A Study On The Theme Of Personality Development In Christie's Novels Under Jung's Personality Theory

Agatha Christie(1890-1976),famous British detective novelist and playwright,is one of the representatives of the “Golden Age” of detective novels.The critics focus on writing skills of her detective novels,but pay less attention to the characters' internal growth and development.Different from the stories of individual detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple,Tommy and Tuppence Beresford,deeply affectionate and adventurous couple who spent a life-long journey getting to know each other and working together as colleagues,show a linear growth track which is easy to be sorted out in the series;the other series is six semi-autobiographical emotional novels inspired by Christie's own personal experience under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott,with the same theme of confusion and tribulation in growth.These two series both explain the ways of personality development from youth,middle age to old age.This thesis attempts to sort out the obstacles of personality development and their corresponding guidance from different processes of individuation.Furthermore,it extracts Christie's puzzlement and struggles to the unknown life and humanistic concern for individual growth.In the light of Jung's theory of personality development,this thesis first divides the tasks that need to be completed vertically in youth,middle age and old age and horizontally,compare the harmonious and smooth process in Tommy and Tuppence series with the impeding Westmacott series,and analyzes the relationships among family,gender and society that characters in two series need to deal with in the process of individuation,thus extracting Christie's opinions on individual growth.The second chapter emphasizes the harmonious family relationship,pleasant gender relationship and correct career choice,among which the psyche was born in The Secret Adversary,the cultivation of psyche was carried on in N or M? and final smooth individuation was achieved in Tommy and Tuppence series;the third chapter summarizes the obstacles in the process of individuation from tense family relationship,painful gender relationship and indistinct career orientation in the Westmacott series,six books namely Unfinished Portrait,Absent in the Spring,The Rose and the Yew Tree,A Daughter's a Daughter,The Burden and Giant's Bread,presenting the trapped self-development and identifying how it was achieved through insights at an old age.In conclusion,this thesis depicts two different pathways for personality development,making a primary literary exploration in the integrity and unity of modern people's psyche.Only by referring these two ways as a whole could we have a better understanding to Christie's views in the development of personality and human perfection to individuation,excavating the profundity and complexity of detective themes and reflecting the literary value of both detective novels and romance novels.