Gendering Pseudo-Science: Inchbald's Animal Magnetism

Abstract

Elizabeth Inchbald's Animal Magnetism, adapted from Le Médecin Malgré tout le monde by Antoine-Jean-Bourlin Dumaniant, engages with a highly controversial issue of the late eighteenth century, the claims made by Anton Mesmer, among others, for the science of “animal magnetism.” A commission appointed by the King of France determined that the effects claimed to be produced by animal magnetism were merely theatrical and imaginative, qualities that were feminized in an attempt to denigrate animal magnetism as pseudo-science. Inchbald's play follows this attack by satirizing animal magnetism through the absurd character of an old doctor who wishes to learn this pseudo-science in order to manipulate the affections of his young ward. Inchbald's satire, however, encompasses not only the fraudulent pseudo-science but also the official patriarchal power that the doctor also represents. Inchbald thus demonstrates the proximity between official structures of power and the supposedly fraudulent pseudo-science, and meta-theatrically stages the performance of animal magnetism in a way that exposes the impostures of both. Ultimately, the play valorizes the fluidity of performance demonstrated by the younger characters, and holds up for ridicule the doctor's untheatrical belief in his own “natural” power. The play thereby suggests that what is most dangerous about animal magnetism is in fact its reproduction of and not its divergence from, “legitimate” discourses of power.