摘 要

《蝴蝶梦》是英国女作家达芙妮·杜穆里埃创作的长篇小说，该书以其独特的女性第一人称叙述视角和悬疑的哥特写作风格自1938年发表以来就广受读者喜爱。整部小说由一位无名的女性以第一人称视角娓娓道来，故事讲述了她自来到曼德利庄园后就生活在已经去世的前任女主人吕蓓卡的阴影之下饱受折磨。叙事者对上流社会的生活感到无所适从觉得自己远比不上优雅美丽的吕蓓卡,并萌生出了强烈的自卑感。小说情节的发展亦可看作“我”这一人物的成长历程，其表现就是“我”与自卑不断抗争以致最后成长蜕变的过程。本论文试从奥地利个体心理学家阿弗雷德·阿德勒的“自卑情结”理论出发，探究《蝴蝶梦》中的叙事者自卑心理的来源，分析自卑心理在叙述者身上的具体表现，并在深入解读其出于自卑心理而做出的一系列补偿行为的过程中，证明自卑心理在人物的成长与发展过程中起到了积极的作用。

关键词：达芙妮·杜穆里埃；阿弗雷德·阿德勒；自卑心理；补偿行为

Abstract

Rebecca is a romantic novel written by British female writer Daphne du Maurier. Since first delivered in 1938, the special first-person narrative perspective and gothic style in writing have been praised a lot and won popularity among readers. The story was told by an unnamed female character in first point of view. The narrator has suffered the misery of living under the shadow of Rebecca, the former hostess of Manderley, since the day she stepped into Manderley. The narrator was ill at ease in the upper class and felt she would never catch up with Rebecca so the inferiority came to her gradually. The development of the novel can also be treated as the development of the narrator in terms of her continuous fight against the inferiority and the final victory. Inspired by Austrian individual psychologist Alfred Adler’s study in “Inferiority Complex,” this work probes into the origins and the embodiments of the narrator’s inferiority. Furthermore, by explaining her compensatory behaviors, this paper intends to prove that instead of being just a negative mentality, the narrator’s inferiority complex has contributed to her growth.

Key words: Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Adler, Inferiority Complex, Compensatory behaviors

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………...1
2. Demonstration……………………………………………………………………...3
   1. Causes of the narrator’s Inferiority Complex………………………………...3
      1. The conditions of the narrator herself…………………………………...3
      2. The pressure from other people…………….............................................4
   2. Manifestations of the narrator’s Inferiority Complex………………………...5
      1. Deliberately ignoring the trails of Rebecca…………………………..…5
      2. Cowering back when incidents happen………………………………….5
   3. Different stages of narrator’s compensation for her Inferiority Complex……6
      1. Squarely facing the inferiority…………………………………………...6
      2. Bravely challenging the inferiority under a false superiority goal….......6
      3. Successfully defeating the Inferiority due to a wise superiority goal…...6
3. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..7

Analysis of the Inferiority Complex of the Narrator in Rebecca

1. Introduction

Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), a female English playwright and novelist, was born in an illustrious family in London. The artistic atmosphere of her family inspired her interest in literature. Daphne was often described as a distinguished romantic novelist. Her novels were full of gothic elements, suspense and surprising twists. She was good at depicting women’s mental activities by perfectly blending feelings with nature settings. Her best-known novel was Rebecca, in which she shaped Rebecca as a mysterious and dissolute former hostess of Manderley, and the narrator as a fragile girl who later grew stronger after fighting against the inferiority complex.

Scholars at home and abroad have long been discussing about Rebecca. Many foreign scholars have conducted a great number of researches to analyze the feminism, metaphorical meanings, and writing techniques of Rebecca for long. Many believe that Rebecca is an imitation of Jane Eyre because they are both typical gothic romance novels. Bernadette in the thesis “Daphne Du Maurier’s Transformation of Jane Eyre in Rebecca” compared Jane Eyre with Rebecca. She pointed out that Jane Eyre and the narrator in Rebecca represented the awakening of females. Moreover, he found that there were many similarities between Jane Eyre and the narrator in Rebecca. The two characters both suffered from the hardship and strived for a better life in constant struggles. Maria Donapetry used the word “shadow” to describe Rebecca and came to the conclusion that the Manderley was a symbol of the decay and evil in upper classes (43). In addition, the thesis “The Compulsions and Revelations of Daphne du Maurier's Horror Writing” written by Gina Wisker paid attention to the psychological and body horror used in Daphne’s writing.