“We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes”: Perceptions of Madness in Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Mrs. Dalloway
Madness is a mystery, only truly and completely understood by those who have experienced a complete break from reason and sanity. Definitions, descriptions, and treatments of the insane vary according to historical period and culture. In primitive times, it was believed that if a person violated a taboo, it weakened the protective barrier woven by the Shaman and allowed evil spirits access to the body. The Shaman or Medicine Man would treat a person who behaved outside of the norm, as such behavior was believed to be caused by evil spirits. The Medicine Man could cure the patient, but the Shaman was needed to evict the evil spirits (possibly sending them to an enemy of the tribe). One who needed regular treatments found themselves trepanned (primitive brain surgery) or apprenticed to the Shaman (insanity was one of the signs of a Shaman).
The belief that madness was caused by demonic possession lasted until the end of the Eighteenth Century. It was not always the dominant theory, but it tended to be the popular one. “Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on (Bronte 424).” (Hippocrates, Plato, and Cicero had various theories about the cause of madness, but they did not agree with each other and none of them gained popular support.) In Moslem dominated cultures, however, this belief was inverted; madmen were considered ‘touched by Allah’ in order to convey some important truth. Muslims treated the insane much the same way Hindus treated cattle, as sacred beings who must be allowed to go their own way unmolested. This is of course an interesting counterbalance to the ‘touched by Satan’ theory that lead to the exorcism method of treatment favored in Europe.
There is an interesting overlap in beliefs that covers the end of the Fifteenth Century to the end of the Eighteenth Century: the birth of the ‘inherited mental defect’ belief. Anecdotal evidence accumulated and people who dealt with the insane noticed that insanity ran in some families. This heralded the building of insane asylums, wherein the mentally ill could be chained like the sub humans they were believed to be, by reason of possession or defect. As the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason changed the way people looked at the world, the ‘inherited mental defect’ theory held more weight. By the Twentieth Century, the mentally ill were upgraded from ‘defective’ to ‘fragile’ in the eyes of the community. This heralded the beginning of the popular ‘rest cure’ – cutting off stimulation because the poor darlings couldn’t handle it.
Ultimately, the label of madness was bestowed upon any person who did not behave within the parameters set by society for their class, culture, and gender. The behavioral expectations for the poor were less strict than the rich, as the poor were considered inferior. The expectations of males and females varied as well because in most cultures males had the power and thus were given more behavioral leeway. Each culture decided how to differentiate between eccentricity and delusion, emotional intensity and hysteria. The observable behavior could be placed on a continuum; there is no paranoid delusion that couldn’t be reasonable under other circumstances, nor is there emotional excess that doesn’t have its place.
If one reads the three works listed in the title, one will find examples all along the continuum, from the prosaic to the hallucinatory. One of the reasons we are so fascinated with the insane is that some part of us realizes that we are only a few steps away from the condition. There is also the allure of letting go, of losing one’s inhibitions in a big way. “When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me: (Bronte 151).” Jane Eyre had spent over a decade stifling her stronger emotions; it’s no surprise that the laugh of a woman with no restraints should be thrilling. Jane had lost control twice as a child and had paid dearly for those lapses. The first time, she had finally had enough of her cousin’s abuse and paid him back in kind; that was the result of a slow build up of rage. The second time was the result of sheer terror; she was afraid of being trapped alone with a ghost and had a panic attack; her concussion may have exacerbated the situation. The child has two opportunities before leaving her childhood home to vent her feelings of resentment. Throughout the rest of her narrative, Jane Eyre feels intensely, but has learned not to express it. According to the standards of English society, she behaves like a sane individual, although she must keep constant vigil over her wayward passions.
Bertha Mason Rochester, Bronte’s madwoman in the attic, is at the other end of the emotional continuum. If she feels something, she allows herself the full experience, and she acts upon the feelings with little or no regard for the consequences. Because of this she must be confined, so that she cannot harm others or commit adultery. Although she is definitely mad, as well as excessively passionate, she does seem to have some grasp of reason. Bertha only harms those with whom she has ‘issues’; the innocents she leaves alone.
Edward Rochester has no difficulty expressing his intense emotions, but his excesses are not judged so harshly. This is also the case with John Reed, Jane’s cousin. “He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in a day, but continually (Bronte 5)” and “He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing (Bronte 7).” Yet when Jane defends herself, she is punished for her passionate outburst; John is not. When Jane is grown, she nearly marries Edward Rochester; the wedding is canceled due to the fact that he has a wife. Rochester is upset that Jane might leave him. “’Jane! Will you hear reason?’ (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); ‘because, if you won’t, I’ll try violence.’ His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild licence. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him (Bronte 426).” No one even once considered locking these two gentlemen away, even though their outbursts were just as passionately violent.
In fact, the only man in the three texts whose behavior is called into question is Septimus Smith, the veteran in Woolf’s classic novel. The irony here is that Septimus, who has visual and auditory hallucinations, definite delusions, and post traumatic stress disorder [“Look the unseen bade him, the voice which now communicated with him who was the greatest of mankind, Septimus, lately taken from life to death, the Lord who had come to renew society, who lay like a coverlet, a snow blanket smitten only by the sun, for ever unwasted, suffering for ever, the scapegoat, the eternal sufferer, but he did not want it, he moaned, putting from him with a wave of his hand that eternal suffering, that eternal loneliness (Woolf 215-216).”], is accused of upsetting his wife and behaving in an ungentlemanly fashion. It is as if Septimus had a gaping abdominal wound and his physicians chided him, “You must stop this bleeding, man, think of the carpet, your wife will never remove the stain.” As a counterpoint Clarissa Dalloway, who also seems to suffer from post traumatic stress [“To see your own sister killed by a falling tree (all Justin Parry’s fault – all his carelessness) before your very eyes, a girl too on the verge of life, the most gifted of them, Clarissa always said, was enough to turn one bitter (Woolf 264)…”She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day (Woolf 200).”], found a socially acceptable way to mask her feelings of alienation and disconnection.
