'An Antic Disposition'-Mental Health in Literature

Before I go on, I feel this post needs a little disclaimer. The books/plays I talk about, I talk about briefly and I'll admit that I haven't done copious amounts of research on each before writing this, though several of them I did study at GCSE/A Level several years ago. But this is a little glimpse on these works and what I have taken from them. It is no way an in-depth study.

It is from what we read and watch that we are able to form our understanding of the world. In literature and theatre, many books and plays have attempted to portrayed mental health issues. However, I believe that there are many that have done damage to how mental health issues are understood and the way society perceives them. This legacy is primarily made up of books/plays from the past and all of the examples I cite are. I do think literature and theatre is becoming ever better at discussing mental health issues in a sensitive and understanding manner. As an example, recently I saw The Cow Play by Ed Harris at 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It treated depression with delicacy, sensitivity and respect. We still, however, have much to make up for with an unsympathetic legacy from literature and plays from the past. The following are some examples of mental health issues depicted unfavourably.

Brontë's Jane Eyre-Mrs Rochester 

Whether or not you as reader find yourself falling for the brisk and blunt charm of Mr Rochester as Jane does, there is little doubt that the inescapable burden of Mrs Rochester makes you pity him and not her. She, who ‘dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste’, is described, when we finally meet her in the attic, as ‘it’, it who ‘snatched and growled like some strange wild animal’  and bites Mr Rochester as he leaves. She is not human, she is an animal, an animal whom Mr Rochester describes as not just mentally unbalanced but fiery, out-spoken and irrational. This contrasts to Jane who, though in possession of inner fire, passions and a depth of emotion, is outwardly calm. The result being the reader is likely to be given the impression that to be out-spoken is synonymous with becoming mad. Being ‘bound’ to Mrs Rochester as he is, Mr Rochester’s inability to marry Jane further creates a lack of sympathy and interest for Mrs Rochester, who is turned into a frustrating burden of madness that should be hidden away and a quick demise hoped for. There is no doubt that Mrs Rochester’s mental health issues are extensive and would try the patience of the most enduring of men. However, instead of somebody that should be cared for just as an invalid in a sickbed, Mr Rochester’s decision to keep her locked up and away from public view is not criticised. Instead, she should just be grateful that he was kind enough not to keep at her his more inhabitable, secluded property.

Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire-Blanche

Vivien Leigh as Blanche in the 1951 film

Blanche is a character hard to like. Snobbish, full of false propriety, constantly ‘delicate’ and worrying about her aging beauty, she is irritating and easy to take against, vain and dependent on men to find happiness. She has not, however, had an easy life. Once married to a man who was either homosexual or bisexual (given Williams own sexuality, one quite often assumes the former) and unable to admit to it, her discovery of his relationship with another man and her revulsion drove him to suicide. Whether as a result of what she has gone through or because she was always pre-disposed this way, Blanche is delusional, an alcoholic with low-self-esteem and who arguably has depression. After she is raped by Stanley, she suffers from a mental and nervous breakdown. Yet, the irritation her characterisation creates makes it hard to sympathise with her. In many ways as well, it is hard to see her as somebody who suffers from mental health issues as opposed to a former Southern Belle reluctant to face the realities of a post-WWII America. It is a shame as well because, considering Williams is often understood as having written Blanche based on the suffering his sister underwent with her own mental health issues and eventual (damaging) lobotomy, it is unlikely he would have wished the character to have had such an effect.

Shakespeare's Hamlet-Hamlet

Whether or not Hamlet does descend into madness and/or depression towards the play’s climax as is hotly debated, he does decide at its start to adopt a disposition of being mad which in the first scene of Act Two, Ophelia describes to her father, Polonius.

David Tennant as Hamlet in 2009

Ophelia:

Lord Hamlet with his doublet unbraced
No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosèd out of hell
To speak of horrors — he comes before me.

While this is a popular Elizabethan stereotype of a lovesick man driven to madness, as they believed could happen, it does not change the fact that it is a fairly insulting description of somebody mentally unbalanced. Hamlet said he was going to adopt ‘an antic disposition’. He did not say he was going to become a clown or a character in a comedy show. It is very much of its time, as all of these examples are, but it doesn’t change the fact it doesn’t help how people with mental health issues are perceived throughout literature.

Shakespeare's Hamlet-Ophelia

Ophelia is a character ruled by men. Typical of a woman in Shakespearian England yet, not typical of Shakespeare, who created female characters of a variety of strength and determination. (On a side-note I will add that my former statement is, of course, my own opinion and many have argued that Shakespeare was unable to write a ‘good’ female part…though, in my opinion, Cleopatra, Isabella and several others disagree but I digress). It is a shame however, that one of the weaker of his women is one of the best known examples of a female character with mental health issues. Her death, much like her life, is passive. She falls in a river and does not struggle against it to save herself, much as she does not struggle against the rulings of her father, brother and betrothed in life. This all gives the impression that mental health issues are more likely to affect, not only the weaker sex but, the weaker of that sex. And that they are caused by the sudden lack of a strong male in their life (her father’s death, her brother’s absence and Hamlet’s own mad behaviour are all precursors for her madness and suicide). This does not give hope for those strong women now who are struggling to cope with their own mental health issues and the way it may cause them to be perceived.

Dickens' Great Expectations-Mrs Havisham

Miss Havisham, in art by Harry Furniss

Mrs Havisham is perhaps one of the most famous of Dickens’ creations, a woman so unable to come to terms with reality she has attempted to freeze time in order to ignore it. Having been jilted by her groom on their wedding day and burned so terribly by love, her fear the same will happen to her ward causes her to turn Estella into the loveless woman she becomes, ‘I stole her heart away and put ice in its place’. A character who is both piteous and despicable in her actions, instead of creating sympathy for a woman so scarred by the trauma of her wedding day, Dickens’ has written a woman the reader commonly reviles or scorns and, perhaps worst of all, he dehumanises her. The fascination of her being locked in a time gone by serves to mystify Miss Havisham, as she becomes more and more like a character from a fairy tale.

Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit-Mrs Gamp

An alcoholic nurse who cares little for the emotions of others, Mrs Gamp is hardly a character you’d want to be associated with and it is these qualities that mark her out as a character to laugh at and scorn. As a result, little sympathy is created for a woman who is so lonely and unhappy, she has created an imaginary friend to find solace from her reality. The premise of the character is very interesting but the result is focus of ridicule.

Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye-Holden

The Catcher in the Rye is one of those books that tends to divide people into two categories, one being those who think it’s fantastic and one being those who think it’s over-rated. For me, it happens to be one of my favourite books, a book I haven’t read in a long time but nonetheless one I treasure, a book I didn’t understand until finishing the last sentence of the penultimate chapter and in that moment I ‘got it’. Holden is quite a frustrating character, he complains, he rambles, he can be hypocritical and judgmental; he can be hard to sympathise with and is often seen as a typically stroppy teen. But underneath all of his flawed characteristics, he is desperately unhappy and it stretches far beyond standard teen angst to the loss of his brother and the dysfunction within his family. You might not like Holden but that shouldn’t stop you feeling sorry for him. Yet, whether it is due to his age or character, quite often the reader does.

Stevenson's The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde-Hyde

Richard Mansfield as Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde for stage version

The story of Jekyll and Hyde can be interpreted in a variety of ways and is often seen as the struggle between the moral and sinful selves. However, it can also be interpreted as an early examination into multiple personality disorder and the ramifications of suffering from it, especially from a modern day perspective. Supposing that the reader understands the book in relation to something akin to an examination into multiple personality disorder as opposed to an examination of a split morality within a person, the message the novella gives is that one of these personalities is always to be feared, is always, at the least, mischievous, ‘naughty’, Pan-like. And at the worst, socio-, or psycho-, pathic. This encourages fear and distrust of somebody with this disorder as opposed to sympathy and compassion. It further reinforces the idea that somebody suffering from a mental health disorder should be considered as dangerous and worth avoiding.



There are many other examples of mental health being depicted poorly in literature and theatre from the past and, of course, in books, plays, television and film of today having a mental health issue is still not always treated with the sensitivity and respect it deserves. Imagine if you were to watch a show making fun of a cancer patient. Imagine the uproar that would follow. If only this were something you could guarantee would happen if the patient had depression or borderline personality disorder instead (to name two of a myriad of mental health issues).

However, it's not all doom and gloom in regards to representation in literature and media. As I said at the start, it is getting better. A friend recently recommended Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2009, US) which apparently captures suffering from depression succinctly. Kaufman has himself suffered from depression so perhaps this is why. And when you look at the plays and literature of the past, they weren't always being unsympathetic in their portrayal of suffering. In fact, I will never forget being taught Macbeth aged 14. I remember sitting in class as my (excellent) English teacher analysed the following monologue from Act Five Scene Five with us. I can still hear the emphasis that she put on each tomorrow in the third line as she discussed the dullness, ache and sorrow that accompanied Macbeth as he looked into the future, a future that now no longer held his wife. Whenever I am in a downward spiral, I feel similarly. As if looking to the future is too much. As if there is never anything good to come and life is just waiting for each day to finally pass. I believe this monologue describes what it feels like to have depression perfectly.

Macbeth:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.