Hurts so good : masochism in Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children

This essay will examine aspects of the complex family Stead creates in The Man Who Loved Children (hereafter TMWLC) by drawing on the work of Sigmund Freud, notably his ‘A Child is Being Beaten’ (SE 19) and ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’ (SE 21). Novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen calls TMWLC ‘the best novel ever written about a nuclear family, and as ferocious and damning an assault on the patriarchy as can be found anywhere in world literature […] Stead’s masterpiece [...] isn’t small enough or one-sided enough to be useful to theorists. The Pollits are too human to fit into a syllabus’ (1). Franzen’s perception that this ‘too human’ novel defies theoretical approach makes it a challenging and stimulating subject of study. Ann Whitehead too described TMWLC as ‘the most powerful evocation of what it’s like to live in a family that I’ve ever read’ (Selected 224). The Man Who Loved Children2 is the semi-autobiographical narrative of Christina Stead’s severely dysfunctional family. Stead’s alter-ego, Louie Pollit, is the only child of Sam Pollit’s first wife, who died six months after Louie’s birth. Sam grew up in poverty, leaving school at twelve. He eventually married Henny Collyer, spoilt daughter of wealthy fish merchant David Collyer. Through self-education and Collyer’s influence, Sam became head of the Bureau of Fisheries. Despite this success, Sam’s eccentric egotism causes his family great financial and emotional hardship. His complex personality is the focus of the present discussion.