Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
English
Advisor
Caroline Reitz
Committee Members
Talia Schaffer
Carrie Hintz
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities
Keywords
Victorian, madness, feminist, medical humanities, moral management
Abstract
This dissertation pushes back against the feminist notion of madness as a social construct applied to women by a patriarchal order as a means of social control. I argue that representations of female insanity in Victorian novels are instead tied to prevailing 19th Century medical theories, revolving around phrenology, physiology, and especially the notion of partial or moral madness. Starting with Charlotte Bronte’s infamous Bertha Mason, I study how the notion of madness has changed and evolved in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. I discuss how non-canonical texts by Collins, Ellen Wood, and Sheridan Le Fanu link female madness to the violent excesses of mothers, a move that does not dovetail with feminist readings. I also examine how madness is portrayed in neo-Victorian novels and the burgeoning field of Mad Studies, which rejects a bio-medical approach and relies instead of the lived experiences of women who identify as mad, mentally ill, and neurodiverse.
Recommended Citation
Sherman, Beth, "Beyond the Madwoman in the Attic: Representations of Female Madness in Victorian Popular Literature" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5737
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