Stephen Crane on Narcissism

 

Writers are the real psychologists. To make a character live on the page requires a deeper insight into human nature than you will ever see in the writings of Freud, or Jung, or in a therapist’s office.

In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane portrays the secondary character, Wilson, initially as “the loud soldier,” full of boasts and self-assurance. Then he cracks in the face of actual battle and becomes convinced he is going to die. After the battle, having survived, his personality is utterly different. Now he is kind and attentive to others. And brave.

Crane’s narrator ponders the change:

“The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend's neighborhood.”

This is what growing up is. Adversity teaches us perspective. 

Narcissists are those who do not learn this lesson. They are, for the rest of their lives, “thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. … Swaggering babe[s] accustomed to strut in [their] own dooryard.”

Usually, such people have been spoiled as children. Their parents no doubt believed in “self-esteem” and “unconditional love.” Or favoured this particular child over their other children. They have never faced adversity and seen themselves as a wee thing. They will be demanding towards others for the rest of their lives, and they will crack under pressure.

Wilson was lucky to have been sent to war while still in his teens. This saved him, and perhaps saves many.

Those who experience adversity in childhood, on the other hand, those who are abused by their parents, learn empathy, becoming what is called, in the popular psychology of the self-help groups, “empaths.” They become deeply sensitive to the feelings of others. Often this makes them writers, able to make characters come alive on a page.

This is the opposite of what psychology has been saying for a couple of generations. This is the opposite of psychological received wisdom, as reflected in this exercise from a high school textbook. Everything it says about bullying is the opposite of the truth:

The professionals, following Alice Miller, have been insisting that children grow into narcissists because they are abused. This is no doubt because those who most loudly complain about being hard done by will be the narcissists, because that are always demanding and never satisfied. The truly abused are more likely bullied into silence, and will speak of these things only indirectly or by talking about someone else.

Or writing books.