Insanity In Jane Eyre And The Yellow Wallpaper

Madness was an evident theme in the 19th century, as science was developing, the medical discourse was rising to a position of a great power. So, insanity is seen as a medical and social condition in both novels. Both characters, oppressed by their husbands, suffer from mental illness: the character, Antoinette, in post-colonial novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966) from schizophrenia while the narrator in feminist Gothic tale “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) from postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia. Such conditions lead to the play of both characters' imagination because creative imagination and madness are closely linked as it was explored by Romantic artists. Poet Lord Byron said “We of the craft are all crazy” suggesting that the association

Both women's insanity can be seen as the direct consequence of the oppression in such a union. The use of symbolism at the beginning of the novel “Wide Sargasso Sea” foreshadows the event that is going to happen with Antoinette. The parrot with “clipped wings” symbolises Antoinette's future: she herself would be that parrot, whose wings would be clipped by a male, who is stronger and more powerful. Therefore, it symbolises the restriction that Antoinette would face in her future. And this restriction will be in the form of a physical imprisonment that would lead to insanity. Nevertheless, the parrot is also an allegory for Antoinette's struggle for independence as the use of diction such as “screeching”, suggests her desperation for freedom, but not the physical freedom; it is the mental freedom she is after. And, the inability to achieve this illustrates her disintegration and collapse. Similarly, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is physically and mentally restricted by her husband. The narrator's use of the third person pronoun “he” suggests that her actions and treatment were dictated by her husband. Therefore, patriarchy is central to women's madness. John, her husband embodies the paradox pointed out by a feminist critic Janet Walker: “the very institution to which women are forced to turn for help is itself an institution that oppresses women” (Walker, 1993)2. So, the narrator's husband, in order to cure his wife, tries to

The physical and mental imprisonment of women could be viewed as another factor that leads to the disintegration of their identities. In the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator's confinement is both literal and figurative; she is imprisoned in a room and her mind is confined in the wallpaper. The structure of the house and its surroundings is a typical Gothic settings: “quite alone, standing well back from the road, … There are hedges and walls and gates that lock”. Here, the use of asyndeton draws readers' attention to the physical confinement of woman and her separation from the society. When talking about the house, the narrator's use of parenthesis: “I am afraid, but I don't care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it”, conveys the her desperation at the physical confinement. While the wallpaper is a symbol for her figurative confinement. The pattern of the wallpaper is “at night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars”. The use of anticlimax suggests that the woman is imprisoned and “trapped” at any time, no light can help her. The pattern slowly confines the narrator’s mind behind those imaginary “bars”, so the house becomes her prison cell and drives her to madness. According to Ammons Elizabeth the woman in the wallpaper symbolises all 19th century woman and the narrator herself.3 The realisation