Psychic space: An exploration of the child subject in fin‑de‑siècle fiction (1890s–1920s)

Abstract

This research examines how fin-de-siècle fictions showcase physical space impacts into psychic space which disciplines, consumes and confines the mind of child subjects. This thesis looks at The Secret Garden (1911) and A Little Princess (1905) by Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Rocking-Horse Winner” (1926) and “Odour of Chrysanthemums” (1911) by D. H. Lawrence, The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James and “Prelude” (1918) by Katherine Mansfield to study three major themes. The themes are adult projections on children through surveillance, domestic space acting as a consuming force, and the counter-spaces that children create to save themselves. Drawing on Foucault’s panopticon and heterotopia, Freud’s “Uncanny”, Kristeva’s “abjection” and Marx’s commodity fetishism, this thesis examines questions of adult anxieties about class, gender and economic instability that are projected onto child protagonists and the spaces they inhabit. These spaces, such as gardens, attics, and nurseries, become sites where children are manipulated into being something that they are not. And ultimately the research concludes that the spaces that children occupy are always corrupted by adults and are never their own to claim.