Vogue Diagnoses: the Functions of Madness in Tewentieth
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VOGUE DIAGNOSES: THE FUNCTIONS OF MADNESS IN TEWENTIETH- CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE by TAYLOR DONNELLY A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2012 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Taylor Donnelly Title: Vogue Diagnosis: The Functions of Madness in Twentieth-Century American Literature This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English by: Elizabeth Wheeler Chair Mary Wood Member Enrique Lima Member Forest Pyle Member Elizabeth Reis Outside Member and Kimberly Espy Vice President for Research & Innovation/ Dean of the Graduate School Original signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School Degree awarded June 2012 ii © 2012 Taylor Donnelly iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Taylor Donnelly Doctor of Philosophy Department of English June 2012 Title: Vogue Diagnoses: The Functions of Madness in Twentieth-Century American Literature Fiction and drama have engaged with madness across the epistemes of the American twentieth century. Given the prominence of the subject of madness, both historically and literarily, we need a unified methodology for analysis and action. As a subfield of disability studies, “mad studies” deals specifically with representations of mental distress rather than physical otherness, examining how “madness” enables writers to convey certain meanings or produce certain stories. In minor characters, these meanings are infused into characters’ actantial function within the symbolic model of disability: madness works as a device for plot, psychological depth (of other characters), and thematic resonance. Onstage, these meanings transform as they inhabit the social/political/cultural model of disability rather than the medical or symbolic models. Realistic, expressionistic, and musical theatre across the twentieth century have all found ways to stage not only “madness,” but also the social responses and contexts that construct it, while simultaneously giving audiences formal opportunities to sympathize with the so-called mad characters. Mad protagonists follow particular plot patterns prompted by the temporal, existential, or hermeneutic mystery posed by madness. Male madness narratives often engage with the legitimizing etiology of war, freeing them from iv the temporal mystery – “what caused this to happen?” – and allowing them to address the existential mystery – “what is this like?” – through formal experimentation. Female madness narratives, grappling with a medical discourse that emphasizes endogenous causality for women, retort to such discourse by emphasizing a broader temporal plot. Offering more possible answers to “what caused this to happen” than doctors do, female madness narratives show that subjective experience exists within a social, as well as a biological, framework. Yet, popular as fictions remain, in recent years, the genre of memoir has eclipsed them. Madness memoir engages in a real-world context with the central linguistic challenge of madness. Memoirists’ use of metaphor to convey recalcitrant experiences of distress not only engages with existential and hermeneutic mystery (what is it like, and what does it mean), but suggests a way forward for intersubjective understanding that sympathizes without co-opting, allowing for meaningful communication and political action across differences. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Taylor Donnelly GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene New York University, New York City Fordham University, New York City DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, English, 2012, University of Oregon Master of Arts, English and American Literature, 2007, New York University Bachelor of Arts, English and Theatre, 2005, Fordham University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Twentieth Century Literature American Literature Disability Studies Literature and Medicine Medical and Health Humanities PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Instructor of Record, English Department, University of Oregon, 2008-2012 Teaching Assistant, English Department, University of Oregon, 2007-2008 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Ernst Doctoral Fellowship, 2011-12 Oregon Humanities Center Research Support Fellowship, 2011-12 Disability Services Travel Grant, 2011 Center for the Study of Women and Society Travel Grant, 2011 Nominee for Sarah Harkness Kirby Award, 2007, 2008 vi Summa cum Laude, Fordham University, 2005 Fordham University Presidential Scholarship, 2001-2005 PUBLICATIONS: Donnelly, Taylor. “Just One Step Away: The Mad Other on the Contemporary Stage.” Otherness:Essays and Studies. 2.2 (2011). vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Professors Elizabeth Wheeler and Mary Wood for their assistance in the development of these ideas and their advocacy of my invention (or at least christening) of a field. I also thank Professors Enrique Lima, Elizabeth Reis, and Forest Pyle for their productive and profitable and very generous discussions. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Oregon Humanities Center. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. MAD STUDIES AND THE MINOR CHARACTER ............................................ 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Mad Studies .......................................................................................................... 6 Twentieth-Century Psychiatric Epistemes: A Brief History ................................. 17 Models of Madness ............................................................................................... 24 Functions of the Mad Minor Character ................................................................ 31 Mad Plot Helpers ................................................................................................. 35 Mad Psychological Helpers ................................................................................. 42 Mad Thematic Helpers ......................................................................................... 47 Forward From Here .............................................................................................. 61 II. MAD SCENES: SYMPATHY AND THE SOCIAL MODEL ONSTAGE .......... 66 Introduction: “Just One Step Away” ..................................................................... 66 But First: A Brief Tour of Theatrical Functions of Madness ................................ 77 Realistic Theatre: Seeing the Unseeable in Mary Chase’s Harvey ....................... 82 Expressionistic Theatre: Seeing and Speaking the Mad Self in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro ....................................................................... 91 Musical Theatre: Seeing and Hearing in Different Time in Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s next to normal ............................................................................. 105 Conclusion: “Each of You Wonders” ................................................................... 117 III. MEN’S MADNESS NARRATIVES: EXTERNAL WARS AND TRAUMAS IN COMPANY K, CATCH-22, CEREMONY, AND IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS ...................................................................... 120 Introduction: Gendered Madness, Trauma, and the Narrative Functions of a Mad Protagonist .......................................................................................... 120 ix Chapter Page Vogue Diagnoses for War Syndromes ................................................................. 135 The Great War: Ruptured and Excessive Speech in William March’s Company K ........................................................................................................... 144 World War II: Ruptured and Excessive Memory in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony ................................................. 159 Vietnam: Ruptured and Excessive Narration in Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods ................................................................................................. 186 Conclusion: Recent Wars and Reinventions ......................................................... 200 IV. WOMEN’S MADNESS NARRATIVES: INTERNAL WARS AND SOCIAL OPPRESSIONS IN “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER,” TENDER IS THE NIGHT, SAVE ME THE WALTZ, THE BELL JAR, AND 72 HOUR HOLD .......................... 205 Introduction: Internality and Temporality, Models and Martyrs .......................... 205 Hysteria’s Legacy: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” .......... 218 Schizophrenia in Two Voices: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz .................................................. 227 Depression’s Third Interval: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar ..................................... 251 Mania Witnessed and Experienced in Bebe Moore Campbell’s 72 Hour Hold ........................................................................................................ 265 Conclusion: Listening Better, Listening Broader ................................................. 279 V. METAPHOR AND UNDERSTANDING IN RECENT MADNESS MEMOIRS .............................................................................................. 282 Introduction: Speeches and Symptoms ................................................................ 282 Case Studies of the Mind in the World: The Metaphors of Manic-Depressive Illness in Kate