The presentation of madness in the Victorian novel

Allan Beveridge,Edward Renvoize

doi:10.1192/pb.12.10.411

Abstract

The major novelists of the Victorian era enjoyed a large readership amongst the general public. They dealt with the pressing social issues of the day and their work both reflected and shaped society's attitudes to contemporary problems. The 19th century saw fundamental changes in society's response to the mentally ill with the creation of purpose-built asylums throughout the country. The Victorians were ambivalent in their reaction to the mentally disturbed. Whilst they sought to segregate the insane from the rest of the population, they were also terrified by the prospect of the wrongful confinement of sane people. The trial of Daniel McNaughton in 1843 for the assassination of Sir Robert Peel's Private Secretary, and the subsequent legislation, provoked general public debate about the nature of madness.

Highlights

The major novelists of the Victorian era enjoyed a large readership amongst the general public
BulwerLytton had his wife committed to a private asylum, she later refuted the charge of insanity in her memoirs
Charles Reade suc cessfully campaigned for the release of a wealthy man he believed wrongfully confined in an asylum

Summary

The presentation of madness in the Victorian novel

ALLAN BEVERIDGEC, onsultant Psychiatrist, West Fife District General Hospital, Dunfermline; and EDWARDRENVOIZED, epartment of Community Medicine, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds. In Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre (1847)we meet one of the most famous mad characters in 19th cen tury fiction: Mrs Rochester. Dr Wycherley uses medical terminology to mask his ignorance and to bamboozle his patients He d"IencclaurbeastionAlfroefd InsHaanridtyie" wtoithobuet esvueffnereinxgamifnrionmg himIn.terestingly, despite the novel's avowed social concerns, it portrays mad people in a very unsympath etic light. For all his moral indignation against wrongful confinement, Reade presents a deeply conservative picture of madness and his images of bestiality look back to 18th century descriptions. With Trollope's 1869novel He Knew He Was Right a mad character is for once centre stage and the description of insanity comes closest to the clinical reality of mental illness. The mentally afflicted Anne Catherick, the Woman in White, is sckheiltdclhiikley sdtartaew. nInaMndrs mGaadsnkeeslls's isMsaereyn Baasrtaonki(n1d84o8f) mental illness makes a brief appearance at the end of the novel to explain the transformation of the hpelaryoinmeinfroormrofilgehsteirntoGdeeomrguereGwisisfein. gM'sadTchhearNacettehresr World (1889) and in Ainsworth's Old St Paul's (1841)

Conclusion

The Freud Museum