A withdrawal further into this state would only result in death and, unlike Esther Greenwood, the
Narrator does not welcome this option. She has to fight for her resurfaced child and challenge the internalized conventions of male hegemony. Through realization of her power and acceptance of her own vices and past, the Narrator can finally emerge from her experience with madness.
5. Conclusion: Functions of Madness and Liberation
In my thesis I analyse three works by North American female writers, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
“The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell-Jar and finally Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, because they all deal to some extent with the connection between madness and the subordinate position of women in the patriarchal society. The aim was to demonstrate …show more content…
After her regression into insanity Esther can stop pretending and accommodating her behaviour according to the wishes of others. She has achieved independence from the opinion of others. Madness provided her with an excuse to behave according to her repressed desires.
Therefore, the illness again plays an important role in the process of the recovery of her power it enables her to explore her personality and expectations.
As she is entering the room with the doctors waiting to interview her before her release from the hospital, she projects happy images of a rebirth and a new start. However, even she recognizes that her recovery is only temporary and the imaginary bell jar is merely “suspended, a few feet above
[her] head,” ready to descend on her at any time (Plath 176). Not only is Esther’s future uncertain, when taking into consideration her aspirations from the beginning of the novel, she does not succeed in acquiring “her future vocation” as she wanted to (Perloff 521). Furthermore, after the process of her recovery, Esther assumes the role she had tried to avoid all the time –
Narrator does not welcome this option. She has to fight for her resurfaced child and challenge the internalized conventions of male hegemony. Through realization of her power and acceptance of her own vices and past, the Narrator can finally emerge from her experience with madness.
5. Conclusion: Functions of Madness and Liberation
In my thesis I analyse three works by North American female writers, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
“The Yellow Wall-Paper,” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell-Jar and finally Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, because they all deal to some extent with the connection between madness and the subordinate position of women in the patriarchal society. The aim was to demonstrate …show more content…
After her regression into insanity Esther can stop pretending and accommodating her behaviour according to the wishes of others. She has achieved independence from the opinion of others. Madness provided her with an excuse to behave according to her repressed desires.
Therefore, the illness again plays an important role in the process of the recovery of her power it enables her to explore her personality and expectations.
As she is entering the room with the doctors waiting to interview her before her release from the hospital, she projects happy images of a rebirth and a new start. However, even she recognizes that her recovery is only temporary and the imaginary bell jar is merely “suspended, a few feet above
[her] head,” ready to descend on her at any time (Plath 176). Not only is Esther’s future uncertain, when taking into consideration her aspirations from the beginning of the novel, she does not succeed in acquiring “her future vocation” as she wanted to (Perloff 521). Furthermore, after the process of her recovery, Esther assumes the role she had tried to avoid all the time –