Jaeger, Philippe
Mentalization in the epistolary writing of George Sand
- 2021.
34
For George Sand, thinking is writing after the fact. Her correspondence bears witness to a work of self-analysis, often triggered by break-ups, which leads her to reflect on her childhood traumas, including the death of her father and the violent conflicts between her aristocratic grandmother and her mother, “a woman of the Parisian streets.” Engaged in a predominantly paternal transference with her correspondents, Sand writes what comes to her mind. These crises unleash migraines, which her mother also suffered from. Sand resorts to daydreams, but without an interlocutor she loses herself in the “non-ego.”