Master plots: Psychoanalysis and Catholicism

This chapter explores the two main interpretative frameworks White adopted to conceptualise a sense of self in the face of her recurrent psychic distress and inexplicable behaviour. White’s entrance into psychoanalytic treatment coincided with a moment in psychoanalytic history in which the thinking about female sexuality centred upon the ‘female castration complex’. White’s diary provides unmistakeable evidence that she developed an explanation for her illness that was heavily influenced by the ideas of Karl Abraham, who initiated this line of psychoanalytic theorising and who profoundly shaped British psychoanalysis. The recurrence of symptoms following her supposed ‘cure’ impelled White to reconvert to Catholicism at the end of 1940. White’s letters and diary show how she superimposes Catholic doctrine on that of psychoanalysis. Together these interpretative frameworks worked to affirm the centrality of father-daughter eroticism in White’s identity narrative.

An Unfinished Story: White’s Fictions of the Self

This chapter examines how the consolidation of White’s identity narrative influenced her later novels. Seventeen years separate the publication of White’s first novel from the later three in the series, years in which White revised her imaginative reconstruction of the father-daughter relationship and the family constellation more generally to reflect her now unshakeable conviction that the daughter’s illness develops from her vexed relationship with her father. The later novels thus trace the emergence of ‘schizophrenia’ in White’s protagonist. At the same time, White’s fidelity to her own experiences of illness surfaces in her explorations of depression and mania, providing a hitherto overlooked account of the onset of manic-depressive illness. The fractures that characterise both composition and publication history constitute important sites that reveal the evolution of White’s identity narratives and the subsequent changes in her fictional representations of illness, Catholicism and the father-daughter relationship as well as family dynamics more generally.

‘I am a schizophrene’: Narrative Identity, Affective Disorder and White’s Stories of Self

This chapter contextualises White’s stories of self within contemporary scholarship on narrative identity. White’s search for an exploration of her illness that would account for her psychic turmoil and inexplicable behaviour is consistent with the emphasis in such scholarship that narrative is a central aspect of identity formation. The possession of an identity narrative plays a key role in both public and private presentations of self. Yet the very principles an identity narrative embodies—principles of coherence, plausibility, causality, motivation and agency—conflict with the chaos and havoc created by severe bipolar disorder. The chapter explores how illness in general and manic-depression in particular destroyed White’s sense of a coherent self and motivated her to construct identity narratives through the master narratives of psychoanalysis and Catholicism.

The Beast in White’s Jungle: Manic-Depressive Illness

This chapter discusses White’s illness within the context of medical and subjective accounts of bipolar disorder. It opens with a selective overview of White’s life that highlights the key sites of disruption and signs of illness. It then turns to an overview of manic-depressive illness, followed by a more detailed description of the characteristics of manic, depressive and mixed episodes. It ends with a brief comparison of White’s experiences of illness to those of her contemporary Virginia Woolf. This comparison demonstrates not only the diverse expressions of manic-depressive illness but also the different approaches that the writers themselves as well as family members adopted to cope with it.

Introduction

The introduction provides an overview of White’s significance to literary studies and the ways in which her illness and identity narratives have shaped her critical reception. It outlines and historicises the medical, psychoanalytic and religious contexts within which White’s experiences of illness unfolded. It also provides an overview of White scholarship and shows how the failure to address the role of illness in White’s life and work characterises that scholarship. It shows how scholars have often interpreted symptoms of illness—including White’s protracted psychotic episode—as signs of incest trauma.

Epilogue: Composing a Self

The epilogue briefly considers White’s abortive attempts to compose a fifth novel that would depict her protagonist’s life after her incarceration for psychosis. It suggests that White’s inability to do so in part resulted from her reluctance to expose herself and her father to public censure. It also suggests that White’s misreading of her illness as the result of her relationship with her father played a key role in shaping the plotline of the novel she finally could not finish. It summarises the ongoing problems White encountered in her later life as the result of ongoing chronic illness. It concludes that the frost that blighted White’s life and shrivelled her confidence in her writing was the illness that threatened to leave her stranded, alone and insane, in an unknown, terrifying world.