THE MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC

And other media tropes

THE IDEA

U

sually someone with a mental or severe physical disability

W

ill not fit in with society

L

ocked away, hidden in the attic (or basement)

U

sually comes from corrupted stock – ignorant hicks, for instance

U

sually inbred

S

marter ones have peep-holes

ORIGINS

V

ictorian female literature, specifically Jane Eyre

D

epicting women as crazy = easy enemy, unsympathetic

A

ssumed readers would all agree… Oops…

T

he Madwoman in the Attic became a feminist theory mantra.

BASIC PLOTLINE IT

he main character is an outsider

P

rotagonist wonders what kind of bizarre secret is being kept.

T

hese characters tend to be generic “The Dragon,” the mini-boss for the Big Bad, or they're “the

Grotesque,” sympathetic victims.

W

hen done well, this can be an effective shock because it so aptly encapsulates the frightening

insularity of the “Town with a Dark Secret” trope.

E

xample: Sloth from The Goonies

EXAMPLE: AX CRAZY

Lizzie Borden took an axe,

and gave her mother forty whacks.

And when she saw what she had done,

she gave her father forty-one. —

American Nursery Rhyme * For the record, Ms.

Borden was acquitted, but never lived it down anyway.

BASIC PLOTLINE II

T

he creature has been abandoned (usually the caretaker has died).

N

ew owners move in, are watched.

P

ersonify the fear of the unknown, the new.

E

xample: a Haunted House (e.g., Grimauld Place in Harry Potter)

EXAMPLE: THE GROTESQUE

"

You are deformed. And you are ugly. And

these are crimes for which the world

shows little pity."

— Frollo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

TROPE EXAMPLES

L

iterature: Zelda in Pet Semetary, Bertha Mason (obvs), Boo

Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, The Phantom of the Opera,

the Hunchback of Notre Dame

T

elevision: “Home” episode on The X-Files, Caleb character

on Desperate Housewives, Beauregard and the ghosts in

American Horror Story

WHY IT MATTERS

A

s Virginia Woolf said, women writers must “kill the

aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have

been ‘killed’ into art.”

W

hat does this mean? How does it affect Jane Eyre?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

H

ow are readers expected to react to Bertha? Why?

I

s she sympathetic? What has she done? What has been done to her? Does she

seem as bad as Rochester suggests? How does this affect our perception of Bertha?

D

oes Rochester treat her fairly? Why or why not?

P

repare a paragraph analyzing Bertha’s characterization.

S

upply thoughtful, well-chosen evidence for your thesis.