Method to the Madness: A study of the border-mad in narrative texts through Foucaultian analysis

Abstract

This study concerns a specific type of literary madmen, who's classification as insane results not from any form of mental illness, but from an attempted break from the paradigm of society. Unable to fully sever the ties that bind them with their paradigm of origin, but incapable of reintegration, they reside on the border of society's paradigm where they are branded as 'mad' or 'insane.' This special type of madman I designate with the term 'the border-mad.' With the help of Foucaultian analysis, mainly drawing on Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish, I explore this subject through the study of three border-mad characters: Randall McMurphy from Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Phaedrus from Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. By noting several distinct characteristics of the mechanics that enable the border-mad's existence in literary texts, I propose a new manner of analysing madness in literature.