Madness and Woman: A Feminist Interpretation of Madwomen in Woman on the Edge of Time
Abstract
American feminist writer Marge Piercy has, in her novel Woman on the Edge of Time, depicted the unique experience of the “madwoman” Connie, who shuttles between the present and the future. Instead of focusing on the result of madness, Piercy highlights the process in which Connie is driven mad, and reconstructs the relationship between madness and woman through the depiction of Jackrabbit, another “madwoman” in the imagined utopian society of Mattapoisett. Through the sharp contrast between Connie and Jackrabbit, this paper questions and challenges the dominant rational social power. At the same time, it arouses people’s rethinking of madness and more attention to woman.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n
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