Mimeticism and Mary's Life -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 20:15:21 03/30/08 Sun
Author: JD
Subject: Mimeticism and Mary's Life

Mary's life seems to almost be grounded in mimeticism. In her time with her father, her mother tells her that his treatment of her will make her a poor wife and a dependent person. We see that she does not do anything around her house and instead uses hired help: she has become the kind of person that her mother said she would be. In the convent, the nuns told her she was an exceptional pianist and now she lives with notions of having had the potential to be a concert pianist. Her use of opium might have been essential for her medical condition, but she still believes she needs it with the suggestion of Dr. Hardy. In the convent she assumed the role of a nun, yet now that she was told by the head nun to live a normal life to see if she really has been called, she no longer lives the convent life. I believe that she might have even fallen in love with Tyrone strictly because of mimeticism. When she retells the story of meeting him, she says that all of the girls at the convent who had seen Tyrone spoke of how good-looking and great he was. This detail implies that she did not she him herself, so then why was she so thrilled to learn that her father became friends with Tyrone? It is like Marcela in Don Quixote, in which her reputation really precedes her, and it seems as if everyone desires her simply because everyone desires her. It is acquisitive mimesis running wild. This seems to be the same case for Mary's desire for Tyrone. After all of this I think that it is clear that Mary's behavior is largely a product of the mimetic process and perhaps this could be a key contributer to her precarious state.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]