Leiden University Student Repository

Stoker, Anne 2016

Longing for Belonging: Bildung, the Doppelgänger and Liberalism in The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)

Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)

open access

This thesis argues that the literary relevance of The Private Memoirs is its examination of the sometimes problematic desire for belonging and self-realisation. The novel, seen as a satirical...Show moreThis thesis argues that the literary relevance of The Private Memoirs is its examination of the sometimes problematic desire for belonging and self-realisation. The novel, seen as a satirical Bildungsroman, shows that Robert Wringhim’s failure both to reach maturity and assimilate into society is the result of his inability to change. One needs to constantly (re)negotiate between self and other to safely integrate into society – this is a form of Bildung, as understood in Herder’s conceptualisation of the term. However, Robert fails to integrate, because he refuses to change his early identity, which, in turn, leads to the creation of a doppelgänger. Also, his parents teach Robert that he is preordained to live in heaven which causes him to feel that above all he belongs to this future state. Ultimately, with no self-realisation and a strong desire to go to where he feels he belongs, Robert’s short life can only end in his premature death. Finally, The Private Memoirs is not merely a critique of bad parenting or religious excess. Rather, Robert and his family become a metonymy for something larger and more prevalent: liberalism and civil society, where freedom becomes freedom to have property, rather than freedom of thought. In the end, liberalism is portrayed as a system of exclusion rather than inclusion of differences.Show less