Presentation on madness and gender for English 246: Gender and Genre Questions on the first section of the Bertha Mason chapters are from my partner. No "works cited" slide.

1. ENG 246

2. WHAT IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE TERM

3. OR

4. SYMPTOMS: womb moving up inside a woman’s body:
sluggishness, lack of strength, vertigo, having pain “in the veins
of each side of the head”
TREATMENT: inhalation of essential oils or foul scents,
pleasant scents applied to the vagina to lure the womb back
into position
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _AY T R I
BACK IN

5. “Plato, in Timaeus, argues that the uterus is sad and
unfortunate when it does not join with the male and
does not give rise to a new birth, and Aristotle and
Hippocrates were of the same opinion.”
(Tasca, Rapetti, Carta, and Fadda)
BACK IN

6. CAUSES: overproduction of black bile due to original sin;
having a defect of the soul from Evil
SYMPTOMS: being slender and minute of build, being unable
to fix a thought, infertility
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _AL C HM
DURING THE

7. SYMPTOMS: perverse sexuality, worship of nature, use of
hallucinogenic plants, communion with animals, “numbed
patches of skin”
TREATMENT: exorcism
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ST C HW
DURING THE

8. DURING THE
“In the Middle Ages, madness was seen as the point of
intersection between the human, the divine, and the demonic.
It was viewed alternatively or simultaneously as possession, sin,
punishment, and disease, and it confirmed the inseparability of
the human and transcendent.”
(Neely)

9. DURING THE
The continuing fascination with madness can be found in
medical treatises and the theatrical representations of
Shakespeare, Kyd, Dekker, Middleton, Fletcher, and Webster.
What is the popular name for the institution where the insane
were confined?
_ _ _ _ _ _MD AB

10. “ ‘Madness’ was not viewed as the opposite of sanity. It wasn’t
even an exclusively medical condition. ‘Madness’ was seen as
an extension of the normal, or an excess of the normal. In fact,
people “run mad, fall mad, are beside themselves, and then
recover themselves. But these behaviors occurred and were
reported, represented, treated” (Neely 778).
DURING THE

11. SYMPTOMS: “staring and barred eyes, raucous noises and
muffled, uncontrolled jumps, sudden movements etc.”
TREATMENT: hanging, detention, trials
_ _ _ _ _ _ _STCHW
THAT TIME BACK IN

12. “The scientific development does not mark a dramatic shift
from a demonological vision of medicine, but progresses hand
in hand with evolution of theories on exorcism. The written
records tell us of several outbreaks of hysteria, the most
famous of which is undoubtedly the one occurred in the village
of Salem (Massachusetts) in 1692.”
(Tasca, et al.)
THAT TIME BACK IN

13. Madness in this era evolved into, “as Michel Foucault claims,
the mark of unreason, the symbol of the animal side of human
nature that needs confinement and restraint” (Neely 317).
A GHOST! A MYSTERY! IT’S THE

14. When you’re prone to swoon, you say that you have this.
Common treatments for this are smelling salts and “vibrating
devices.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _SFCHA O HT E V PT
SIR, IT’S THE

15. Fainting, uncontrollable weeping, breathlessness, and pain were
also associated with the female. Apart from being housed in
asylums and treatment through hypnosis, marriage was also
considered a solution for women who were prone to these
symptoms.
SIR, IT’S THE

16. “In the nineteenth century, insanity (now the preferred term)
becomes identified with hereditary morality and is to be
rectified by “moral treatment”.”
(Neely)
SIR, IT’S THE

17. SIR, IT’S THE

18. SIR, IT’S THE

19. SIR, IT’S THE

20. What were the specific treatments prescribed to Esther
Greenwood in The Bell Jar?
THE GOOD OLE

21. Studies in “the 19th-20th centuries gradually demonstrate that
hysteria is not an exclusively female disease allowing a stricter
scientific view to finally prevail. 20th century’s studies have also
drawn on the importance of transcultural psychiatry, in order
to understand the role of environmental factors in the emotive
evolution and behavioral phenomenology and in modifying the
psychopathology.” (Tasca, et al.)
THE GOOD OLE

22. What are the most common conditions attributed to women
by psychiatric studies and even the DSM-V?
MEMES++ IN THE

23. MADNESS
GENDER+

24. • Madness as gendered, not just in medicine,
but in established literary conventions.
• “the history of madness is marked by
hiatuses” (779) “Did Madness Have a
Renaissance”
• Conventional treatment of the madwoman
in literature: “still lovely in ruin” or eroticized
by both men and women writers
Recognizing this historical tendency may lead
to a stronger recognition of the distinctively
female implications of madness as a theme.
IT’S CALLED THE

25. AND LANGUAGE USE
• Associating certain qualities with men
(reason) and women (emotion or even
madness)
• Masculine interpretations of the differences
between men and women (Scull)
• Females = smaller brains, less rational, more
emotional (Scull)
• Gendered theorizing about madness +
treatments for madness (Scull)
• Who does the labeling?
• Privileging the male and disempowering the
female

26. A CULTURAL+SOCIAL
• ‘mad’ = imprecise; common; refers to real
conditions
• differing images and characteristics of
‘madwomen’ in history (from the female
‘hysteric’ to the more scientific approaches)
“Mental disorder is not just a social label,
although many aspects of a culture impinge on
its definition.” (Neely 778)
CONSTRUCTION?

27. --A CONSEQUENCE OF
For Gilbert and Gubar:
• Madness as a symptom of women’s own
feelings of entrapment and oppression
• Madness as a condition of all women
• The madwoman as a figure of rage, not
having any power to alleviate her suffering
or to express it in terms that make sense to
society
PATRIARCHY?

28. --A CONSEQUENCE OF
Valerie Beattie argues that although madness
provides feminists with an essential metaphor in
a theory of female subversion of patriarchy,
Gilbert and Gubar resort to the binaries of the
angel and monster which they sought to
counter. Some scholars, according to Beattie,
tend to replicate ideologically problematic
attitudes based on the era. For example, Gilbert
and Gubar’s book, which has a focus on the
19th century, replicated this era’s problematic
paradigm.
PATRIARCHY?

29. --A CONSEQUENCE OF
Elizabeth Donaldson also advocates for
connecting madness and mental illness, since,
she argues, “this distinction between ‘madness
as a metaphor, not mental illness in the clinical
sense’ is impossible to maintain.” According to
Donaldson, fictional representations of madness
have a way of influencing clinical discourses of
mental illness and vice versa. She cites Elaine
Showalter’s account on the figure of Bertha
Mason influencing medical accounts of female
insanity.
PATRIARCHY?

30. IN WOMEN/MEN
• Witches, the bewitched, and the possessed
as predominantly female (Neely)
• Lovesickness as coded male in the Middle
Ages but is now associated with females;
wandering womb = unsatisfied sexual
desire; melancholy as an ailment of upper-
class men (Neely)
• Even suicide is gendered
• Male: conflict between the masculine ideal
created in one’s fiction + a heroic act
• Female: desperation, depression, neurosis

31. IN WOMEN/MEN
Consider how artists were presented in these
two movies:

32. DOUBLY
• A madwoman has doubly subversive
literary potential
• ‘mad’ + ‘woman’ =
disturbs the meaning of male writing;
disrupts female writing
• The ‘madwoman’, with her experience,
moves away from: (a) conventional ways of
seeing the world, and (b) using language
THE

33. IN WOMEN’S WRITING
• Women writers who write about madness
are keenly aware of the pain of insanity and
the specific psychological pressures exerted
on women. These writers all resist the
conventional depiction of madness as a
consequence of unstable femininity.
• Showalter, in The Female Malady, suggests
that madness is the price women artists
have had to pay for the exercise of their
creativity in a male-dominated culture.

34. IN WOMEN’S WRITING
• Madness as immediate and personal for
female writers; coming from firsthand
experience (Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia
Woolf, Charlotte Bronte, Sylvia Plath, Anne
Sexton)

35. • male writers who write about insanity/madness: interpreted for a
work’s historical context rather than being telling of the male desire
for control, for instance
RELEVANT TO DISCUSSING MADNESS IN LITERATURE?

36. JANE EYRE CHAPTERS

37. QUESTIONS FOR
Jane Eyre, ch. 20, 25, & 26
1. What was Jane’s first encounter with Bertha
Mason?
2. How was the sound and the source of commotion
described in chapter 20?
3. How did Mr. Rochester respond to the incident?
4. Who or what does Jane see in her room in chapter
25?

38. QUESTIONS FOR
5. How does Mr. Rochester respond to Jane’s story?
6. Who seems to be the mad person in Jane’s story?
7. How is Bertha Mason similar and different from the
conventional representation of madwomen, from
the persona in “The Yellow Wallpaper”?

39. QUESTIONS FOR
Jane Eyre, ch. 27 & 36
1. Why does Rochester marry Bertha?
2. How does Rochester view Bertha Mason’s behavior
upon marrying her? Think about the Victorian
norms of femininity, feminine sexuality, and
marriage.

40. QUESTIONS FOR
3. Rochester is often considered as a Byronic hero. In
fact, Gilbert and Gubar notice Rochester’s “Byronic
sexual energy.” How does that affect your reading
of how Rochester views Bertha, or even Jane?
4. What are the qualities Rochester attributes to
madness upon his marriage to Bertha?
5. Who declares Bertha mad? How does Rochester
treat Bertha after this declaration?

41. QUESTIONS FOR
6. During the Victorian era, there had been an
emphasis on physiognomy and phrenology based
on gender and race. In the chapters, how do gender
and race make you interpret madness?
7. Is there a difference between Rochester’s view of
Bertha and Jane’s view (or her reactions)? If so,
how do they differ?

42. QUESTIONS FOR
8. How does Bertha die? And how would you
interpret this act of hers?
a. Does she have power over her death and
afterwards?
9. How can you make sense of Rochester’s role in
attempting to save Bertha?
10. Would you say that there are parallels between
Bertha Mason and Jane Eyre?

43. FOR

44. QUESTIONS FOR
1. Can you trace the chronology of events in the short
story?
a. Who is the narrator of the story?
b. How would you describe the chronology of
events in the story? How would you connect
this to the narrator/s?
c. How does the narrator view Miss Emily?
d. Can we trust the account of the narrator/s?

45. QUESTIONS FOR
2. How would you describe the town of Jefferson?
a. How do the townspeople relate to Emily and
how does Emily relate to them?
b. What is the most significant action that the
narrator does in the story?
c. What does the narrator want to know about
Miss Emily?
d. How does the town view womanhood?

46. QUESTIONS FOR
3. According to the narrator/s, how does Emily relate
to the multiple male characters in the story?
a. Emily’s father
b. Homer Barron
c. The male authority figures of the town
i. Colonel Sartoris
ii. Judge Stevens
iii. The druggist
iv. The aldermen
v. The Baptist minister

47. QUESTIONS FOR
4. In the short story, how can we make sense of the
private space and the public sphere?
5. How is the Grierson home described in the story?
How does it relate to Emily Grierson?
a. How did the house change and how did Emily
change as she aged?
b. What kind of motif is associated with Emily and
her house?

48. QUESTIONS FOR
6. Does the narrator indict Emily as mad?
a. Is there an explicit mention of insanity?
b. What are the manifestations of madness in the
story?
c. Does the story provide us with reasons behind
madness, if Miss Emily is mad?
7. How is madness depicted in the story? Does it
matter if Faulkner is a male author?
8. How would you compare Miss Emily to the woman
in Gilman’s story and to Bertha Mason?