A DISCOVERY. Eventually, all the male characters fall in love with her: first Ned, the youngest, followed by the skeptic Gerald, and gradually the unassuming uncle, John. The answer is that she may have lost some or much of her integrity, or even her identity in her reliance on the masks of her different roles, but in order to achieve success in the patriarchal, deception-ridden society in which she lives, she makes the choice to do whatever she has to do. When she first meets the Coventry family, Jean succeeds in charming Bella, Ned and Mrs. Coventry by having a fainting spell. Hysteria, to the patriarchal Freud, was largely confined to women suffering from an inability to express themselves (sometimes unto actual muteness) because of a real or imagined childhood sexual trauma (Kahane 281). Web. It focuses on Jean Muir, who enters the home of the wealthy Coventry family as governess to their sixteen-year-old daughter. But is the beguiling Miss Muir all that she seems to be? BEHIND A MASK, the first story, owes a lot to Jane Eyre and it's deja vu all over again, as the Bronte classic surely was the inspiration for Jean Muir in this story of a governess who connives to make all the men in a household where she is employed fall madly in love with her.

Jean draws upon what talents she has, and these are superlative.


By the end of the story, Jean Muir has married John to become Lady Coventry. Lots of Essays, "Character of Jean Muir in Alcott's Behind a Mask.," LotsofEssays.com, https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691210.html (accessed August 28, 2020) An additional and related question is whether Jean is an hysteric. Character of Jean Muir in Alcott's Behind a Mask.

One such literary critic is Christine Butterworth-McDermott, who sees this story as a transfiguring of the classic "In 2000, the story was adapted as a musical, titled However, Jean Muir, the main female character in Louisa May Alcott’s novella Behind a Mask, contradicts this standard in her clever manipulation of the Coventry family.

If she is in any meaningful way an hysteric, her hysteria is the most controlled and effective hysteria ever witnessed.
However, Gerald and Lucia, son of the estate and cousin to the Coventry family, remain suspicious. The question is whether Jean surrenders all of her integrity, or even all of her true identity, in performing the various roles she plays as a governess, an actress, and an engaged woman, in order to achieve that success. Is there any circumstance in which her brilliant and successful plan to achieve wealth, status, power, and perhaps revenge, can be ... © 2002-2020 LotsOfEssays.com. Retrieved 20:45, August 28, 2020, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691210.html Alcott, writing under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, often did the same, and Behind a Mask (1866) is one of her sensation novels. She uses the love they bestow upon her to turn them against each other and eventually to secure the Coventry estate for herself. This answer can only be appreciated if the reader accepts the world as portrayed by Alcott, and believes, as this reader does, that Alcott means Jean's tactics to be a sign of necessary strength, and not weakness.

For several days Coventry was confined to his room, much against his ... Jean Muir never came near him, and Jean Muir alone seemed to possess … Alcott’s Femme Fatale “Behind a Mask, or A Woman’s Power” is a psychologically intriguing tale woven by Louisa May Alcott, which she terms as one of her “blood-and-thunder tales” that she wrote under the pseudonym of A.M. Barnard (xi). (Introduction by Elizabeth Klett) Character of Jean Muir in Alcott's Behind a Mask This study will psychoanalyze the integrity of Jean Muir's happiness and success in Louisa May Alcott's novella Behind A Mask; or, A Woman's Power. (1969, December 31).

Here, the delightfully devious Jean Muir starts governessing for a w "Behind a Mask" was one of Alcott's, but in this case I'm going to say she undersold her works considerably - it's really a hoot. No such trauma is reported by Alcott with respect to Jean.

LotsofEssays.com. Acting the part of a harmless governess, Jean slowly but surely weasels her way into the hearts of the Coventry family. However, another aspect of hysteria introduces a fascinating possibility. This story belongs with many other thrillers and mysteries that Alcott published under the Set in the Coventry Mansion during the Victorian era, the wealthy family hires a young woman named Jean Muir to be the governess of sixteen-year-old Bella. In LotsofEssays.com. "Character of Jean Muir in Alcott's Behind a Mask." This study will psychoanalyze the integrity of Jean Muir's happiness and success in Louisa May Alcott's novella Behind A Mask; or, A Woman's Power.

She is also a remarkably observant woman, with keen powers of analysis and judgment that can turn disadvantages into steppingstones.

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