Metaphors of Madness in Narratives of Schizophrenia

Abstract

It seems that for the lay person, the schizophrenic may come to represent the sheer image of madness and the archetype of the madman. But although this severe form of mental illness, characterised by bizarre delusions and vivid hallucinations, may appear as old as mankind, it is in fact a modern psychiatric nosology, approximately one hundred years old. I suggest that autobiographies written by people diagnosed as schizophrenics are a valuable source for acquiring knowledge about the subjective experience of madness and its vicissitudes. There are at least three traditions of reading narratives of madness: psychoanalytic, socio-historical and literary. These three traditions do not seem to converse with each other as the experience of madness, a central theme in the narratives, is psychologised, historicised or aestheticized, according to the relevant tradition. What is missing is an attempt to create an interdisciplinary dialogue between the three traditions. I suggest that the concept of metaphor can become such an intermediate space for exploring experiences of madness from an interdisciplinary point of view. I begin my exploration through the prism of metaphor by examining two pre-Freudian narratives of psychosis: Beers’s 1908 A Mind that Found Itself, and Thelmar’s 1909 The Maniac. I then continue to examine two Freudian narratives, Hillyer’s 1926 Reluctantly Told, and Ogdon’s 1947 Kingdom of the Lost, while discussing their joint metaphor of madness as ‘the beast within’. I conclude by discussing the value of metaphor as a focal point for reading narratives of madness.