Review:
Out of Her Mind
Edited by Rebecca Shannonhouse
Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness, in many ways, addresses
a frequently considered question--why do creative women so often
fall pray to debilitating mental conditions? Is it because they
are somehow more likely to suffer from clinical mental illness (and
if so, why) or is it because, often lying outside societal norms
as they do, they continually have the term "madness" thrust upon
them? This collection of essays, spanning several centuries, echoes
with the voices of such women. Including both memoir and fictional
accounts, the book addresses a number of issues, from schizophrenia
and depression to the vague term "hysteria", containing pieces ranging
from as Elizabeth Ware Packard's expose on insane asylums to Charlotte
Perkin's Gilman's famous "The Yellow Wallpaper."
Editor Rebecca Shannonhouse writes in her introduction:
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, generations of other gifted, unconventional,
and tormented women have seen their lives eclipsed by mental illness.
They have suffered from depression, schizophrenia, manic depression
and other disorders. Their life's ambitions have been derailed
by illnesses that bring sadness, delusions, and fears...
Why is it then that women, in particular, seem especially susceptible
to such conditions? Literary history is littered with the bodies
of women who were, by diagnosis or action, deemed "mad" in some
way--Zelda Fitgerald, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf.
Other women, like Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay lived
their lives destructively, indicating some brand of mental instability.
Much has been written on the so-called "Madwoman" character prevalent
in literature, but very few works focus on the woman as creator.
There is always the distinction made between those truly, clinically
"mad" and those labeled so by others. Shannonhouse points to the
example of one woman labeled "insane" because she had "given herself
wholly to reading and writing".
In Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator is confined to
her room, suffering from some vague illnes which results in her
breakdown. In Signe Hammer's By Her Own Hand, a daughter exmaines
her response to her mother's suicide. In Autobiography of a Schizophrenic
Girl, "Renee" details a young girl's first experience of the distortions of schizophrenia.
Each essay is unique, offering both first person and indirect accounts
of "madness", making the book a valuiable resource for those interested
in psychology and women's writing.