There was something I noticed in the works of literature that we read that was not discussed in class. I noticed that most of these female characters go mad, or experience a moment of madness in some way, before becoming an individual. Or perhaps they just seem mad to us because that's how we perceive them to be as they break away from their possessive husbands. The female protagonists in The Awakening, A Doll's House, and The Yellow Wallpaper all carry out actions that can be seen as "mad."
In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna's deranged moments occur right after she and Mr. Pontellier have dinner. He up and leaves, complaining that their dinner is scorched, and Edna is left to eat dinner alone. Afterwards, she goes to her room and "She carried in her hands a handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her." These actions only escalate as she "takes off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it." Also, "In a sweeping passion she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the hearth. She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she wanted to hear." I feel like this is what Edna needed to do to start breaking away. Her ring is probably her only attachment to Mr. Pontellier and by smashing it, she's showing that she doesn't need him. By smashing a vase, she can hear the crash and may feel more powerful knowing that she's broken something since she's never done something like that before.
In A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, Nora's act of madness does not take place until the very end which sparks her to leave the house. Torvald finds out that she took out a loan for their vacation years ago and has been trying to pay it back ever since. Torvald is outraged and calls her, "a hypocrite, a liar, worse than that, a criminal." He claims that, "Now you have ruined my entire happiness, jeopardized my whole future." The odd thing, at least to me, that is happening here is that Nora stays relatively calm. Her husband is freaking out and calling her harsh names and she just accepts it. She comes to the conclusion that both Torvald and her father have treated her just like a doll which is why she must leave. She explains to Torvald, "If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer." Before leaving, she states that she doesn't want to see the children again, and that Torvald shouldn't write to her or try to help her as she doesn't want help from "strangers" as she slams the door upon exiting. Nora's slamming of the door punctuates her decision to leave and the beginning of a new life.
In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator quickly becomes mad since she is kept in a room with little activity due to her depression. She becomes obsessed over the wallpaper in her room. The narrator believes she's seeing a woman behind the wallpaper as well as bars on her window. She stares at the wallpaper and believes it has a certain smell to it. She begins to take the paper off and when her husband walks in and sees what she is doing, she explains, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" Clearly to her husband, she is crazy. But in a sense, the narrator did become and individual and get out of her situation mentally, rather than physically.
Since these female protagonists have gone mad, I can only see it fit to relate these texts to the popular show, American Horror Story: Asylum. This show takes place in the 60s in an asylum run by a Monsignor and nuns. Sister Jude, the head nun (played by Jessica Lange), dictates what happens to the patients should they need punishments. Except she slowly realizes that not everyone is what they seem. Sister Jude finds out that the Monsignor is allowing Dr. Arden, the only doctor in the ward, to experiment on patients, many of which suffer and turn into monsters. She's threatened to be stripped of her position which weighs heavily on her mind, plus her reoccurring past where she was involved in a hit and run and only later realizes that she never actually killed anyone. She tries to get Dr. Arden arrested for his actions but she fails as she slips into insanity. The Monsignor admits her to the asylum, hides her in the catacombs of the asylum, and fakes her death so that the public won't know what has become of her. Sadly, she sits in the asylum for at least 20 years rotting away in silence. Eventually Kit Walker, one of the sane patients that was wrongly admitted, gets her out and takes care of her. With the help of his children, they are able to bring her back to normal to the point where she can communicate and enjoy life. A few months pass and she knows she is going to die soon, and she dies content with life and content with who she ended up being. So just like Edna, Nora, and the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper, Jude had ups and downs throughout her adult life but she was able to make everything ok in the end and was content with who she was and just like Edna, died peacefully.
In conclusion, I don't blame any of these women for doing what they did. If I were put in any of their situations, I would probably go crazy too and look for some way out. But it's interesting to read literature like this because we can get a feel for what women in these time periods were going through and it's interesting to see that they would literally do anything to become and individual. Whether it meant giving up their marriage, their children, or their life, they were willing to do anything to finally become an individual.
