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Madwomen and Mad Women:

An Analysis of the Use of Female Insanity and Anger in Narrative Fiction,

From Vilification to Validation

University of Louisville

within society and their implications for women. In this thesis, I aim to demonstrate these

them. Broken into two sections, I examine the development of the madwoman trope and its

history, as women have long been situated as both threatening and subordinate to men, and then

how the implementation of the trope has changed in conjunction with the changing roles of

women and definitions of femininity.

The Irrational Woman…………………………………………………………... 10

Hysteria, Lunacy, Fury………………………………………………………….. 12

The Madwoman in the Middle Ages…………………………………………….. 15

Wave Madwoman: Midsommar……………………………………………………. 55

girlfriends are characterized as crazy; female sexual assault victims are characterized as lying,

experiences that has led to public outcry, to four waves of feminism and movements such as

#YesAllWomen, Free the Nipple, #MeToo, the Women’s March, and Time’s Up.

At the heart of this issue is an ugly history of villainizing women—a narrative showing

women as crazed, passionate, or vengeful, as irrational in their emotions, weak in their

physiology, and threatening in their existence—leading to the characterization of the

“madwoman.” Beginning with ancient etiological myths and continuing throughout literature and

fiction, this trope is used time and again to villainize and invalidate women, illustrating the place

and role of women in society and culture during specific time periods. However, as the roles and

definitions of women and femininity have changed, so has the trope of the madwoman and its

utilization, moving from a place of vilification to what I argue is a place of validation. Therefore,

primarily be examining the experiences of white middle-class women in order to begin this

associations with irrationality and dangerousness to an even greater extent and were even further

attention, I will primarily be looking at this demographic of white middle-class women who have

experienced this marginalization to the least extent, but with this phenomenon still being

significant enough to torment them to madness.

In Section I, I will examine the development of women as a threat, as dangerous, and

how women came to be associated with irrationality and madness. I will then examine this

association as demonstrated in Shakespeare’s Ophelia, who provides an archetype of the

madwoman in both medicine and literature, while officially establishing the madwoman as a

literary trope. In Section II, I will examine how the trope of the madwoman and its utilization

changes throughout the four waves of feminism. I will analyze Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë,

whom I argue first changes the trope, displaying the feminist undertones that later led to the first

Aronofsky as a work of third-wave feminism to show how the madwoman trope is used to bring

Michel Foucault argues that socially constructed madness is separate from mental illness, with

madness having served different purposes during different time periods (Little 55). For the

purposes of this paper, I will therefore be referring to this socially and culturally constructed

“madness” rather than medically diagnosed mental illnesses. I will primarily be examining the

use of constructed madness as a tool in regard to what it reveals about a society at a specific

moment in time, specifically through its role in literature. In her book Madness in Literature

Lilian Feder looks at the importance of madness as a motif in literature, writing of “the nature of

madness itself as an incorporation of the very values and prohibitions it challenges” (Feder 4).

While madness may be a critique on society or, rather, a cautionary tale, madness takes into

account all of the norms and values of a society and then rejects them; as such, madness can also

constructed, it has been constructed as female, to the point of where the default of madness is

writing:

differentiated between an English malady, associated with the intellectual and economic

pressures of highly civilized men, and a female malady, associated with the sexuality and

essential nature of women. (Showalter 7)

When men and women both had similar “symptoms” of madness or mental illness, the male form

of this was distinctly “other” than the female manifestations, having largely to do with female

nature. Furthermore, Psychiatrist Paul Chodoff examines hysteria as a “culturally induced

exaggeration of femininity” arguing that hysteria is a caricature of what it means to be female

(Chodoff 549). Chodoff makes the point that while he is not proclaiming femininity as either a

biological nature or, as Showalter claimed, a socially constructed stereotype, hysteria is an

exaggerated caricature of femininity in either case.

madness and irrationality, but with anger and evil—how women came to be viewed as dangerous

Fall could bring them,” (Foucault 81). In his studies of madness from the Middle Ages to the

heavily religious concept to one of social failure. More recently, the Western world has moved

into a society of secularism; however, the influence of religion on society and culture, and

therefore madness, prior to The Enlightenment was significant, leaving its marks far onto future

understandings of madness.

In the study “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health,” Tasca and others

make the following claim:

We tend to historically identify the two dominant approaches towards mental disorders,

the “magic-demonological” and “scientific” views in relation to women: not only is a

woman vulnerable to mental disorders, she is weak and easily influenced (by the

“supernatural” or by organic degeneration), and she is somehow “guilty” (of sinning or

civilizations, as women and femininity posed a threat to rationality, morality, and general life on

womb.” Supported by ancient philosophers and physicians such as Plato, Aristotle, and

being:

The womb is an animal which longs to generate children. When it remains barren too

long after puberty it is distressed and sorely disturbed and straying about in the body and

cutting off the passages of the breath, it impedes respiration and brings the sufferer into

the extremest anguish, and provokes all manner of diseases besides. [The disturbance

continues until the womb is appeased by passion and love.] Such is the nature of women

and all that is female. (Plato qtd. in Chodoff 546).

Hippocrates formed much of his medical ideology and humoral theory from his own religion and

myths. His theories here seemingly draw back to the story of Pandora who was cursed to desire

and to wander—to never be satisfied. This is reflected in Hippocrates’ medicine, and later

Chodoff’s definition of hysteria as a “culturally induced exaggeration of femininity” pairs

women being diagnosed with hysteria due to being either too feminine or not feminine enough.

With respect to the madwomen studied in this paper, which will be explored in later sections,

many are exemplary of this contradiction, villainized due to both being too feminine and not

feminine enough.

The proximity of women with madness is further evident in the etymologies of lunacy

and fury. From the Latin word for moon Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon, comes the term

lunacy, which is characterized by being driven mad for intermittent periods, triggered by the

moon’s cycle. Because of the mystery surrounding a woman’s monthly menstrual cycle, the

moon has often been associated with women, fertility, and childbirth, while at the same time

being a symbol of witches, monsters, and sexuality—going back to Lilith as the night demon.

The Greco-Roman deities associated with the moon were all female—Selene, Luna, Juno,

The term fury comes from Latin furia meaning “violent passion, rage, madness” and

circumstance, with the surplus of emotion being viewed as irrational. This shows the female

their actions, or the particular circumstance, as rightfully deserving of such a strong reaction.

Women have long been invalidated on the basis of being too emotional, irrational or weak, of

being unable to control emotions and sensitivities—all playing further into the association of

women with irrationality. A woman with fury is both too feminine in her weakness and inability

to control her emotions and not feminine enough in her violence and anger.

This concept of irrational female fury can be seen time and again throughout early

literature. From the traditional perspective, Lilith is not justified in her reaction to Adam insisting

his superiority and her subservience; Lilith, in her anger and exasperation, exclaims the most

holy of God’s names, and flee the garden. Furthermore, when God sends angels after Lilith,

telling Adam that if Lilith refuses to come back, she will have to let one hundred of her demon

decides to marry another woman; Medea, so overcome with fury, kills her own children as well

Following these foundations of the madwoman in early literature, one can move on into

later images of the madwoman, where madness as a culturally and socially constructed

phenomenon becomes definitively female. While madness throughout most of ancient history is

mainly seen as an affliction from the gods, inflicted upon either male or female, there comes a

shift during the Middle Ages in what Carol Thomas Neely dubs “the regendering of madness,”

occurring due to the infamous witch trials (Neely 6). These witch trials also mark the shift from a

demonological madness to a secular madness. According to Foucault, prior to the Renaissance

and the Age of Enlightenment, madness is largely seen as a religious concept, with the

perpetrator being plagued by demons or evil spirits; however, in the Middle Ages these views of

the demonic or possessed soon became accusations of witchcraft, with Christians hunting down

force of fury and concupiscence naturally, that by no means is it possible for them to temper or

as women.

number of the women accused of witchcraft were suffering from mental illness and should be

treated as patients instead. One of these physicians was Edward Jorden who, in his treatise A

briefe discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (1603), separates bewitchment

from “the distraction caused by the uterine disease, suffocation of the mother, or the wandering

womb,” drawing on the newly resurging ancient Greek ideas of hysteria (Neely 48). Neely

outlines this separation, distinguishing the “natural” secular human madness from the

“supernatural” divine or demonic. She goes on to describe how these witchcraft skeptics, such as

Jorden and Scot, were effectively “medicalizing witches’ behavior and producing categories of

menarcheal and menopausal melancholy…” (Neely 49). Because the majority of accused witches

had been women, and these women were then instead classified as mentally ill, there became a

researchers point to Shakespeare’s utilization of both the natural and the supernatural forms of

characters. Both forms of madness can be seen in Macbeth, with Lady Macbeth representative of

each in her witchiness (supernatural) and her hysteria (natural). She tempts her husband to both

murder and madness, much like Eve and Pandora, and she constantly challenges traditional

femininity and patriarchal authority, much like Lilith. Lady Macbeth can be seen as the

incarnation of both the dangerous and the irrational woman, the embodiment of hysteria, lunacy,

and fury, and as the contradictory feminine in being both too feminine and not feminine enough.

However, it is Shakespeare’s Ophelia that is the character who officially established the

madwoman as a trope in literature. Since her debut, Ophelia has had multitudes of

representations throughout centuries of artwork, literature, theatre, and film. Largely

romanticized, but more recently claimed as a feminist phenomenon, Ophelia is representative of

Virtually all of these conventions can be traced to the figure of Shakespeare’s Ophelia.

However, what makes the character of Ophelia as the madwoman so unique, so fascinating as to

values of their respective time periods, is that she seemingly does everything right by patriarchal

standards, and yet she still falls to madness and tragedy. She is the ideal woman—beautiful,

gentle, submissive, controlled, fulfilling her feminine duties in life with no thought of rebellion,

no hint of reaching for traditionally masculine traits—and Shakespeare has her fall to madness

for seemingly nothing but her own femininity.

Demonstrative of The Female Malady, “Ophelia’s symbolic meanings, moreover, are

specifically feminine. Whereas for Hamlet madness is metaphysical, linked with culture, for

Ophelia it is a product of the female body and female nature, perhaps that nature’s purest form”

(2). Showalter posits the idea that Ophelia’s madness is the female nature’s purest form, isolated

and exaggerated, with her madness epitomizing Chodoff’s definition of hysteria as “culturally

represents ‘women’ as madness, and that uses images of the female body…to stand for

sensuality. Ophelia’s flowers, too, came from the Renaissance iconography of female

drowning has associations with the feminine and the irrational, since water is the organic

symbol of a woman’s fluidity: blood, milk, tears. (Showalter 11).

When Ophelia does fall to madness, this is characterized by the sexualization of her feminine

nature and body, emphasizing the differences between her madness, and Hamlet’s feigned and

masculine madness. Some speculate that perhaps her downfall was engaging in premarital sex

with Hamlet, disobeying her father and brother, with Hamlet then rejecting her and virtually

calling her a whore with the line, “Get thee to a nunnery” (Shakespeare 3.1. 131), which could

also be supported by Ophelia’s sexual lyrics and giving away of her flowers; however, many

attribute these actions simply to her display of sexualized feminine madness. It is interesting to

note that Hamlet follows the above statement with, “wise men know well enough what monsters

of demureness, living under the control of the men in her lives, her father Polonius, her brother

reveal things that she always saw clearly) and to call them out, with each flower representative of

deflowers herself.

In Ophelia’s madness, she achieves clarity where most of the characters are in a web of

deceit; furthermore, while seemingly nonsensical, in losing control of herself—taking the

figurative lack of control in her life and manifesting a physical and verbal lack of control—she

also rips the control away from the men in her life, gaining some agency. However, her final act

is ambiguous, with her either committing suicide or accidentally drowning. If she commits

suicide, this would be her only action that she does for herself throughout the play, meaning that

in her madness, the one act that she could control was the act of her death. If she drowns

accidentally, this points to the idea that a woman cannot have any control in a patriarchal world

where control is a male-gendered concept; the most she can achieve is no one having any control

century, women outnumbered men in insane asylums, which soon became vastly overcrowded

what was sane and what was insane. This, combined with the belief that a woman’s biological

makeup caused madness, in addition to the lack of women’s rights, led to the Victorian

predominance of white middle-class women being diagnosed with hysteria. “The whiteness of

hysteria…signaled the specifically reproductive and sexual failing of white women” (Shreve).

Victorian white middle-class and upper-class women were expected to fit into a specific and

rigid role of domesticity, submissiveness, and virtue. While lower-class women and women of

color were typically viewed negatively, often demonized and sexualized, they were held to

different standards, outside these norms of society, and were rarely diagnosed with hysteria,

“Nonwhite women…because they were thought to be more fertile and more physically robust,

were thus marked as ‘irreconcilably different’ from their white counterparts” (Shreve).

Jane voices similar sentiments relating Bertha’s race to her monstrousness, describing the image

This also juxtaposes and recalls the scene in the beginning of the novel when Jane catches her

I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the

depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality:

and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the

gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real

spirit…(10).

This childhood scene is notable because Jane’s experience with the looking glass causes her to

have to confront herself and her own reflection; she declares that the looking glass causes

everything to look darker, reflecting herself as monstrous in her childhood madness. This

memory then resurfaces with Bertha’s appearance in Jane’s mirror, wearing Jane’s own veil, as

Jane is forced to confront her inner, “darker” self. Following each of these experiences, Jane is

confront this “dark” self in Bertha Mason’s reflection and her own duality—whether she should

Thornfield is in ruins and Jane attempts to reach Rochester, but she is held back by a child in her

throughout the story seem to be symbolic and almost premonition-like, this dream is fulfilled in

Bertha’s death and the destruction of Thornfield. However, this also has symbolic meaning in

Gilbert and Gubar’s notion of Bertha as both “the angry aspect of the orphan child [and] the

ferocious secret self” (Gilbert and Gubar 360). Therefore, when Bertha falls to her death in

reality, in the dream, so do both Jane and the orphan child she had been holding, indicative of the

two aspects of Jane that Bertha represents, both of which kept her from being with Rochester.

This dream child, representing Jane’s lingering feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, and lack of

belonging, was further dispelled in reality with Jane gaining an inheritance and therefore her

independence and equality in regard to Rochester. Free of all these burdens, Jane can then

reunite with Rochester at Ferndean, isolated from the rest of the world. However, it is interesting

move that had significant feminist undertones and impacts. Furthermore, in contrast to the

introducing the idea that women could be defined as mad even in their reasonable and justifiable

constructed madness in Bertha’s apparent violent mental illness.

Wave Madwoman: “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The first wave of feminism was defined by the push for women’s political and property

rights. Previously, women lacked voting rights and equal citizenship. This was especially

relevant in the context of madness as women were often forcibly treated or institutionalized by

their husbands or by male doctors, or confined within their own homes, and had little to no say in

the matter as they had no rights of their own. It was within this context that Charlotte Perkins

Gilman wrote and published “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892, as one of the earliest and most

influential pieces of feminist writing, centering the entirety of a work on the “madwoman” rather

escapes her attic prison to cause fires and havoc, and is then put back before she, too, is

whose descent to madness isn’t fully realized until the end of the story (Crowder). Gilman’s

physicians to reconsider their treatments. Through this story, in giving a voice to the madwoman,

Gilman was ultimately able to give a voice to women who had long been oppressed and suffered

significantly, prior to the first wave of feminism.

Gilman’s unnamed narrator tells the story of how she moves to a new house at the

instruction of her physician husband, due to her illness following the birth of their child. He

recommends rest and fresh air for her, not truly believing her to be sick, and forbids her from

working or writing; the narrator, does not object to the treatment, although she disagrees with his

diagnosis writing, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and

relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a

slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?” (Gilman 2-3). This points to the lack of women’s

unable to legally able to oppose her husband in any way. Prior to the first wave of feminism, this

egalitarian marriage, with John in a complete position of control over his wife and further in

The narrator is soon put in the “nursery” at the top of the house, indicative of her role as a

child bearer and perhaps figuratively infantilizing her, as she has been robbed of her autonomy

by her husband. The room has barred windows, rings in the walls, a bed fastened to the floor, and

gouges on the floor along with a hideous yellow wallpaper that she quickly hates. This

description alone connotes incarceration with the barred windows, hearkening back to Bertha

Mason in the attic as well as the image of an insane asylum. Furthermore, the yellow wallpaper

may represent domesticity in its use for beautifying a home but in this case, presents a more

nefarious image, described as revolting, odorous, and “strangely faded by the slow-turning sun-

light” (8). This further presents the role of a woman in this era; she is meant to be beautiful and

ornamental, but this expectation rots her from the inside-out.

occasionally a “strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that

The narrator yearns for any sort of outlet, anything that makes her feel human, and can only find

She writes of how she cries constantly and begs her husband to let her leave, but that he

denies her at every turn insisting that it is for her own good. However, the more her husband

denies and disregards her, and the more she feels trapped, the clearer the figures behind the

wallpaper seem to become, and the narrator becomes convinced that pattern on the wallpaper is

actually bars, while the figure behind it is a woman whom she must free. It is here that a

correlation begins to form between the narrator and the woman in the wallpaper as each are

confined and seemingly trapped behind bars, with the narrator becoming more and more trapped

within her marriage and within male-defined femininity.

The narrator soon comes to the conclusion that there may be multiple women trapped

behind the bars, with the one woman creeping around and shaking the bars and trying to get free.

round and round—round and round and round—it makes me dizzy!” (41). The repetition implies

The narrator soon has the idea that the woman in the wallpaper gets out in the daytime,

writing, “I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John

would suspect something at once” (45). This is the first instance in the story of the narrator

referring to herself as creeping, further likening herself to the woman in the wallpaper, while also

corroborating the idea that she had been the one going in circles around the room. Furthermore,

the narrator writes that she tries to see the woman out of all the windows in her room, turning as

fast as she can, but she can only see the woman out of one window, seeming to point to the idea

that she is seeing her own reflection in the window, going in circles trying to see the woman,

who is, in fact, herself.

At the end of the story, the narrator’s mental state has drastically deteriorated; however,

she seems almost happier in her madness. On her last day at the house, she is determined to rip

frustration and anger, she bites off a piece of the bed at the corner, gnawing the bed as the

many of the creeping women and thinking, “I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I

to be fastened by her own rope, and that she will have to go back behind the pattern when it

becomes nighttime. She creeps along the floor, with her shoulder fitting in the smooch along the

wall, declaring to her husband when he enters the room, “‘I’ve got out at last…in spite of you

and Jane? And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” (55). Her husband

promptly faints, feminizing himself and letting go of the masculine control he had wielded over

her throughout the story, while she continues to creep around the room.

The enigmatic conclusion of the story suggests a number of interpretations. If the room

with its wallpaper is representative of the domestic cage of femininity, and all of the women

have been similarly locked up with the narrator, they are then free once they have rejected the

norms of society in their madness and are out of society’s reach. Furthermore, when the narrator

self and at the end gives into her dark side, rejecting her role and societal norms, becoming

the villain by the end of the story, which perhaps she is, the audience can’t help but feel

the audience can’t help but feel disdain for his actions, his pride, and his continued dismissal of

his wife. This sets up an interesting dynamic because, were it written by a man or in the

husband’s perspective, this would no doubt be the story, very straightforward as the husband

tries his best to help his wife and his wife goes crazy and feral. However, because Gilman writes

from the woman’s perspective, the audience is given insight into her descent to madness, which

is clearly perpetuated and exacerbated by her controlling husband. This then begs the question of

how many other stories are similar to this—how many stories have a female villain and a male

hero/victim due to their male writer or the male lens? Are all these women actually villains, and

have they been created as such by men? Gilman’s narrator therefore reinvents the madwoman

trope, turning it on its head by giving us the story from her perspective instead. Furthermore, she

about significant changes, creating a high labor demand for both unmarried and married women,

military and civilian jobs (McEuen). Married women, who were traditionally kept out of the

workforce, were then expected to also fulfill their domestic duties following the workday.

However, this was largely viewed as unnatural, and following the war, men returned to reclaim

their jobs, pushing many women back into a domestic sphere that no longer contented them.

The 1950s held an even stronger call for women to fit into their traditional gender roles in

the midst of the Cold War, where there was a governmental campaign to show that the family

was what made Americans superior to the communists, “In contrast to the ‘evils’ of

Communism, an image was promoted of American women, with their feminine hairdos and

delicate dresses, tending to the hearth and home as they enjoyed the fruits of capitalism,

democracy, and freedom.” (“Mrs. America”). As family, and therefore marriage, was the key to

space, and try as I would, I couldn’t see a single pole beyond the nineteenth” (116). Unable to

Esther is soon able to go to a new facility where she meets the young, stylish Doctor

“feminine” pursuits. Doctor Nolan presents a successful, intelligent, kind female figure, whom

Esther likens to both a mother and an old friend (190), illustrating that there are options for

Esther’s future other than ending up like her mother or one of her peers. Doctor Nolan also

instructs Esther to get birth control after Esther declares, “‘What I hate is the thought of being

under a man’s thumb…A man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging

over my head like a big stick to keep me in line’” (198). Esther views this birth control as her

freedom as she climbs onto the examination table:

‘I am climbing to freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from marrying the wrong person,

like Buddy Willard, just because of sex, freedom from the Florence Crittenden Homes

where all the poor girls go who should have been fitted out like me, because what they

and reproductive rights. Following this, she is soon able to have sex and lose her virginity that

Buddy Willard and having had similar experiences, “Joan fascinated me…Her thoughts were not

feelings seemed a wry, black image of my own” (196). While both appear to get better, with Joan

progressing faster and even going back to the real world for a while, Joan soon commits suicide.

Joan appears to be a mirror for Esther in her struggles and eventual fate, what would have

happened to Esther. However, at Joan’s funeral, Esther seems glad to be alive, “I took a deep

breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am” (216). This quote obviously

hearkens back to the “dull motor” of Esther’s heartbeat when she was suicidal, reminding her

that she was still alive and still suffering, monotonous and unbreaking; however, now, Esther

seems to have a new appreciation for life, with her heart boasting that she still lives, breaking

between each beat as if to savor it and showing how time has slowed down, no longer propelling

her to be forced into a life that she doesn’t want.

choice of fitting into the singular role of femininity, Esther is also given the choice earned by the

a somewhat happy or hopeful ending, unlike the madwomen in this paper before her, signaling

deserving of a happy ending.

There is significant debate over whether the two most recent waves of feminism are two

separate movements or if the fourth is just an extension of the third. Unlike the previous waves

before them, the third and fourth waves both lack a centralized cohesive movement. Both are

centered on the empowerment of women, spreading awareness, the validation of female

experiences, personal narratives, and inclusivity. For the purposes of this paper, I will discuss

each separately, with respect to a “madwoman” from each of their supposed time periods;

however, I will not be taking a position on whether they are separate movements or not.

wrote, “Let Thomas’ confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from

Furthermore, the third wave was focused on female empowerment, on stripping the male-

what it meant to be a woman and to reclaim ideas of sexuality or femininity, on their own terms,

that may have inhibited them in the past. This concept of a female-defined femininity was

especially significant as the previous male definitions had pushed women into singular roles

without much room for autonomy or expression. The third wave expanded upon femininity,

allowing for multiple definitions and for women to contain multitudes. Furthermore, the third

wave enabled and encouraged the idea of female sexual expression, not punishing women for

things that brought them pleasure.

In 2010, near the supposed end of the third wave, the film Black Swan directed by Darren

Aronofsky was released, telling the story of Nina Sayers, a chaste and perfectionistic ballerina on

the cusp of fame, ruled by her attempts to please those around her, including both her

perform as the dark and sensuous Black Swan; this is especially compounded with the arrival of

purity and fragility. Although she is a 28-year-old woman, she still lives with her mother, Erica,

over Nina, her career, and sexuality, micromanaging her and preventing her from having a social

or romantic life, keeping her in perpetual girlhood. As such, Nina starts out the film with

extremely childlike qualities, speaking in a baby voice and dressed in colors such as pink and

white, emotionally dependent on her mother, and looking to her mother for all guidance. The

perpetual girlhood of her character is reflected in her name, with Nina as shorthand for Russian

Annina, meaning “little girl” and derived from the Greek Anna meaning “flower.” Furthermore,

her mother’s role is also set up with her name Erica, being the female version of the Norse

masculine name Eric, meaning sole ruler, monarch, and powerful (“Nina”, “Erica”). This name

therefore sets Erica up to be the female representation of man; with this duality in her name, she

can be representative of the female incarceration within male-defined femininity, perpetuated

Erica presents one of Nina’s main obstacles both in becoming a woman and in

fourth, as he is representative of both sexual harassment and unprofessionalism in the workplace

become the Swan Queen that all he sees in her is the White Swan, “beautiful, fearful, and

fragile,” that she cannot embody the Black Swan and she cannot achieve perfection because it’s

not just about control, but it’s about letting go, losing herself, and transcending, which Nina

cannot do in her own sexual inexperience and with no autonomy of her own (20:40-20:45). Thus,

the film depicts Nina’s descent to madness, where she slowly loses herself in her pursuit of

perfection but at the same time, gaining her independence while in pursuit of her own sexual and

creative growth.

Throughout the film, the more Nina loses herself, pursuing her freedom and sexual

growth, while losing her White Swan persona, the more she begins to hallucinate herself

becoming the Black Swan. At the beginning, after failing her first audition for the role of Swan

scratched herself. Throughout the film, Nina goes on to injure herself again and again, some

representative of women killing off their childhood personas in order to move into maturity,

roles.

Later in the film, Erica is undressing Nina and notices these scratches. Nina, for the first

time, tries to take a stand against her, attempting to keep Erica from undressing her and

demonstrating her newly developing desire for independence and autonomy in tandem with her

sexual growth and metaphoric puberty. However, Erica berates her for this “disgusting habit,”

alluding to Nina having done this in the past, and forcibly cuts Nina’s nails to prevent her from

scratching herself again (38:30-38:32). As her scratches appear at the same time that Nina is

coming into her sexuality, this can further be examined as a physical manifestation of her

figurative masturbation, scratching herself, which can be likened to touching herself, as her

mother attempts to put a stop to it like she has done in the past. This idea is driven home by the

evident, but also as she comes more into her sexuality and independence, she hallucinates herself

Nina’s role as Swan Queen at the gala, and attracting Thomas’s eye for the role of the Black

Nina, “She’s not faking it.” (29:25-29:27). Although Lily looks remarkably similar to Nina, she

seems to be her opposite in behavior and attitude, completely effortless in everything she does,

passionate, and embracing of her sexuality. Nina begins to see her dark double within Lily,

seemingly mocking her, as if taunting Nina to become like her; however, it is interesting to note

that while Nina admires and envies Lily, she fears the dark projection of herself that she

visualizes within Lily. Lily is the representation of this alternate version of herself, of Nina’s

dual femininity and sexuality, which Nina subconsciously fears. This is further illustrated in their

similar names, with Lily also being a flower, but having symbolic meanings of femininity, love,

passion, and confidence—seeming to point to the idea that “Nina” as a little girl and flower, must

grow into the confident and sensual “Lily” who symbolically represents all of these things. This

female character. If Nina is to stay in her role as prima ballerina, and become the lover of

daughter, hoping she won’t make the same mistakes. In either scenario, both of which are

predicament of her character of the White Swan in the play, trapped as a swan and yearning to be

free of her role to be a maiden once more. This theme is mirrored in the film, with Nina trapped

into her feminine role and life, without a way to break free. The independence and autonomy of

the Black Swan attempts to give this freedom to Nina, but at the same time, Nina fears it, unsure

if she wants to become something she fears.

This psychological tension in the film appears to come to a head as Nina hallucinates a

sexual encounter with Lily, which actually proves to be Nina’s dark projection, and thus Nina

has sex with herself. Furthermore, this dark projection refers to Nina mockingly as “sweet girl,”

a name that Erica had always called her, seeming to point to the idea that Erica’s efforts were

futile, and Nina has lost her girlhood (1:10:10-1:10:13). The next day, Nina throws away all of

specific and narrow role at the cost of her mental health, while exploiting and pitting the women,

that she is nothing, made nothing by Thomas, indicative of the contradictory feminine. Nina then

physically lashing out against her. The combination of these instances appears to spur the full

physical emergence of the Black Swan, with Nina’s disillusionment, in the shattering of this

female dream. Viewing the predicaments of both her mother and Beth and destroying her

idealized view of them, as well as her potential future as one of them, finally brings out the Black

Swan in her.

Although her mother attempts to stop her, Nina goes on to perform as the Swan Queen.

Thomas has already given her part to Lily, but Nina displays a new confidence and sureness of

herself, even a ruthlessness about her, that Thomas is impressed with, and he allows her to

perform. Thomas tells her that the only person standing in her way is herself and that it’s time to

let her go. Nina performs as the White Swan; however, she messes up and falls, something she

their oppression. This female empathy and shared female experience is present in other aspects

with their reproduction and seasons of life rituals. Throughout the film, rebirth seems to be

Ättestupa so that they can be reborn. The Hårga then stuffs their bodies with plants and flowers,

returning them to nature. Furthermore, with the matriarchal Hårga, there is more of an emphasis

on women in their importance, as being the givers of life, with men being more expendable and

being brought in from the outside purely for reproductive purposes. In the end, this idea of males

being expendable is further demonstrated in the nine people chosen to die in the sacrificial

ceremony, with only two being women—one an outsider and one from the Ättestupa.

At the end, Dani’s catharsis and freedom from her oppression at the hands of Christian

comes to a head when she, as May Queen, is given the choice of whether to sacrifice Christian as

the last remaining outsider, or to sacrifice a member of the Hårga. Dani, having found a place

with the matriarchal Hårga, and in her grief and anger, chooses to sacrifice Christian, who is

Christian for the death of her family, for his constant dismissal of her, for her own oppression.

represents. When the Hårga set fire to the temple, Dani observes, in shock, as the Hårga begin to

wails and sobs, unable to catch her breath, observing the madness around her. As the temple

burns to the ground, Dani finally smiles, with the script reading, “She has surrendered to a joy

known only by the insane. She has lost herself completely, and she is finally free. It is horrible

and it is beautiful” (Aster 117).

Ari Aster describes his film as a “dark fairytale” or a wish fulfillment fantasy, and it can

be viewed as such, with a somewhat twisted “happy ending” that leaves the audience both

satisfied, but also questioning if they really should be (Aster). While the plot of the film itself is

certainly problematic in many respects, and does not necessarily give Dani the happiest of

endings with her shifting from one codependent relationship to another (and this one with a

murderous cult), it does serve to demonstrate various aspects of fourth wave feminism, bringing

they are not alone. Dani is able to let go of these hardships, of her past trauma, grief, and

been limited, villainized, and invalidated. While the trope of the madwoman finds its origins in

conjunction with waves of feminism, this trope has been reclaimed and used to validate women

in their experiences, in their emotions, in their sexuality, and in their femininity. As such, the use

of the madwoman trope has ultimately been situated as a means of critiquing society and its

views and limits on women.

Charlotte Brontë uses the character of the madwoman to demonstrate the justification for

female anger—that female fury is not “irrational” in its extremity, that any woman could fall to

“madness” simply in their anger at their role in society. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her

narrator to provide a female account of a woman’s descent to madness, giving the madwoman a

voice and demonstrating her sympathetically, pointing to the male-defined narrative that pains

women as villains but men as heroes or victims. Sylvia Plath uses her own story with second-

madness to validate the female experience and empower women and victims, while bringing

dismissed, as demonstrated in the use of the madwoman trope as a means of addressing female

fight against patriarchal systems of power that limited and abused, that labeled this righteous

discontent as madness. In doing so, they have paved the way for future storytellers, a means for

voices to be heard to further precipitate change.

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