Madness and Difference: Politicizing Insanity in Classical Literary Works

Abstract

When we speak of madness in literature—whether it springs from the works of Shakespeare, Hesse, Poe, or Kesey—we invariably probe a state of being that transcends the normal, the average, the expected and polite. Madness or insanity is, by definition, a severe and perhaps dangerous state of mind, leading the possessor of the madness to break rules, threaten the status quo, and provoke a general state of anxiety and unrest. Of course, at the same time, the madness extricates those afflicted from society’s fetters, liberating them to do what is right rather than what is normal