Female madness, motherhood, and sexual violence : a study of Plath, Didion and Miller

Abstract

Female madness and hysteria have continuously captured the fascination of a plethora of writers and academics, who sought to classify and define this disorder within scientific and literary paradigms. The idea that women are more susceptible to madness due to their innate femininity was a connection that was especially perpetuated in literary and scientific fields of study, particularly during the Victorian Era and in the area of psychoanalysis. This dissertation explores the relationship between madness and female characters in contemporary literature and how the works chosen subvert the stigma surrounding this diagnosis, which has largely resulted in the repression of women. The second chapter traces the evolution of the concept of the female hysteric and how it mutated according to the public’s perception of the woman who fails to conform to societal expectations of feminine ideals. Additionally, the images that populate the concept of female madness, specifically those of the witch, of the female hysterical patient, and of the literary figure of the madwoman, are engaged with in order to demonstrate how the association between the diagnosis of hysteria and femininity crystallised within cultural consciousness. In addition to this, the third chapter endeavours to analyse female madness in more depth by correlating it to the female experience and synthetising it with the related issues of motherhood, abortion, birth control and sexual violence. The analysis of the figure of the female hysteric through these contexts is also informed by a range of theoretical concepts, namely the female gaze, écriture feminine, the notion of the abject and the idea of otherness. This analysis is implemented using the three novels chosen; The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion and Circe by Madeline Miller, which all offer comprehensive portrayals of female hysteria that are influenced by the aforementioned broader social issues that are tied with womanhood, thus consequently legitimising the intricacies of the female experience.