Narcissism

Narcissism, in this account, is not a mysterious feminine instinct but a learned form of self-alienation: the subject makes an idealized self into an absolute object and seeks confirmation of it in reflection and in other people’s attention. Its importance lies in the contradiction at its center. A woman may appear sovereign while remaining dependent on the very gaze she hopes to command; if the imagined self replaces action and reciprocal relations, self-adoration becomes a trap rather than freedom.

Definition and social conditions

The chapter rejects the claim that narcissism is the fundamental attitude of all women. It defines narcissism more narrowly as a process of alienation in which the self is posited as an absolute end and the subject escapes into that self-image. Women, the account argues, are more often invited toward this posture by their circumstances, not by an unchanging nature.

The explanation is social and existential. A girl is encouraged to make herself an object, while the boy is encouraged to pursue activities through which he can assert himself. Later, a woman may be busy as wife, mother, or housewife without being recognized in her singularity. When she is denied meaningful projects through which to locate her abilities and measure her achievements, she may try instead to find importance in her own person. Marie Bashkirtseff’s question about being nothing and wanting to be everything gives this compensation a concise form: an inaccessible world of action is answered by an enlarged image of the self.

This account connects narcissism to a broader argument about biology and social interpretation. The body and reproductive life matter to a woman’s situation, but bodily facts alone cannot define her or explain why she is treated as the Other. The body has a lived meaning within consciousness, action, and society. Narcissism likewise cannot be reduced to anatomy: the decisive issue is the world of expectations that teaches a girl to value herself as an image rather than to establish herself through projects.

Childhood and the making of an image

The doll offers an early model for this division. Because it represents a whole body and remains passive, a girl may dress and cherish it as the person she dreams of becoming, then imagine herself in turn as a beautiful doll. Compliments and admonishments teach her the importance of being pretty; she compares herself with princesses and fairies and learns to look at herself as if from outside. Yet the doll is not a determining cause, and it is not exclusive to girls: a boy may project himself into a teddy bear or rag doll. Its meaning depends on the larger pattern of a child’s life and education.

Marie Bashkirtseff supplies a distinct example of attention-seeking self-display. Weaned at three and a half, she recalled that at four or five she dressed in her mother’s lace, put flowers in her hair, and danced in the living room as Petipa while her household watched. The episode shows a child treating herself at once as performer and spectacle. The chapter does not take this early display as proof of a feminine instinct; it places it in the context of separation, social attention, and a girl’s encouragement to become an object for others.

As adolescence approaches, the mirror can make that objectification feel like self-possession. Olivia sees a portrait-like image of herself in a pink dress and experiences it as both her own body and something strangely separate. She caresses and contemplates herself, seeking a tender relation to herself in solitude. The analysis contrasts this with the boy’s usual separation of self-love from desire directed toward an object. For the girl, admiration of her body and the wish to receive men’s admiration may remain entangled: she does not necessarily distinguish wanting to be beautiful from wanting to charm, or the gaze of others from her own attachment to her image.

The mirror is thus more than a surface in this account. Its reflected figure appears settled and complete, offering a visible object that the girl can admire as herself. The reflection seems to supply a certainty that the mind, whose worth must still be demonstrated, cannot provide in the same immediate way. Yet the apparent unity is imaginary: the reflected double cannot become an independent self with whom the woman can form a genuinely reciprocal relation.

Diaries, fantasy, and the need for witnesses

Private writing extends the effort to make the self both author and object. The girl may address a diary as friend and confidante, entrusting it with what she conceals from parents, friends, and teachers. Some diaries are marked to be read only after death or to be burned at the writer’s death. Their secrecy does not simply conceal information; it supports a private figure of the self, distinct from the person recognized in everyday life.

That hidden heroine may be imagined as a dancer, a saint, or a singular wonder. Feeling misunderstood, the girl can turn other people’s failure to recognize her into proof that she possesses an exceptional inner identity. Dreams then offer escape from a constricted present. The chapter distinguishes the girl’s preference for wonderment and magic from the boy’s more active fantasies of adventure: where she feels unable to act, the promise that beauty or destiny will bring fulfillment can seem to offer power without requiring action. Marie B. is presented as an extreme instance of a compensatory process found more widely among adolescents, not as a separate explanation of women’s nature.

But solitary self-worship is not enough. A girl may seek a friend who helps her move beyond the maternal circle and explore the world, while also serving as a witness who reflects her back to herself. Confidences, shared secrets, and other signs of tenderness can make friendship a space in which the self is affirmed. The account describes such intense attachments as potentially spiritual or carnal, while linking some of their attraction to the mutual fascination with femininity and one another’s bodies. In this reading, the friend is both a person in her own right and a mirror through which each girl seeks recognition.

The same need for a witness continues into adult life. The narcissist may seek an audience in social settings, turn to a confessor or professional, or consult mediums and fortune-tellers; she may speak about herself to friends and look especially to a lover to confirm her importance. Marie Bashkirtseff imagines herself onstage even when someone enters and finds her writing, and she plans a more impressive house and studios as a larger setting for her self-presentation. The stage is not merely a metaphor for vanity: it marks the extent to which the self-image requires spectators to feel real.

Sovereignty in the mirror, dependence in the world

The mirror can stage a fantasy of absolute sovereignty. In the reflected image, the woman sees an apparently present and indubitable self; the rest of the world seems to fall into disorder beyond the mirror’s frame. The image promises command over attention, fortune, glory, and sensual pleasure, although it cannot itself grant any of them. Marie Bashkirtseff’s wish to have a statue made of her makes the contradiction concrete: she imagines preserving her beauty in marble, yet concludes that she must marry, if only to obtain the means. The apparently self-sufficient idol relies on material resources and social arrangements beyond herself.

The chapter also distinguishes self-admiration from reciprocal love. The narcissist may want to experience love, motherhood, friendship, solitude, or grief, but when she cannot give herself to another person, those emotions can become performances organized around her own story. Public admiration then becomes more valuable than private reciprocity. A person who cannot accept that others are not passionately interested may interpret indifference as hatred, criticism as jealousy, and failure as the result of hidden schemes. The imagined figure grows more central as the concrete world recedes.

This pattern can feed on itself. A sense of being misunderstood becomes evidence of an exceptional inner secret; the supposed secret is difficult to show because it has no clear expression in daily action. The belief in an inexpressible mystery is reinforced by the myth of an eternal feminine, and the myth in turn appears confirmed by the woman’s withdrawal and inability to act. The account locates the cycle not in a hidden essence but in the gap between an idealized private heroine and a life that has not supplied a way to realize her in concrete projects.

Failure and significance

The chapter’s account of narcissism ends not in triumphant self-love but in a radical failure to become whole. The imagined double cannot provide the recognition of another free person; it is only a projection. As memories and gestures repeat without acquiring new meaning, the self-image grows increasingly fixed, while solitude returns as abandonment and contingency. The person who seems to choose herself as a supreme end may become more, not less, dependent on crowds, attention, and approval.

That dependence is also material and social. Maintaining the idol requires time and resources, and the woman who seeks power over admirers still has to please them. Escaping an individual man’s domination may mean submitting instead to public opinion. As she grows older, the need for praise can intensify, along with suspicion that others are plotting against her. The apparent authority of self-worship thus conceals vulnerability to other people’s judgments and to the passage of time.

Narcissism serves as a critique of a social arrangement that encourages women to seek recognition as images while restricting their opportunities to establish themselves through action. It can be an early defense against a future experienced as disturbing, but the account insists that it must be surpassed: otherwise the imagined self closes off the very future it was meant to make bearable. The alternative implied by the analysis is not self-erasure, but a life in which recognition can arise through concrete activity and reciprocal relations rather than the endless demand to be admired.