In modern British literature (which I am loosely defining as the period between 17th-20th centuries) and the culture from which that literature emerged, “madness” was a condemning and powerful word, but also a generic word that could mean many things. To call someone “mad” was for the most part an act of dehumanization. People who society had decided were “mad” could be ostracized, pitied, and denied the respect they deserved. “Madness” was not simply an outdated term for our modern-day understanding of mental illness. Today, we know that our brains are as complex and unique as we are, that neurodivergence is normal, and most importantly, people who struggle with mental health are viewed with much more compassion and understanding than in the past (although we still have a way to go in providing the respect, accommodations and care people many people desperately need). But in the 19th century (and earlier), declaring someone mad could condemn them to a life of dehumanization, neglect and poor treatment. And in a patriarchal and misogynistic society, accusing a woman of madness because she dared to act outside the role prescribed to her by her society was common. Declaring someone “mad” was a tool of oppression, because once a person was seen by others as insane they were no longer treated as a human with agency and rights, deserving of respect.
Many works of literature from the last few hundred years explore these themes of madness and depict societies in which people, women specifically, are either driven mad or accused of madness. Their stories are tragic, and often framed as if the woman herself is to blame for some inner weakness or frailty—that she falls victim to a flaw inherent in herself. However, when we read those works now it is easy to see that these women are victims instead to the violently misogynistic society in which they live and the sexist beliefs and implicit bias of the author. From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, many (if not all) of the texts we have read present and explore “madness” in some form. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia becomes mad as a response to her father’s murder and Hamlet’s cruel and volatile treatment of her. She is pitied but not helped, and it could even be argued that she is permitted to die. The play’s rapid descent toward tragedy begins with Ophelia’s madness and death in Act IV. In Act IV, Scene 5, Ophelia, who has been used and controlled by Claudius, her father Polonius, and Hamlet throughout the play, finally breaks. She appears singing—songs about being hurt or abandoned by men. This continual silencing and disregard for her feelings is best illustrated by Act III, Scene 1, when Ophelia comes to her father for comfort after being accosted by Hamlet in her room. She tells him: “O my lord, my lord, I have been so frightened.” (2.1.85). Polonius, however, dismisses (or even fails to hear) his daughter’s fear, focusing instead completely on what Hamlet’s behavior might reveal about the cause of his madness, utterly disregarding Ophelia’s experience. And while it could be argued Hamlet himself experiences a form of “madness”, I would disagree. Hamlet chooses to behave and be perceived as insane because he knows that as a privileged young man he will not be cast aside, pitied and dehumanized in the way Ophelia is. For Hamlet, “madness” is a choice, it is the means to an end, it is another tool—a step in his scheme for revenge. Whereas for Ophelia, her mental health struggles are a clear response to the manipulation and abuse she’s faced. She is made mad and then abandoned. Her “madness” is an illustration of the destructive forces of violence and political corruption that make Hamlet the tragedy it is, and Ophelia’s narrative and demise within the play is itself an echo of the female experience in a patriarchal society. In Jillian Luke’s 2020 article, “What If the Play Were Called Ophelia? Gender and Genre in Hamlet”, she emphasizes the “general” or universal nature of Ophelia’s story, and states that Ophelia: “acts as a conduit for an essential story of female experience: abandonment, misogyny, patriarchal oppression, and sexual double standards.” (Luke, 5). Ophelia’s madness, then, is her own, but it is also the “madness” women were subjected to or accused of when the men who hurt them refused to be accountable for it and refused to her them. Madness in Hamlet is what happens when a continually-silenced woman cannot speak in any other way.
It is fascinating to explore these portrayals of mental health issues and the idea of “madness” in a novel like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where both Victor Frankenstein and his creature experience significant struggles with their mental wellbeing. These struggles are framed and interpreted by the characters as a “madness” sent as punishment for their sins. Victor is consistently tormented by debilitating anxiety, depression, and anguish throughout the novel and suffers from what appear to be panic attacks and severe nervous breakdowns at multiple points. However, he blames this suffering on his guilt, and sees it as a justifiable or fair punishment. “How can you understand what I have felt, and still feel?” he entreats of Captain Walton in Chapter VII of Volume Three. “Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and carried about with me my eternal hell.” (Shelley, 263). Victor Frankenstein’s suffering is thus attributed to “destiny”, and a “curse” and given religious connotations in the references to hell and “some devil”. It is interesting to note that never in the text is mental anguish framed as a reasonable or normal response to traumatic and stressful events. In both Hamlet and Frankenstein (and in Brontë’s Jane Eyre which I will soon discuss), mental health struggles must always appear as symbols, carrying a significance much greater than they are. A person cannot merely experience mental illness—their illness must have an overarching function in the narrative that turns their suffering into a symbol. This action of turning suffering into metaphor therefore takes away any real representation of mental health issues that might have otherwise been present. In other words, although Frankenstein and his creature both suffer from complex depression and anxiety that would undoubtably be recognized and treated today, these issues only exist in the narrative to make a point about the characters’ guilt and mortal torment. So any mental health issues that appear in the text cannot be considered as such, because they are present (for the most part) as a symbols for something else.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontëis the third and last novel I will discuss in this essay. To me, it is to me the most fascinating because it explores “madness”, mental health, and neurodivergence. How the novel deals with the trope of the “mad woman” is different from Hamlet and extraordinarily interesting, but for the sake of this essay and because the class hasn’t finished Jane Eyre, I will exclude any discussion of the novel’s second half and its portrayal of madness. However, while the first half of Jane Eyre doesn’t deal directly with the concept of “madness”, characters whose brains function differently and/or who experience struggles with their mental health are featured from the beginning. Jane Eyre is about how someone who has been deemed an outcast; who has been neglected, and mistreated because of certain unchangeable aspects of themself can retain their integrity, self-respect, and continue to fight for the love and respect they deserve. Jane is a woman, she is of lower social status, she is “plain”, but she is also, very significantly, not a “normal” person. She is sensitive, awkward, extremely introverted, and overwhelmingly misunderstood by those around her. And it is Jane’s inability to conform to her environment that is, at least partially, the reason she is abandoned and judged. So while Jane Eyre is a feminist story of a woman fighting to be respected in a world that will not acknowledge her, and a progressive story of a woman of lower class transcending those arbitrary social hierarchies, the novel is also—perhaps even primarily—the story of an unprivileged neurodivergent individual navigating a world that is deeply hostile to her and to the way she thinks. As a small child at her Aunt Reed’s house, Jane realizes she is “like nobody there” (Brontë, Chapter II). She is acutely aware of the differences between herself and the type of social, happy, normative child she is expected to be, but she cannot change, although: “I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were” (Brontë, Chapter IIV). It is Jane’s neurodivergence that alienates her from her caretakers, not her gender, or low rank, or her looks. The changeling myth (where a baby is stolen by fairies and replaced by a child that seems human but is somehow not) is repeatedly evoked throughout the novel. From Jane’s childhood to her meeting with Rochester as a young woman, where he calls her a witch and later tells her: “You have rather the look of another world. I marveled where you had got that sort of face.” (Brontë, Chapter XIII). But while Rochester recognizes Jane’s neurodivergence (perhaps he is also neurodivergent?), unlike the other people Jane has known, he admires and celebrates her for who she is. And despite his faults, this admiration is deeply healing for Jane and may in fact contribute to her falling in love with him.
Like Frankenstein and Hamlet, Jane Eyre is about an outcast who has been cast out either partially or completely because of their mental health struggles, perceived “madness”, or neurodivergence, but unlike those other novels, Jane Eyre (or at least Jane’s narrative) is triumphant. To me this difference is pivotal. It feels radical, revolutionary even, to see a character endure alienation, mistreatment and misunderstanding as Jane Eyre does and to only strengthen her pride in her unique self and then to at last receive the love and acceptance she has always deserved.
In conclusion, all three texts feature characters who experience mental health struggles, are perceived as “mad”, or whose brains function differently to what is typical, but the nature of that representation and what it achieves is vastly different in each text. I argue that it is not the presence of these experiences that matters, not the representation itself but the role this representation plays in the story—the reason it is there. In Hamlet, Ophelia’s “madness” is clearly inflicted upon her by the men who hurt her. So her madness is not hers, nor an accurate portrayal of mental illness, instead Ophelia’s “madness” can primarily be interpreted as a consequence of the harm caused by the men in the play. Ophelia’s madness is a tragedy, the result of the destructive forces of violence, misogyny, and corruption that make Hamlet the tragedy it is. And in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, while both Victor Frankenstein and his creature experience what we might well see as mental health issues today, in the novel their experiences are framed as the natural punishment for the sins each has committed. The suffering of Frankenstein and his creature is therefore not a representation of mental health issues but a portrayal of divine retribution and the torments suffered by those who have done wrongly. However, in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, through the character of Jane herself, we see something vastly different: an image of neurodivergence that is not condemned, tragic, or a mere metaphor. Jane is not like other people and is made to suffer because of who she is, but her integrity and self-respect and refusal to bend to the expectations of others or alter herself to please them result in a happy and triumphant ending. She receives the recognition, respect, and love she deserves without sacrificing who she is—arguably she receives these things because of who she is—and it is because of stories like this that we are able to live in a world where the word “neurodivergent” (and its connotations of respect and acknowledgment of the uniqueness of our brains) exists at all.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 1999. Originally published in 1847.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus. 1818 Edition. Oxford World’s Classics. 1995. Originally published in 1818.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/read/4/5/
Rodas, Julia Miela. “On The Spectrum”: Rereading contact and affect in Jane Eyre.” Issue 4.2. Nineteenth-Century Center Studies. https://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue42/rodas.html
Lepore, Jill. “The Strange and Twisted Life of ‘Frankenstein’”. The New Yorker. February 5, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein
Luke, Jillian. “What If the Play Were Called Ophelia? Gender and Genre in Hamlet.” The Cambridge Quarterly, Volume 49, Issue 1, March 2020. https://academic-oup-com.libproxy.plymouth.edu/camqtly/article/49/1/1/5807541
Sprockets and Springes 