Madness and Women: A reading of three women's novels

Abstract

The state of madness is often associated with women. This paper will try to reveal the situations which drive a woman into mental imbalance. Three phases of female life are explored here- adolescence, youth and middle-age in three consecutive chapters. It has been demonstrated that when a young adolescent girl turns mad, her family background and her surrounding are mainly responsible for her neurotic condition. when a young intelligent girl confronts socially created gender roles and fails to explore the world which she needs to fuel her creativity, she loses her self-value and gradually loses self control and gets obsessed with suicidal thoughts. The third chapter demonstrates how racism along with inability to meet social expectations can become the oppressive force to turn a woman mad. The common theme of the three chapters is that the subjugation of the female sexuality by society works as a key factor behind the madness in women.