The Unacceptable Self in 'Flaws in the Glass and Voss' (2012)

Everything comes out of mess you're in. - Patrick White (qtd. in Marr 443)PATRICK WHITE CONFESSES IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FLAWS in Glass that his fictional characters are self-objects that present a disbelieving audience cast of contradictory characters of which I am composed (20). Voss, in particular, is a reflection of the perverse side of my nature (104). Both explorer and Laura Trevelyan are split-off fragments of self who were first imagined and recognized in mid '50s when White was heavily drugged in hospital (103-4). He also repeatedly and disingenuously holds his subconscious responsible for his artistic invention since his conscious self can't take full responsibility for it (187). There is much in White, therefore, to seduce psychological critic into his work, such as David Tacey in his rich Jungian analysis, and Laurence Steven in his Freudian.Despite shadow psychological criticism currently inhabits, a third, hitherto unexplored approach is worth pursuing through work of seminal self-psychologists Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg.1 Investigating concerns common to object relations school of Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, Kohut and Kernberg were puzzled by increasing number of patients they and others received who did not fit patterns of behavior expected of classical neuroses and psychoses. These patients were frequently successful, superficially functional but carrying weight of a long-term constitutional uncertainty of self, including a permanent sense of shame or guiltless despair. White, too, has an interest in this seemingly intractable state- painting Patrick in autobiography as permanently unhappy (46).As summarized by Salman Akhtar and J. Anderson Thompson, Kohut and Kernberg found that common traits in these patients included excessive self-absorption, intense ambition, grandiose fantasies, over dependence on acclaim, and an unremitting need to search for brilliance, power and beauty (14). To this picture, they would add arrogant and haughty behavior, manipulative use of others to mirror or establish potency, and display of a disproportionate rage in face of minimal triggers. Kohut first used term Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) to encapsulate this set of behaviors common to type. : Like Voss and Patrick of Flaws - both created constructs-the dysfunctional narcissist is controlled more by self-hate than self-love, and driven more by shame than guilt The kind of narcissism Kohut, Kernberg and White (unwittingly) analyze is neither auto-eroticism of Havelock Ellis, nor that found in Freud's libido theory. It includes self-obsession of youth in Ovid's myth, but is more about a lost, dimly perceived or unacceptable self (Raws) and grandiose defenses employed in its absence (Voss).Borrowing from these self-psychologists, critic can better understand complex interaction White's characters have with their selves and with other characters. While psychological difficulties of Patrick in Flaws do not follow conventional NPD diagnosis we can apply to Voss, there is sufficient evidence in text to posit a territorial thematic connection, even though they are vastly different works written almost a quarter of a century apart. This suggests White has a life-long interest in perils of living with an unacceptable self, of being permanently unhappy (46). But there is another, perhaps more important, reason for pairing autobiography and novel, as they each explore problematic selves and narcissistic crises. Flaws exposes a largely unremitting, unresolvable psychic discomfort. It is unapologetic in its revelations of subject's personal and interpersonal difficulties as they relate to a deeply felt, long-term constitutional sense of shame. There is no resolution of these difficulties in autobiography, and little relief. Voss, on other hand- a novel as much about exploration of mind as that of a continent- makes a quantum leap by including ritualistic means through which pathological narcissism may be both punished and transformed. …