브론테의 『빌레뜨』: 루시의 히스테리와 글쓰기

Abstract

This paper examines how Lucy Snowe achieves independence and freedom through the act of writing. Lucy is an autobiographical writer who is narrating her own life from her childhood. She values the form of the written word, in this case, the letters, and prefers writing to speaking. The implied meaning of Lucy's writing will be scanned through Hélène Cixous’s theory on feminine writing. Cixous insists that women free themselves of repression in patriarchal setting through the act of writing, writing from their bodies. In “The Laugh of the Medusa,” she asserts that “woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing….” This feminine writing, for her, which can be found in either male or female writing, expresses a sense of exile or marginalization. This writing, she believes, will give power to women to transform the symbolic, to “bring about a mutation in human relations, in thought, in all praxis.” Women’s writing, for Cixous, is hysterical, but she is celebratory about the “validity” of hysteria as a response to social pressure, seeing the hysterical body as a liberating self-expression. Lucy suffers from the symptoms of hysteria and neurosis. She explicitly links these symptoms to her role as an author of autobiographical writing. In other words, her autobiographical writing serves as projections of her hysteria. The hysterical Lucy attempts to free herself from the constraints of patriarchal structure by writing about herself. Applying Cixous’s theory of feminine writing, Lucy’s hysteria and hysterical writing lead her to perceive herself as a free and creative woman. Lucy feels herself liberated through the hysterical outburst of the oppressed feelings experienced in patriarchal settings. In this way, Villette presents Lucy’s hysteria and her hysterical narrative as the vehicle by which she can liberate herself from the confinement of the social pressure and religious morality. Cixous insists that women should be connected with each other through their writings, and this female bonding gives rise to feminine writing. When Lucy shares hysterical pain with Madame Beck and Vashti, she feels herself liberated through their emotional bond. This novel seems to assert that women can achieve their own identities and freedoms by writing about their own hysterical bodies together.