range effects of her godmother's pious cruelty and neglect. The novel shows that her inhibited intelligence and self-effacement are products of this upbringing and traces her attempt to become a more assured and self-possessed woman. Esther's dawning confidence, however, is shaken first by her illness and disfigurement and then by Mr. Jarndyce's proposal. The two incidents are best understood as crucial symbolic events in her attempt to transcend the determining influences of her childhood. Although Dickens finally resorts to fantasy to resolve Esther's conflicts, his detailed study of the stages of her life is that of a psychological realist interested in revealing the connections between childhood experience and adult personality.

scholarly journals Parenting and Child Development: A Relational Health Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Cynthia A. Frosch ◽  
Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan ◽  
D. David O’Banion
Keyword(s):  
Child Development ◽  
Child Outcomes ◽  
Relational Health ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Parent Health ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Parent ◽  
Parent Child

A child’s development is embedded within a complex system of relationships. Among the many relationships that influence children’s growth and development, perhaps the most influential is the one that exists between parent and child. Recognition of the critical importance of early parent-child relationship quality for children’s socioemotional, cognitive, neurobiological, and health outcomes has contributed to a shift in efforts to identify relational determinants of child outcomes. Recent efforts to extend models of relational health to the field of child development highlight the role that parent, child, and contextual factors play in supporting the development and maintenance of healthy parent-child relationships. This review presents a parent-child relational health perspective on development, with an emphasis on socioemotional outcomes in early childhood, along with brief attention to obesity and eating behavior as a relationally informed health outcome. Also emphasized here is the parent–health care provider relationship as a context for supporting healthy outcomes within families as well as screening and intervention efforts to support optimal relational health within families, with the goal of improving mental and physical health within our communities.

scholarly journals Virginia Woolf Established a Strong Human Relationship Through Effective Characterization in her Novel, “To the Lighthouse”

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Imam Alam Khan
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
To The Lighthouse ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
A New Technique

“To the Lighthouse” is a famous and exceptional novel of Virginia Woolf. It was published in 1928. It is one of the most popular and the most striking novels by the novelist, because it makes easier reading. It is largely unique in its structure, and it reveals its maturity over the technique. The novel is known for its distinctive presentation of dimensional transitions. One of the greatest achievements of the novelist is that the technique of the stream of consciousness finds its way through the ordering of the materials in the novel. Its outward structure is really simple. The novel is an attempt to present a specific aim. A novel has always been a real as well as dynamic reproduction of the thoughts and feelings of the novelist. The novel discards the old authoritarian pattern in the family relationships, which is no longer operative in the society. Now, there is a new orientation of parent-child relationship as well as re-orientation of family and friends’ relationships. That is the vision of life in the mind of the novelist. And, that is the aim of the writer. The novel’s universal spirit and appeal will be under discourse in particular and the manifold visions in which what is receding and what is approaching, find ways to establishing a strong relationship with people in the novel. Therefore, this paper is going to investigate its realistic presentation of feelings and thoughts. It investigates that the novel exhibits the fluid mental states rather than external violent deeds.  That the readers themselves interpret and then understand each of the vital characters through his or her own unique thoughts as well as through his or her specific actions. It could be called a novel of stream of consciousness, yet with a difference. Hence, the novel in question investigates its comprehensiveness in design, and “how visions have been presented for establishing relationships among the characters in the novel through strong characterization with a new technique”.

“Getting Rid of the Dog”: Adult Recall of a Childhood Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Edwards ◽  
Eyal Gringart ◽  
Deirdre Drake
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Childhood Experience ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Parent Child

AbstractDog relinquishment is common practice across Australia and in many other countries. The psychological impact of dog relinquishment is an under-researched area. While a few studies have shown that the dog relinquishment experience can be emotionally distressing and cognitively challenging for adults, nothing is known about the impact of the experience on children. This paper reports on the recollections of 10 adults, who in qualitative interviews in Western Australia, described their childhood experience of dog relinquishment. The findings suggest that children experiencing dog relinquishment feel powerless and voiceless, having no influence or say in what happens to their dogs. The experience can be cognitively and emotionally distressing, especially for children who are close to their dogs. Getting rid of a child’s loved dog can damage the parent-child relationship. In addition, the thoughts and feelings associated with losing their dogs in this way can remain long after the event.

The Child, His Parents and the Physician

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-142
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Emotional Disturbances ◽  
Social And Emotional Development ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The Many ◽  
Parent Child

This book deals with the basic concepts of the child's social and emotional development, the adjustments the parents must help him to make throughout his childhood, and the role the doctor may play in this parent-child relationship. It is written for the physician in the hope that it will give him a deeper understanding of human behavior and make him feel more comfortable and fluent in dealing with the many parental and childhood emotional disturbances that come to his office.

scholarly journals Encountering Charles Dickens: The Lawyer’s Muse

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-516
Author(s):  
Michael P. Malloy
Keyword(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
Professional Responsibility ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Extended Study ◽  
Bleak House ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Practical Impact

This article explores the themes of the practical impact of law in society, the life of the law, and the character of the lawyer (in both senses of the term), as reflected in the works of Charles Dickens. I argue that, in creating memorable scenes and images of the life of the law, Charles Dickens is indeed the lawyer’s muse. Dickens – who had worked as a junior clerk in Gray’s Inn and a court reporter early in his career – outpaces other well-known writers of “legal thrillers” when it comes to assimilating the life of the law into his literary works. The centrepiece in this regard is an extended study and analysis of Bleak House. The novel is shaped throughout by a challenged and long-running estate case in Chancery Court, and it is largely about the impact of controversy on the many lawyers involved in the case. It has all the earmarks of a true “law and literature” text - a terrible running joke about chancery practice, serious professional responsibility issues, and a murdered lawyer. Keywords: Charles Dickens; Law and Literature; the Life of the Law.

Integrating Inner-Healing Into Missions Education

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-144
Author(s):  
Maynor Clara Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Healing Ministry ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Inner Healing ◽  
Parental Love ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Common Causes ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Parent Child

AbstractIn this article, Meynor Clara Cheng reviews cross-cultural stress and emotional bruises, four common damaged emotions, three models of inner healing, and a checklist of possible issues needing to be addressed in inner-healing ministry. Dr. Cheng explains how new missionaries are vulnerable to low self-esteem. Using David Seamand's writings as her framework, she identifies the common damaged emotions and the causes of emotional bruises. The four major common damaged emotions identified are a sense of unworthiness, a perfectionist complex, supersensitivity, and depression. These damaged emotions can be capsulized in one phrase:"low self-esteem." The five common causes of emotional bruises are parent-child relationship, conditional parental love, cultural overemphasis on being strong, sexual abuse, and faulty Christian concepts. Nevertheless, the parent-child relationship and the response to inflicted hurt are the two main factors in emotional bruises. Those who train missionaries should be knowledgeable of various approaches to inner healing so that they will have their own compatible model(s) of inner healing to use with their students. However, the author contends that intimacy with God, the Word of God, appropriation of the cross, and cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit represent the essential dynamics and approaches in inner-healing.

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