The novels published by Isabelle de Charrière before the French Revolution offer a perceptive account of the psychology and the social climate of the late eighteenth century. The anti-Freudian psychoanalysis of the neurologist and psychiatrist Heinz Kohut (1913-81) is used in this study as a means of developing an awareness of the position of the fictional characters. Feminist and Freudian readings of Charrière’s novels of the 1780s have stressed the ‘closed’ deterministic atmosphere of contemporary society; this new study emphasises what can be called the ‘modern’ side of the novels: patriarchal society and individual needs confront each other and allow the relationships to be seen in a new light. By means of Kohut’s notion of ‘selfobject’ a rich insight is gained into the complex relationships described by Isabelle de Charrière.

The Author: Jelka Samsom received an M.A. and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education at the University of Leyden, the Netherlands, and completed a Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham. She is now working on a study which investigates the links and divergences between late eighteenth-century thought and Romanticism by comparing Isabelle de Charrière’s Caliste, Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe and Mme de Staël’s Corinne. She teaches French at the University of Birmingham.