Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-02T02:31:22.502Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neurotic Anxiety of Submissive Personalities: A Psychoneurotic Analysis of Mary Dedalus in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2024

Li Gengming  and
Dong Danling
Li Gengming
Affiliation:
Dezhou University, Shandong Province, China
Dong Danling
Affiliation:
Zhejiang Gongshang University Hangzhou College of Commerce, Hangzhou, 311500, China. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Motivated by the insights of Karen Horney into submissive and compliant personalities, this study delves into the perpetual vulnerability, fear of helplessness, and isolation portrayed in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man through the lens of psychoneurosis theory. Individuals with obsessive appeasement tendencies experience excessive dependency and restlessness, reinforcing their feelings of helplessness and often resulting in manipulative attachments to powerful figures and self-defeating behaviours. Neurosis amplifies these maladaptive responses, intensifying anxiety stemming from individual, familial, social, or religious fears, thereby significantly impacting social functioning. This study aims to analyse the submissive personality of Mary Dedalus in Joyce’s novel from the three distinct perspectives of need for approval, sense of unsupportedness, and fear of the church. An in-depth exploration of these aspects not only enriches our comprehension of Joyce’s work but also offers valuable insights into the portrayal of neurosis and its impact on human behaviour within a competitive societal framework.

Type
Article
Information
European Review , Volume 32 , Issue 5-6 , October 2024 , pp. 490 - 504
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academia Europaea

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agnew, R, Brezina, T, Wright, JP and Cullen, FT (2002) Strain, personality traits, and delinquency: extending general strain theory. Criminology; an Interdisciplinary Journal 40(1), 43–72.Google Scholar
Apter, T (2012) Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming their Power. London: Norton.Google Scholar
Argyle, M and Beit-Hallahmi, B (2013) The Social Psychology of Religion (Psychology Revivals). London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, H (1975) Dedalus: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press.Google Scholar
Bandura, A (2002) Selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of Moral Education 31(2), 101–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumeister, RF and Exline, JJ (1999) Virtue, personality, and social relations: self-control as the moral muscle. Journal of Personality 67(6), 1165–1194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaumont, C (1997) Women, citizenship and Catholicism in the Irish free state, 1922-1948. Women’s History Review 6(4), 563–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinjikji, H (1999) Property Rights of Women in Nineteenth Century England. Unpublished manuscript. College Park: University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Bukobza, G (2011) Rebelliousness. In Levesque, RJR (ed.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence. New York: Springer, pp. 2316–2322.Google Scholar
Cacioppo, J and Patrick, W (2008) Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection London: Norton.Google Scholar
Campling, N and Ussher, P (2016) The Psychology of Women’s Health and Health Care. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Coolidge, FL, Moor, CJ, Yamazaki, TG, Stewart, SE and Segal, DL (2001) On the relationship between Karen Horney’s tripartite neurotic type theory and personality disorder features. Personality and Individual Differences 30(8), 1387–1400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ćurko, D (2010) The representation of women and the Irish nation in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Journal for Foreign Languages 2(1–2), 101–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d’Aspremont, J (2009) Rebellion and state responsibility: wrongdoing by democratically elected insurgents. The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 58, 427–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenberger, NI, Lieberman, MD and Williams, KD (2003) Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion. Science 302, 290–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farahmandian, H and Shao, L (2021) The social isolation of neurotic Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses. SAGE Open 11, 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, N (2013) Book review: Sexual revolutions in Cuba: Passion, politics and memory. Feminist Review 104(1), e1–e3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fromm, E (2006) The Art of Loving. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.Google Scholar
Gangestad, SW (2004) Women’s preferences for male behavioral displays change across the menstrual cycle. Psychological Science 15, 203–206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gordon, AM (2008) A Reassessment of James Joyce’s Female Characters. Provo: Brigham Young University Press.Google Scholar
Graff, RW and Ladd, CE (1971) POI correlates of a religious commitment inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology 27(4), 502–504.Google ScholarPubMed
Haushofer, J and Fehr, E (2014) On the psychology of poverty. Science 344(6186), 862–867.Google ScholarPubMed
Heffner, CL (2017) Personality Synopsis. Belleville: AllPsych.Google Scholar
Hofmann, SG (2010) Introduction: toward an understanding of social anxiety disorder. Social Anxiety. Edited by Dibartolo, P. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 15–24.Google ScholarPubMed
Horney, K (2013) Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jarrett, WH (1985) Caregiving within kinship systems: is affection really necessary? The Gerontologist 25(1), 5–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, SL, Leedom, LJ and Muhtadie, L (2012) The dominance behavioral system and psychopathology: evidence from self-report, observational, and biological studies. Psychological Bulletin 138(4), 692–743.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joyce, J (1916) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: B. W. Huebsch.Google Scholar
Kelley, W (2010) The delayed flight of an artist: a psychoanalytical-feminist perspective of selected works from James Joyce. James Joyce. Montgomery: Auburn University Press.Google Scholar
Moffitt, TE, Arseneault, L, Belsky, D, Dickson, N, Hancox, RJ, Harrington, H, Houts, R, Poulton, R, Roberts, BW, Ross, S, Sears, MR, Thomson, WM and Caspi, A (2011) A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108(7), 2693–2698.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monajem, R (1991) Feminine insecurity. Payvand News 19(4), 339–344.Google Scholar
Peplau, LA and Perlman, D (1984) Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy. New York: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
Pope Leo, XIII (2016 [1891]) Rerum Novarum. The Condition of the Working Classes Encyclical Letter, 1891. Seattle: CreateSpace Independent.Google Scholar
Rose, C (1976) The Female Experience: The Story of the Women’s Movement in Ireland. Dublin: Arlen House.Google Scholar
Schultz, DP and Schultz, E (2016) Theories of Personality. Boston: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Shatz, SM (2004) The relationship between Horney’s three neurotic types and Eysenck’s PEN model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences 37(6), 1255–1261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, TJ (2007) Catholicism and nationalism in Ireland: from fusion in the 19th century to separation in the 21st century. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 4(1), 47–64.Google Scholar
Zavala, SS, Bufka, L and Wright, VC (2016) Beyond Worry. Washington, DC: The American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Zimbaro, VP (2007) Cliffsnotes on Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar