Artaud's Illness

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud was born on September 4, 1896 in Marseilles, France. He was one of three survivors out of nine children born to a Levantine Greek mother and a wealthy ship fitter father. His parents were first cousins. Such a successive mortality rate may have been in part due to congenital problems that played a major role in his illnesses. Artaud spent time in the Army and was discharged due to “self- induced habit of sleepwalking. His most productive works come only after a sequence of journeys and long asylum incarcerations. His work probes issues of abandonment, confinement, and creativity, and produces crucial images of the resuscitation of life and language (Barber, 5). He was very distant from society, culture, and …show more content…
The body suffers malicious robberies (by society, family, and religion) which leave it fixed and futile, smothered to the point of terminal incoherence and inexpressivity. Artaud seemed to reorganize the world according to his own obsessed and fixated system (Barber, 6). Antonin Artaud personality disorder falls under the Cluster A- Disorders characterized by odd or eccentric behaviors. He seems to fall under all of Cluster A’s behaviors of paranoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder. His thoughts and behaviors and poor interpersonal relationship traits fall under the schizotypal personality disorder. He also falls under this by his cold and emotionally impoverished childhood trait. Artaud’s mistrust and suspiciousness of others out to get him and trying to hurt him are traits of his paranoid personality disorder. Artaud never sought out help for himself. It was his parents, the law, and the Army that put him in the asylums he was committed to. At one point, he was taken by police and put in a straitjacket and committed. He claimed more than half a dozen assaults by others trying to hurt him. Artaud’s long time psychiatrist, Dr. Ferdiere, was more than often physically and verbally abused by Artaud. He accused Dr. Ferdiere of being a pornographer and drug addict, and one of the “greatest criminals in the entire …show more content…
His behavior was considerably influenced by his hallucinations and delusions. Then he would go down to an 18 with his manic excitement and days without sleep and failure to maintain personal hygiene. In some of the asylums he was committed to he was mute or if he had changed his name, he did not answer to Antonin. He was incoherent in most of his time at the Rodez asylum. He would not eat for fear of being poisoned. As low as he was on the Global functioning scale, Artaud managed to be an actor, dancer, playwright, poet, artist and critic. He was respected for his art. He did on more than one occasion lash out impulsively at his audience which made them leave the venue. Artaud does not have every symptom of both functioning scales but he does seem to exhibit some of both going back in forth between the two scales for his