I probably made this pretty clear in class (and in my previous post), but I do not think Antoinette goes insane. She is incredibly sane considering the fact that she's been locked up for years. Her desires are simple: she wants to leave the cold, gray, oppressive house and be free. Yes, by the standards of her society she is "insane." However, are we really that stuck in the past that we can't let go of standards for mental illness that claim that "insanity" is inherited, and characterized by "crazy" actions that are not womanly? A man living during Antoinette's time period would not be expected to be sane while being locked in an attic. A man would not be considered crazy for getting drunk and yelling at his wife. There is definitely a sexual double-standard here, and it unfortunately causes Antoinette to be judged rather harshly--by her society.
However, this is the twenty-first century! Antoinette is from the nineteenth! Why does it make sense to dismiss her as being "insane" when we are supposed to have progressed away from that way of thinking? What really makes her insane? My definition of insanity is being completely incapable of rational thought and rational desires. Antoinette is surprisingly rational in her thoughts and desires, and is even very calm and peaceful when she is not being treated badly by Richard or Rochester. Her relationship with Grace Poole does not seem like a bad one: although Grace views Antoinette as "mad," Antoinette does not act "mad" when she is alone with Grace. She does not give Grace a hard time. All she does is ask to be set free, or ask for food or fire for warmth. Those of you who believe Antoinette is mad, please tell me: what is your definition of insanity, and how does Antoinette fit that definition at all? I think we all agree that she is mentally ill, but we do not classify mentally ill people as insane. Our understanding of mental illness should have progressed enough since the nineteenth century that we understand mental illness does not equal insanity. Even by Antoinette's society's standards, she is not as insane as people believe. People in her society do not understand why Richard angers her so much when he says he cannot legally help her. They do not understand her identity crisis, or the way she has been hurt by Rochester.
Can we really classify anybody as insane or mad? I would argue that we cannot. It is impossible to fully understand a person (unless we have a handy book about them that explains their mind to us perfectly), and unless we really understand how somebody's mind works and whether their thoughts are rational or not, we cannot call them insane. We know that insanity is not hereditary (even in Antoinette's case where her mental illness is a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is not inherited and it did not have to happen), and we know that there are various degrees and intensities of mental illness. We even claim now to understand the human mind better than we did back then, but do we really? If we are still dismissing people as insane simply because they are mentally ill for perfectly legitimate reasons (but still entirely rational), has our thinking about mental illness actually progressed that much?
Given my previous assertion that we cannot call anybody mad or insane, I do not think Rochester is mad. I understand what our author is saying about him having a "mad" quality, and that makes sense to me, but I do not think we can call him mad. Our author was definitely on Antoinette's side and not at all on Rochester's, which would explain her reluctance to sympathize with the latter. I do not hate Rochester. I don't like him in this book (I do overall, when I consider both this book and Jane Eyre, because I like the person he becomes), but I do understand his pride, his frustration at being the "second son," his fear of being the rejected suitor, and his "need" for power because society tells him to be the powerful man. Rochester is a victim of society's sexism just as much as Antoinette is. I do not think that Rochester is mad, just like I don't think that Antoinette is mad: if they were, how could we understand them at all (unless, of course, you want to argue that we are all mad)?
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