Insane, she is insane: a foucaultian reflection about monster-women
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36517/arf.v17i1.95839Keywords:
Madness. Reason. Passion. Imagination. Sympathy. Animality.Abstract
In this essay, my intention is to indicate, based on Michel Foucault’s reflections, the power of what has historically been attributed to a state of madness, especially in the case of women. Therefore, this text is divided into two main parts. In the first part, I briefly revisit Foucault’s understanding of the historical shifts in the characterization of madness to indicate the possible relationship between the demonization of women in the Middle Ages and the hysterization of their bodies in Modernity. In the second part, I articulate Foucault’s analyses of madness, sexuality, and criticism to think about the monster-women in the film Possession, directed and written by Andrzej Zulawski, and in the work The Passion According to G.H., written by Clarice Lispector. Based on these counter-realist plots, I attempt to show that the madness of the characters in the two scenarios, respectively Anna and G.H., has a reason for being, a reason that does not refer to the analytical and substantial rationality of the sane man.
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