Comparative Woman
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Attachment theory, or the theory that one’s personality and social development is informed greatly by the infant-parent bond, largely arises in the 1950s with the work of John Bowlby. Although the phenomenon was only then beginning to be scientifically evaluated, it has long been observed that the relationship one has with one’s parents is a determinant factor in one’s development. This work investigates the impact of the failure to heal the insecure attachment Amelie Opie’s Adeline Mowbray (1808). Adeline, having grown up in her distant mother’s intellectual shadow, develops a neurotic attachment to her mother which causes romantic maladjustment in Adeline’s adult life. I will analyze Adeline's attachment in three relationships or life phases: in her adolescence with her mother, in her romantic relationship with Glenmurray, and in the relationship with her mother in Adeline's adulthood.
Recommended Citation
Hodges, Meghan E.
(2023)
"“By that daughter’s most devoted affection”: Anxious and Avoidant Attachments in Opie’s Adeline Mowbray,"
Comparative Woman: Vol. 2:
Iss.
1, Article 14.
DOI: 10.31390/comparativewoman.2.1.14
Available at:
https://repository.lsu.edu/comparativewoman/vol2/iss1/14
DOI
10.31390/comparativewoman.2.1.14
Included in
Counseling Psychology Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Theory and Philosophy Commons, Women's Studies Commons