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Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958)

Welcome to this edition of our newsletter. Our focus on a cornerstone of world literature: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958). This module does not simply analyse the plot; it delves into the profound historical and literary context that makes this novel a revolutionary act. Things Fall Apart is more than a story; it is a powerful rebuttal, a reclamation of narrative power, and the foundational text of modern African literature in English.

Understanding this context is crucial for students at all levels. It transforms the novel from a tale about a single man, Okonkwo, into a monumental dialogue between Africa and the West, between tradition and change, and between a distorted past and a reclaimed truth.

This newsletter will serve as a comprehensive guide, breaking down the novel's significance, the author's mission, and the key concepts you need to grasp its full power. We will explain all essential literary and technical terms to ensure clarity and depth in your studies.

Why Things Fall Apart Matters

While not the first African novel, Things Fall Apart is undoubtedly the most famous and influential. Its significance lies not just in its sales (over 12 million copies) or translations (over 50 languages), but in its role as a foundational text.

• A Response to Colonial Narrative: Before Achebe, the dominant stories about Africa in the West were written by Europeans. These narratives often portrayed Africa as a "dark continent"—a place of savagery, mystery, and emptiness, waiting for European civilisation and religion. Achebe called this a "process of deliberate dehumanisation."
• Reclaiming History and Agency: Achebe’s novel asserts that African societies had complex histories, cultures, religions, and systems of justice long before the arrival of Europeans. It gives voice and humanity to a people who had been silenced and caricatured in Western literature.
• Creating a Literary Tradition: The novel provided a template for future African writers. It proved that the English language and the novel form could be successfully adapted to tell African stories from an African perspective, creating a new, powerful literary tradition.

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)

Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic, is universally regarded as the pioneer of modern African literature. His life and work were dedicated to telling the African story.

• Background: Born in Ogidi, Nigeria, he grew up at the crossroads of tradition and colonialism. His parents were early Christian converts, but he was deeply fascinated by the traditional Igbo culture of his extended family.
• The Writer's Mission: Achebe vehemently rejected the Western idea of 'art for art's sake'. For him, art had a social purpose. He famously stated that the writer is a teacher, and his goal was to educate both his African readers about their own rich heritage and to inform the Western reader that African history did not begin with colonization.
• His Famous Critique: His 1975 lecture, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," is a seminal post-colonial text. In it, he argues that even a classic like Conrad's novel dehumanizes Africans, reducing them to a mere backdrop for a European psychological drama. This critique directly informs his purpose in writing Things Fall Apart.

The Context: 

To appreciate Achebe’s achievement, one must understand what he was writing against. Scholars like Dorothy Hammond and Alta Jablow (The Africa That Never Was, 1970) identified persistent myths in Western writing about Africa.

Racial Myths:

• The ‘Brutal Savage’: Africans were depicted as primitive, cruel, irrational, and childlike.

• The ‘Noble Savage’: The opposite but equally dehumanizing stereotype. Africans were portrayed as simple, innocent, and living in a state of primitive harmony, yet still incapable of self-governance.

Spatial Myths:

• The ‘White Man’s Grave’: Africa as a place of unbearable heat, disease, darkness, and danger—an inhospitable jungle.

• The ‘White Man’s Paradise’: Africa as an exotic playground for hunting and adventure, filled with majestic but mindless fauna and flora.

These myths served to justify colonialism by presenting Africa as the antithesis of Europe—the "other" that needed to be controlled, civilized, and saved.

Achebe's Method: The Novel as a Tool for Reclamation

Achebe’s genius lies in how he used the very tools of the colonizer to dismantle their narrative.

• Using the English Language: Achebe wrote in English, the language of the colonizer, but he indigenized it. He infused his prose with Igbo proverbs, folktales, and rhythms of speech, forcing the English language to bear the weight of African experience. This technique creates a unique and authentic narrative voice.
• Using the Novel Form: The novel is a European genre, but Achebe adapted it. He structured the story in three parts, mirroring the traditional African literary form of the tripartite life cycle (birth, life, death) and filled it with the communal ethos of Igbo society rather than a purely individualistic Western focus.
• Presenting a Complex World: Achebe avoids idealizing pre-colonial Igbo society. He shows its strengths (its justice system, its value of achievement, its complex religious beliefs) and its flaws (its sexism, its harsh treatment of outcasts like the osu, its rigidity). This nuanced portrayal gives the society authenticity and humanity, making its eventual collapse all the more tragic.

Major Themes 

1. Tradition vs. Change: The central conflict of the novel. It explores the tension between the established customs of Umuofia and the disruptive force of British colonial rule, including Christianity and a new legal system.

2. The Complexity of Igbo Society: Achebe meticulously details a society with its own logic, values, and structures. Key concepts include:

• Chi: A personal god or spiritual fate. A man's success is attributed to a strong chi.

• Masculinity: Defined by strength, courage, and success, as embodied by Okonkwo. This rigid definition is both a source of his power and his tragic flaw.

• The Communal Ethos: The well-being of the clan is paramount. Individual actions are judged by their impact on the community.

3. The Clash of Cultures: The novel is a profound study of what happens when two vastly different worldviews collide. It shows the mutual misunderstandings and the tragic consequences of cultural imperialism.

4. Fate and Free Will: To what extent is Okonkwo’s downfall a result of his own choices (hamartia), and to what extent is it dictated by the unstoppable tide of historical change?

5. The Power of Storytelling: The novel itself is an act of storytelling that reclaims the narrative. Within the book, proverbs and folktales are shown as vital tools for preserving culture and wisdom.

Character Sketch: Okonkwo

• The Tragic Hero: Okonkwo is a classic tragic hero. He is a man of great stature and achievement in his society, but he is doomed by a fatal flaw.
• His Hamartia (Tragic Flaw): His overwhelming fear of failure and weakness, which he associates with his "feminine" and unsuccessful father, Unoka. This fear manifests as a brutal, hyper-masculine, and rigid adherence to tradition.
• His Motivation: A deep-seated drive to be the opposite of his father and to gain titles and respect in his community.
• His Significance: He represents both the strength of his culture and its inflexibility. His personal tragedy mirrors the larger tragedy of a society that cannot adapt to a new and overwhelming force.

Literary Terms and Techniques

Achebe’s craftsmanship is key to the novel's impact.

1. Proverb: A short, traditional saying that expresses a truth based on common sense or experience. Achebe uses proverbs extensively. E.g., "When a man says yes, his chi says yes also." This grounds the narrative in Igbo oral tradition and wisdom.
2. Foreshadowing: A warning or indication of a future event. The novel’s title, taken from W.B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," foreshadows the collapse of the traditional Igbo world.
3. Irony: A contrast between expectation and reality. There is deep situational irony in the fact that the missionaries gain their first converts among the outcasts (osu) whom the Igbo tradition itself had marginalized.
4. Symbolism: Using symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Okonkwo’s yams symbolize masculinity, wealth, and success. The locusts symbolize the arrival of the colonists—seemingly a blessing at first, but ultimately destructive.
5. Third-Person Omniscient Narrator: The story is told by a narrator who is not a character but has access to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. This allows Achebe to explain Igbo customs to an outside reader while maintaining an authoritative, insider's perspective.
6. Bildungsroman: A novel dealing with one's formative years or spiritual education. While primarily Okonkwo's story, the novel also follows his son Nwoye’s bildungsroman, as he grows and rejects his father's world for the new religion.

Famous Excerpt

One of the most famous passages is the novel's opening, which immediately establishes Okonkwo's character and the values of his society:

"Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat... He was a man of action, a man of war... That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this time Okonkwo’s fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan."

This excerpt highlights the importance of personal achievement, strength, and reputation in Umuofia, setting the stage for Okonkwo's tragic struggle to maintain this fame in a changing world.

Important Keywords

1. Postcolonial Literature: Literature from countries that were once colonized, often dealing with themes of identity, power, and resistance. Things Fall Apart is a foundational text of this field.
2. Colonialism: The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
3. Cultural Imperialism: The imposition of one culture on another, often through media and language.
4. The "Other": A key post-colonial concept where the colonized people are defined as the opposite of the colonizer, reinforcing power dynamics.
5. Hybridity: The blending of cultures and identities that occurs in post-colonial societies.
6. Indigenization: The adaptation of a foreign language or form to express a local culture (e.g., Achebe’s use of English).
7. Igbo Culture: The specific ethnic group in Nigeria that Achebe portrays.
8. Tragic Hero: A protagonist with a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall.
9. Chinua Achebe Essays: "The Novelist as Teacher," "An Image of Africa."
10. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: The key text Achebe was responding to.
11. Nigerian Literature: The broader literary tradition to which the novel belongs.

Conclusion

Things Fall Apart is a monumental achievement. It is a gripping story of a tragic hero, a meticulous anthropological record of a pre-colonial society, and a powerful political statement all at once. By understanding the context of Western misrepresentation against which Achebe was writing, we can fully appreciate his revolutionary act of reclaiming the narrative. He gave Africa its voice back, and in doing so, he changed the landscape of world literature forever. It remains an essential, powerful, and deeply human text for any student of literature, history, or the human condition.

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Psychoanalytical Criticism - Michel Foucault

In this Newsletter, we turn our attention to one of the most formidable and influential thinkers of the twentieth century: Michel Foucault (1926-1984). A French philosopher, historian, and social theorist, Foucault’s work relentlessly questioned the very foundations of our society—our institutions, our knowledge, and our identities.

Our specific focus will be on his seminal work, Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (History of Madness), first published in 1961. We will use this text as a keystone to explore the profound and often unsettling interconnections between literature and the discourses of insanity. We will examine how writing becomes a site for identity formation and dissolution, and how what we call ‘madness’ is not a timeless medical fact but a construct woven from social, medical, and historical threads. We will pay particular attention to the intricate dance between selfhood, language, and gender.

This research will necessitate a deep dive into Foucault’s unique terminology. Fear not; we shall unpack each concept with care, illuminating the path through this challenging but rewarding intellectual landscape.

The Foucauldian Foundation – Key Concepts

To understand Foucault's approach to madness, one must first be equipped with his philosophical set of tools. His methods give a radical new way of seeing the world.

• Archaeology (of Knowledge):

Ø  Explanation: This is Foucault’s method of historical analysis. Unlike a traditional historian who might seek a continuous narrative of progress, Foucault acts as an archaeologist of ideas. He digs down through layers of historical epochs to uncover the unspoken rules that governed what could be said, thought, and known in a particular period. He is less interested in what people thought and more interested in the underlying system that made certain thoughts possible and others unthinkable. He calls this underlying system the épistème.

• Épistème:

Ø  Explanation: A French term meaning a "historical a priori" or the fundamental stratum of knowledge peculiar to a specific time and place. It is the unconscious, foundational structure that defines the conditions of possibility for knowledge. It determines what is accepted as a valid scientific statement, a philosophical proposition, or even a rational thought. The épistème of the Renaissance (c. 15th-16th centuries) was different from that of the Classical Age (c. 17th-18th centuries), which was, in turn, ruptured by the modern épistème. Madness, according to Foucault, was experienced and constituted differently within each.

• Discourse:

Ø  Explanation: This is a crucial term. For Foucault, a discourse is not just a conversation or a speech. It is a socially constructed body of language and practice that systematically forms the objects of which it speaks. Discourse is a form of power. For example, the medical discourse on insanity doesn't just describe madness; it actively creates it as a category of illness, complete with symptoms, treatments, and experts (doctors) who have the authority to diagnose and manage it. Literature is itself a powerful discursive field, one that can reinforce or challenge dominant discourses.

• Power/Knowledge (Pouvoir/Savoir):

Ø  Explanation: Foucault famously argued that power and knowledge are inextricably linked. He condensed this into the term pouvoir/savoir. It is not that knowledge is power in a simple sense. Rather, the exercise of power creates new objects of knowledge (e.g., the "hysterical woman," the "sexual deviant"), while the accumulation of knowledge (e.g., clinical studies, case files) inevitably creates new mechanisms of power and control. There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, and no knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute power relations.

• Genealogy:

Ø  Explanation: A method Foucault adopted later, complementing archaeology. If archaeology examines the conditions of knowledge, genealogy examines its effects and its murky, contested, and often violent origins. It is a history of the present, seeking to show that what we accept as natural, inevitable, or objectively true (like our concepts of justice, madness, or sexuality) is actually the result of historical struggles, accidents, and the will to power. It "greyifies" what was seen as pure history.

A History of Madness -

Foucault’s History of Madness is a genealogical project par excellence. He traces a dramatic shift in how European society perceived and treated the mad.

• The Renaissance (c. 15th-16th Centuries): The Dialogue with Unreason

Ø  The Discourse: In this period, madness (folly) was not yet fully separated from reason. It held an ambiguous, even sacred place. The figure of the Fool could speak truths to power that no sane person would dare utter. Madness was seen as a part of the human condition, a tragic wisdom, a window into the divine or the apocalyptic. It featured prominently in art (e.g., Hieronymus Bosch) and literature (e.g., Shakespeare’s fools in King Lear or Twelfth Night), where it served as a critical commentary on society's follies.

• The Classical Age (c. 17th-18th Centuries): The Great Confinement

Ø  The Discourse: Foucault identifies a profound rupture in the mid-17th century. This was the age of Reason (Le Grand Siècle), and with it came a powerful need to silence what it defined as its opposite: Unreason (déraison). The founding of the Hôpital Général in Paris in 1656 was a seminal event. It was not a medical establishment but a quasi-judicial structure of authority. The mad, along with the poor, the vagrant, the unemployed, and the debauched, were interned—locked away not to be cured, but to be morally condemned and excluded from the social order. Madness was silenced. It was no longer a dialogue with reason but its absolute negation, its shameful secret.

• The Modern Age (c. 19th Century onwards): The Birth of the Asylum & the Medical Gaze

Ø  The Discourse: The figure of Philippe Pinel in France and William Tuke in England are traditionally hailed as humanitarians who "liberated the insane from their chains." Foucault offers a radical reinterpretation. He argues that this was not a liberation but a transformation of power. The chains became psychological. The asylum was born, and with it, the medicalisation of madness. The mad were now constituted as "mental patients" to be studied, classified, and normalised under the "medical gaze"—the authoritative eye of the doctor who objectifies the patient. The key mechanism of control was no longer physical restraint but constant moral judgment and the internalisation of guilt. The patient had to confess their madness and submit to the figure of the Doctor, who became a "father" and a "judge."

Literature, Writing, and the Madness of Selfhood

This historical framing allows us to see literature not merely as reflecting attitudes to madness but as a primary site of discursive struggle.

• Literature as a Counter-Discourse:

Ø  Where the medical and social discourses of the Classical and Modern ages sought to confine and silence unreason, literature became one of the few spaces where the voice of madness could still be heard. From the inside of characters like Ophelia (whose fragmented, floral songs signify a world beyond masculine, political rationality) to the narrators of works like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (a direct critique of the 19th-century "rest cure" for women), literature gives form to the experience of being labelled ‘mad’. It challenges the official story.

• Writing and Identity-Formation:

Ø  Foucault forces us to ask: is the self a stable, coherent entity we discover, or is it constructed through the discourses available to us? The act of writing, particularly confessional writing (diaries, autobiographies, certain forms of fiction), is a key technology of the self. We use language to tell ourselves into being. But what happens when the available discourses are limiting or pathological? A woman in the 19th century, for instance, might only have been able to articulate deep anguish or rebellion through the discourse of "hysteria" or "nervous exhaustion"—the very labels used to control her. Her identity is formed in the tense space between her experience and the limited, often damaging, language society gives her to express it.

• The Inter-relationship of Constructions:

Ø  Foucault shows that you cannot separate the social (poverty idleness as moral failings), the medical (the diagnosis of madness), and the historical (the rise of the work ethic and capitalism). The "Great Confinement" was an economic and social policy as much as a medical one. The "lazy" poor and the "unreasonable" mad were lumped together because both were seen as unproductive and disruptive to the new social order. Their construction was intertwined.

 Gender and Madness – A Foucauldian Perspective

The construction of madness is deeply gendered. Foucault’s work, particularly his History of Sexuality, provides a framework for understanding this.

• Hysteria: The Archetypal Female Malady:

Ø  Explanation: The very term hysteria (from the Greek hystera for womb) pathologises the female body. For centuries, a vast array of women's emotions, desires, and rebellions were diagnosed as symptoms of a "wandering womb." This is a prime example of pouvoir/savoir: the medical profession gained power and authority by creating this category of knowledge, while women were subjected to its controlling effects (from rest cures to forced institutionalisation).

• The Pathologisation of Female Identity:

Ø  Traits associated with femininity—passivity, emotionality, sensitivity—were often medicalised as signs of inherent weakness and a predisposition to nervous disorders. Conversely, traits that deviated from prescribed gender roles—ambition, sexual desire, intellectualism—were also seen as symptoms of madness. The discourse of madness became a powerful tool for policing gender boundaries. A woman’s struggle to form an identity outside of the narrow roles of wife and mother was often interpreted not as a political or social struggle, but as a psychological pathology to be treated.

• Writing as Resistance:

Ø  Many female authors used writing to fight back against this pathologisation. Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is a stark narrative of a woman driven mad by the very "cure" imposed upon her. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar explores the suffocating pressure of 1950s feminine ideals and the intimate connection between creative expression and mental fracture. These works do not just describe madness; they perform a counter-discourse, using the master’s tools (language and narrative) to dismantle the master’s house (the patriarchal medical establishment).

Conclusion:

Michel Foucault teaches us that our most cherished concepts—sanity, reason, the self—are not solid, timeless truths. They are historical artefacts, built upon the silent exclusion of their opposites. The mad were not always ‘sick’; they were first made ‘other’, then ‘patient’.

For the student of literature, this is transformative. A text is no longer a simple mirror but a battleground of discourses. When we read a character like Bertha Mason, the "madwoman in the attic" in Jane Eyre, we must ask: who is truly mad? The enslaved colonial subject screaming in rebellion, or the colonial order that locked her away? Foucault gives us the tools to hear the voices from the archive that history has tried to silence.

To study the interconnection of literature and madness is to understand that writing is always an act of identity-formation, always political, and always engaged in a struggle over who gets to define what is real, what is rational, and what it means to be human. 

Psychoanalytical Criticism - Mikhail Bakhtin

Psychoanalytical Criticism - Mikhail Bakhtin

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Psychoanalytical Criticism - Mikhail Bakhtin

The Dialogics of Madness: Language, Identity, and the Unravelling Self

Introduction:

The Newsletter Psychoanalytical Criticism - Mikhail Bakhtin aims to enlighten the profound and complex ideas of the Russian philosopher and literary theorist, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975), and to demonstrate their enduring relevance to contemporary literary and cultural studies. Our focus in this edition is a particularly resonant one: the complex relationship between literary discourse and the constructions of insanity.

Literature has long been a privileged space for exploring the fragile boundaries of the human mind. From Shakespeare’s tormented Prince of Denmark to the confined narrators of Charlotte Perkins Gilman or Sylvia Plath, the ‘mad’ character or voice challenges our stable notions of self, reason, and society. But how does language itself, the very stuff of literature, participate in constructing what we understand as madness? To examine this, we must turn to Bakhtin, whose revolutionary concepts provide not a diagnostic manual, but a linguistic and philosophical framework for understanding how identities—including those believed ‘insane’—are formed and contested in the dialogic clash of voices.

This newsletter will guide you through key Bakhtinian terms, explaining them in detail, before applying them to the complex interconnections between literature and the discourses of insanity. We will examine the relationship between writing and identity-formation, and investigate the interplay of social, medical, and historical forces that shape our understanding of the ‘mad’ self.

Key Concepts:

To fully grasp Bakhtin’s contribution to this topic, one must first become comfortable with his unique vocabulary. These are not merely jargon; they are precise tools for dissecting the nature of language and narrative.

• Dialogism (The Dialogic Principle)

Ø Explanation: This is the cornerstone of Bakhtin’s entire philosophy. He argued that language is inherently dialogic. This means that no word, utterance, or text exists in isolation. Every utterance is shaped by the words that have come before it and is anticipating a response. It is always addressed to someone and is part of an ongoing, unfinished conversation.

Ø  Example: When a novelist writes a sentence, they are in a dialogue with the entire history of the novel as a genre, with other writers, and with the anticipated responses of their readers. Similarly, an individual’s thought process is not a solitary monologue but an internal dialogue, filled with the voices of parents, teachers, cultural figures, and past selves.

Ø  Relevance to Madness: If a stable self is formed through a harmonious (if complex) dialogue with society, then madness, from a Bakhtinian perspective, might be seen as a breakdown in this dialogue—a situation where the internal voices become cacophonous, where the individual can no longer successfully answer or integrate the external social voices, or where their own voice is silenced or pathologised by powerful authoritative discourses (e.g., medical, patriarchal).

• Heteroglossia

Ø Explanation: Literally meaning “multiple-languagedness,” this term describes the central fact of social language. Any national language (e.g., English) is not a single, monolithic system but a living tapestry of many different ‘languages’ or social dialects. These are stratified according to profession (the language of lawyers, doctors, mechanics), generation (teenage slang), class, region, and ideology.

Ø  Example: A single novel can contain the heteroglot voices of a wealthy industrialist, a socialist revolutionary, a pious vicar, and a cynical journalist. The artistic genius of the novel, for Bakhtin, lies in its ability to orchestrate these diverse social languages without reducing them to a single, authorial viewpoint.

Ø  Relevance to Madness: The discourse of insanity itself is a powerful social language, often wielded by medical and institutional authorities. A Bakhtinian analysis would examine how this professional ‘language of psychiatry’ interacts with, labels, and attempts to overwrite the individual’s own social language and personal voice within a literary text.

• Authoritative vs. Internally Persuasive Discourse

Ø  Explanation: Bakhtin distinguishes between two ways in which we internalise external voices.

1. Authoritative Discourse: This is the language of authority, religion, parents, or political dogma that demands to be accepted and incorporated wholesale. It is static, finished, and hierarchical. We recite it; we do not genuinely dialogue with it. It operates as a monologic force—seeking to shut down dialogue.

2.  Internally Persuasive Discourse: This is language that we engage with, wrestle with, and make our own. It is open, dynamic, and enters into a dialogue with our other beliefs and experiences. It is the basis for authentic, organic identity formation.

Ø  Relevance to Madness: The process of diagnosis and institutionalisation can be seen as the imposition of an Authoritative Discourse (“You are hysterical,” “You suffer from neurasthenia”) upon a person’s Internally Persuasive Discourse. The literary depiction of madness often revolves around the conflict between these two forces, as the character’s own sense of self is threatened or dismantled by an authoritative medical or social label.

• Polyphony and the Carnivalesque

Ø  Explanation:

1.   Polyphony (“many-voicedness”): Bakhtin used this term specifically to describe Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels. He argued that Dostoevsky created a new type of novel where the author’s voice does not dominate those of the characters. Instead, the characters are fully realised, independent "consciousnesses" whose voices interact on a seemingly equal footing with the author's and with each other. The novel becomes a playground of competing ideologies and worldviews.

2.  Carnivalesque: Drawing on the medieval tradition of carnival, Bakhtin identified a literary mode that subverts and liberates. Carnival involves the temporary suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions. It is a world of grotesque realism—focusing on the body, its lower strata (defecation, copulation), and its materiality—which debunks high-minded ideals and official culture through humour, chaos, and parody.

Ø  Relevance to Madness: The carnivalesque can be a powerful literary strategy for representing madness. The ‘mad’ character often behaves in a carnivalesque manner: they break social taboos, speak the unspeakable, and invert logical hierarchies (the fool becomes the wise one). Their discourse can carnivalise the sober, rational, ‘sane’ world, exposing its hypocrisies. A polyphonic novel allows the ‘mad’ voice to exist with its own integrity and challenge the reader’s assumptions, rather than being neatly contained and explained away by a dominant authorial or narrative voice.

The Dialogic Self: Writing and Identity-Formation in the Shadow of Madness

Bakhtin’s view of the self is not as a fixed, essential core, but as a project that is perpetually under construction through dialogue. The self is a meeting point of myriad social voices. We are who we are through our constantly evolving relationship with the words of others.

This has profound implications for understanding the nexus of writing, identity, and madness.

Ø  Writing as Self-Authorship: The act of writing, particularly in first-person narratives like diaries, confessions, or autobiographies, is a potent tool for identity-formation. It is an attempt to organise the internal dialogue, to take the chaotic multitude of influencing voices and craft them into a coherent narrative of the self. It is a process of making the Internally Persuasive.

Ø  The Fractured Text of the ‘Mad’ Self: When the social dialogue breaks down—when the authoritative discourses of medicine or family become overwhelmingly oppressive and monologic—the project of self-construction can falter. The literary representation of this is often a fractured text: a stream-of-consciousness that jumps between voices, a diary that reveals paranoia and disintegration, or a narrative where the protagonist’s voice is constantly interrupted and re-defined by the diagnostic language of doctors (as seen in The Yellow Wallpaper). The writing does not create a coherent self but documents its unravelling, showcasing a failed dialogue.

The Inter-relationship of Social, Medical, and Historical Constructions

A Bakhtinian approach insists that ‘madness’ is not a transhistorical, biological given. It is a discursive construction—its meaning is created and fought over within language and culture, across different historical periods.

Ø  Social & Historical Constructions: The ‘village idiot’ of the 17th century, the ‘nervous hysteric’ of the Victorian era, and the ‘schizophrenic’ of the 20th century are all products of their specific time and place. Each era has its own heteroglot array of voices (religious, judicial, medical, familial) that compete to define what constitutes unreasonable behaviour. Literature is a key archive of these competing discourses.

Ø  Medical Discourse as Authority: The rise of psychiatry and psychoanalysis saw the medical profession’s language become a supremely authoritative discourse in defining insanity. Literary texts often stage a clash between this clinical, objectifying language and the subjective, experiential language of the sufferer. The question becomes: Whose voice gets to define the reality of the experience? The patient’s internally persuasive, but chaotic, account? Or the doctor’s authoritative, diagnostic label?

Ø  Gender and the Female Malady: This power dynamic is intensely gendered. Historically, medical and social discourses have often pathologised female rebellion, sexuality, and intellectual ambition as forms of madness (‘hysteria’ derives from the Greek for ‘womb’). A Bakhtinian reading of a text like Jane Eyre would not just analyse Bertha Mason as a ‘madwoman in the attic’; it would analyse the authoritative discourses (Mr. Rochester’s patriarchal voice, the medical voice of restraint) that label and confine her, silencing her own voice and rendering her a monstrous, grotesque figure. Her muffled roars and violent acts can be read as a desperate, non-linguistic, carnivalesque attempt to break back into the dialogue from which she has been excluded.

Conclusion:

For Bakhtin, the human being is always unfinalisable. There is no final word that can be said about a person; the dialogue of identity is always open to new responses and reinterpretations. This is a profoundly humane vision.

Applying this to the discourse of insanity in literature allows us to move beyond simplistic readings of ‘madness’ as a plot device or a tragic flaw. Instead, we can see it as:

1. A dialogic breakdown between the individual and the world.
2. A site of struggle between authoritative and internally persuasive discourses.
3. A carnivalesque force that can challenge and expose the limitations of ‘sane’ society.
4. A construct shaped by the heteroglossia of its specific historical and social moment.

Literature, in its highest polyphonic form, does not give us answers about madness. Instead, it preserves the complexity of the dialogue, allowing the myriad voices—the sufferer, the doctor, the family, society—to sound together in all their conflict and confusion. It refuses to let the authoritative discourse have the final word, keeping the conversation, and thus our understanding, provocatively and productively open.

Psychoanalytical Criticism - Michel Foucault