Madness as a Protest

Öz

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Woman
• madness
• feminine malady
• oppression

Madness as a Protest

Abstract

The portrayal of a woman as ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’ in literary texts is very common. ‘Madness’ is accepted as female’s malady and the result of her femininity especially in the Victorian era although this relationship can be tracked to the medieval times. This paper examines madness as feminine quality and how it is revealed in the two literary texts which are Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Toni Morisson’s Sula (1988). Sample instances are also given of the unfairness women learn to live with from the selected literatures from the twentieth century. Historical background is also studied within the theory that loads of women are driven to the madness by the way of life imposed upon them in the form of repression and societal expectations from them.

Keywords

• Woman
• madness
• feminine malady
• oppression

Kaynakça

1. Cixous, H. and Catherine C. (1976). The Newly Born Woman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
2. Cixous, H. and Catherine C. (1986). The Newly Born Woman. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
3. Culler, J. (1982). Reading As A Woman. Feminisms: an Antology of Literary Theory and Criticism. (Eds. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl) New Jersey: Rutgers’ University.
4. Felman, S. (1975). Women and Madness: The Critical Phallacy. In R. R. Warhol and D. P. Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: an Antology of Literary Theory and Criticism (6-19). New Jersey: Rutgers’ University.
5. Gallop, J. (1982). The Father’s Seduction. The Critical Phallacy. In R. R. Warhol and D. P. Herndl (Eds.), Feminisms: an Antology of Literary Theory and Criticism (413-431). New Jersey: Rutgers’ University.