The madness of innocent guilt

Dear Friends of Online Literature:

In The Last Chronicle of Barset, what most impressed me was the reaction of Mr. Crawley to being falsely accused of having stolen £20. Specifically, after having suffered intensely for several weeks over this matter, he began to believe he must be guilty.

Once, when I was falsely accused of something, being incapable of clarifying matters, time passed and I started feeling guilty! I thought, "I must be guilty for something, otherwise they would not accuse me." In psychology, there must be something which explains how this is possible. Perhaps because our own self-image depends much more on other persons' opinions of us than on our own introspection. I was eventually cleared of the misunderstanding. But, while I was going through the torture, like Crawley I was incapable of clearly separating fact from fiction.

You're right - it is a psychological phenomenon. It is through this that flae memories can be implanted. When we are told something often enough, or by enough different peole, we start to doubt our on perceptions, and this is especially true when we are under stress, and are aware that we have become prone to make minor errors of concentration and memory.

Another Trollope book where something similar happens is The Prime Minister. Emily Wharton acquires a tremendous guilt feeling from having married, against all her friends' and relatives' advice, Ferdinand whom she discovers after the marriage to be a monster. She cannot forgive herself for this error of her past life. Eventually, after the death of Ferdinand, she accepts her original suitor Arthur. This acceptance takes a long time, because she considers herself too unworthy of Arthur. But she finally accepts him without overcoming her sense of guilt. Perhaps in the sequel novel (The Duke's Children), she eventually comes to self-acceptance. Or does Trollope leave it at that? If so, this would be similar to Lillian Dale of The Small House at Allington, who decides definitively not to marry her life-long suitor. Even though in this case guilt feelings are not directly involved, change, in some people's lives, may be impossible. One can respect Trollope's character analysis, because "personal decisions" remain personal. Trollope made a mistake, in my opinion, by heeding the opinion of a contemporary reader who wanted the Bishop of Barchester's wife to be eliminated. So the author, against his own original plan, has her die of a heart attack. I wish he would not have listened, because the Bishop's wife was one of the best plot movers.