Extra Strength Mimesis -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 19:34:22 04/27/08 Sun
Author: Cara
Subject: Extra Strength Mimesis

I just thought some people would like to see some of the most perverse mimetic manipulation in literary history. Pardon my prose; this paragraph is as yet unedited.

No mediator of Isabel�s exemplifies the traits of mimetic rivalry as intensely and precisely as Madame Merle. Beginning with simple admiration akin to the nature of external mediation, Isabel quickly becomes mentally dominated by Madame Merle. She admits even to herself that she desires above all else to be the distinguished yet unostentatious, talented yet unhurried, mysterious yet inviting Madame Merle. Heretofore Isabel had admired certain qualities in her mediators and appropriated desire for autonomy and self-determination. With Madame Merle, however, her desire which had been focused on these objects, becomes consumed with Madame Merle�s personality, and by the time she meets Gilbert Osmond her desire is metaphysical and completely divorced from its object.
Our heroine....wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in twenty such ways, this lady presented herself as a model. "I should like awfully to be sol" Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once....It took no great time indeed for her to feel, as the phrase is, under an influence .

Again, Rene Girard describes the period of mimetic rivalry in which �the subject rapidly begins to credit himself with a radical inadequacy that the model has brought to light� . Ouzgane describes the development of this relationship �the turning point in the history of Isabel�s consciousness� . Before meeting Madame Merle, Isabel had been an egoist reacting strongly against societal or authoritarian influences. She had lacked no confidence in remorselessly refusing Lord Warburton or Caspar Goodwood. She had not shrunk from protesting her aunt�s advice not to sit up late with gentlemen. It is only in connection with Madame Merle that Isabel becomes passive and suggestible, to the point that she accepts the view of Osmond Madame Merle gives her, without her usual argumentation or questioning, without even the application of one of her many theories. For the sake of Madame Merle, she submits to the confinement necessary to marrying Gilbert, and says unashamedly to Ralph, �I like my cage� The unattached and mysterious power of Madame Merle takes hold of Isabel�s mimetic temperament as nothing has before. She conceives of Madame Merle as the most secure in her own accomplishments of anyone. She has the ability and connections to frequent the greatest houses and courts in Europe, and yet the freedom from societal constraints to remain comparatively humble in her speech and autonomous in her actions. Mrs. Touchett�s mention of Madame Merle�s refusing a number of invitations to great houses likely impresses upon Isabel the same freedom for the sake of which she refused to marry Lord Warburton, and the same freedom that enabled Osmond to suffer poverty quietly with the companionship of his unparalleled taste. Ralph�s and Mrs. Touchett�s praise of Madame Merle influence her ideas very strongly . She displays no process of �taking in� or judging Madame Merle. She merely accepts Mrs. Touchett�s comments and behavior as unerring, and accordingly begins to worship Madame Merle.

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