VLVL (13) p 274 - "Madwoman in the Attic"

[richardryannyc at yahoo.com]

"...[Brock] was visited by his uneasy anima in the a number of guises, notably as the Madwoman in the Attic."

The literary allusion is to _Jane Eyre_, in which Rochester's mad wife stays locked in the attic, also the phrase itself evokes Gilbert and Gubar's noted study of the suppression or marginalization of the feminine in literature.  The narrator is also calling on Jung's theory of the anima - an internalized and unconscious female image of the "true self" in men.  Revealing, Brock's true self-image falls upon him in his dreams like a Jamesian "Beast in the Jungle" and destroys him.

The section beginning on p, 274 and covering among other episodes Brock's reaction to Frenesi's escape from PREP, includes the strong suggestion that the origin of Brock's pathology is inability to integrate the female aspect of his personality into his larger character.  In a reversal of the classic Tom-and-Huck/Boys-Night-Out American cultural dynamic, _Vineland_ suggests a world in which the women (Frenesi/DL/Prairie) are the escapees, the searchers, the embodiments of action and momentum.  Brock's nightmare-conjured image of this predatory, untameable feminine energy capture his self-defeating fear perfectly.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Madwoman_in_the_Attic 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus