The Cognitive Crisis In Love In The Heavenly Twins

Madame Sarah Grand---a woman writer in the19thcentury, gave us some hintsto a happy marriage in her novel The Heavenly Twins---a matched cognition betweena couple is a most crucial factor in a blissful wedded life.The Heavenly Twins, as Grand’s most valued work, has been studied from suchmanifold aspects as feminism, Victorianism, eugenics, gender and sexuality. However,it is a pity that cognition, as a most significant factor in the love lives of the maincharacters, has by now been neglected. Therefore, this thesis attempts to carry out acognitive study of the novel with Leo Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory. As aspokeswoman of New Woman Movement in the1890s, Grand concerned herselfdeeply with the well-being of the socially neglected women, most of whose happinesslies solely on a proper marriage. In the social context of the late Victorian Age,marriages with matched cognition are likely to survive and prosper; marriages withcognitive dissonance, however, seem to collapse and perish. In interpreting thecognitive crisis in the love life of the characters, this thesis draws the conclusion thatwomen should break the tradition of staying ignorant before marriage, instead, theyare encouraged to arm themselves with a sound knowledge of their future husbandand the society at large and to adjust their cognitions while necessary. A matchedcognition in love, to a great degree, still carries a sense of truth to the readers of today.This thesis holds that the three couples in the novel invariously sufferedcognitive crisis in their love life. And the crises take the form of either discrepanciesof expectations and realities or discrepancies of critical views held by a couple. Thefirst two couples, Edith and Mosley, Evadne and George failed to negotiate andcompromise; yet the third couple, Angelica and Mr. Kilroy managed to match theircognition, thus resolving their crisis and saving their marriage.