The Pathologisation of Women’s Rebellion: The Representation of Female Insanity in Nineteenth-century Literature

Abstract

Women's life in the nineteenth century was extremely challenging, as it was marked by social, economic and legal restritions that, one the one hand, prevented them from having many legal rights and, on the other, relegated them to the private sphere, imposing on them attributes such as purity and submission. Within an extremely hierchical society, women's opportunities for education, property ownership and free expression were minimal. However, some women gradually began to actively challege social expectations. Consequently, due to the society's fear of change and transgression, these women started to be considered "irrational" or "insane". The literature of the time only contributed to reinforce these ideas, depicting transgressive women as problematic and, by extension, as a danger to social welfare. My aim in this dissertation is to understand how this "madness" serves not only as a way of punishing famale characters in their pursuit of agency and sexual pleasure, but also seems to be an omen of what is yet come: a change in society concerning women, a sign of women's capabilities which the first feminist movements would vindicate. To serve this purpose, some key authors from this period will be exemined, aiming at critically discussing their representation of women's insanity, as is the case of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Kate Chopin or Wilkie Collins.