Shakespeare- Mad Women

[ComicBookGirl]

Hi everyone!

I'm writing a paper on mad women in Shakespeare's plays. I have already chosen Ophelia and Lady Macbeth, but I also need a third madwoman to write about and compare to the other two, any suggestions?

Thank you:)

[Ghuyuran]

Volumnia, from Coriolanus would offer an interesting take. Her attitude and the way she brought her son up to be a war machine is madness.

[Charles Darnay]

Juliet could provide an interesting counter to the two traditional mad women. Or Cleopatra. Both consumed by the madness of love, in two very different ways.

[chamightlike]

I think you should write about Cordelia. She was "mad" in not kissing up to the King and telling the truth. As an essay, make Cordelia the third and strongest point, and then your concluding paragraph will be extra powerful in that not only do you summarize your points, you suggest that Cordelia's madness is the only sane act in a mad world, and how by being true to thine self (Hamlet), she...blah, blah, blah. Well you get the gist... :)

[kelby_lake]

Desdemona suffers a similar tragedy to Ophelia (both are innocents in an uninnocent world and eventually are driven to insanity by their love for men who fail them) so they might be good to compare. It might be useful to find an example of a madwoman in one of the comedies or histories, to give a bit of balance to the essay.

[mal4mac]

Can you can argue that Desdemona, Volumnia, Cleopatra, Cordelia or Juliet are mad? They certainly show some extreme emotions and actions. But are they really mad?

Why not Hippolyta in a Midsummer Night's Dream? She is given a potion that makes her mad for a short time, i.e. she falls in love with the first things she sees - Bottom turning into a donkey! Now that's mad... The comedy will contrast nicely with the two heavyweight tragic cases...

[Charles Darnay]

Can you can argue that Desdemona, Volumnia, Cleopatra, Cordelia or Juliet are mad? They certainly show some extreme emotions and actions. But are they really mad?

Why not Hippolyta in a Midsummer Night's Dream? She is given a potion that makes her mad for a short time, i.e. she falls in love with the first things she sees - Bottom turning into a donkey! Now that's mad... The comedy will contrast nicely with the two heavyweight tragic cases...

First, you're thinking of Titania from "Dream" not Hippolyta....but that aside, the madness of comic characters would be interesting if comparing them to the tragic mad women, but the madness is quite different and would make for a difficult comparison.


I am sticking with my Juliet and Cleopatra are mad theory. I would not say that Cordelia is mad, and neither is Desdemona. I would have to re-read Cor. before a make a call on Volumna.

Madness is at its most, one out of their wits. Cordelia had her wit about her, so does Desdemona. Their tragedies spring from the actions of the men in their lives - the mad Lear and (we may say) mad Othello. Ophelia and Lady Macbeth are not rational during their "mad phases" - their wits are not with them. Ophelia "reverts" to a clownish state (taking on the tendencies of Shakespeare's comic Clowns) and Lady Macbeth sees figments and displays madness in a very clinical sense. Juliet and Cleopatra are also robbed of wits - Juliet in act IV particularly when she tires to kill herself, and then later sees the ghost of Tybalt. Cleopatra's wits are consumed by her grand love that she is unable to function, and of course eventually kills herself.

[mal4mac]

First, you're thinking of Titania from "Dream" not Hippolyta....


You're right of course. Remembering names was never my strong point...



I am sticking with my Juliet and Cleopatra are mad theory. I would not say that Cordelia is mad, and neither is Desdemona. I would have to re-read Cor. before a make a call on Volumna.


I agree that you can make a better case for Juliet and Cleopatra than for Cordelia or Desdemona - they did both kill themselves, after all. But if Juliet's act of suicide was a mad act then it was very much a momentary act of madness - brought on by the intense grief & remorse felt over Romeo's death. I'd argue that anyone is open to such momentary acts of madness, so (overall) Juliet cannot be called a "mad person", otherwise we are all "mad people..."

Juliet sees Tybalt's ghost while drinking the sleeping potion, and kills herself just after waking up, and after realising she has inspired Romeos suicide. Also she may have drunk some of the potion before she sees the ghost, so her "madness" might (like Titanias) be partly drug induced - it's ambiguous:

http://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T43.html#36

Cleopatra - here again she is confronted by the death of her lover. But she is also confronted by imminent downfall of her empire. Again enough for the momentary "madness" of suicide.

But I suppose you could argue that Titania was also "mad for a short time", and not really a mad women.

So are there any other *consistently* mad women in Shakespeare? Women who are barking mad over a period of several days/weeks, without drugs as an excuse - like Lady M and Ophelia.

One candidate - the jailer's daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen, forsaken by the man she loves she goes mad. She sings and babbles in the forest. She meets a troupe of local countrymen who want to perform a Morris dance before the king and queen, the jailer's daughter joins in (madly...)

[Charles Darnay]

You're right of course. Remembering names was never my strong point...



I agree that you can make a better case for Juliet and Cleopatra than for Cordelia or Desdemona - they did both kill themselves, after all. But if Juliet's act of suicide was a mad act then it was very much a momentary act of madness - brought on by the intense grief & remorse felt over Romeo's death. I'd argue that anyone is open to such momentary acts of madness, so (overall) Juliet cannot be called a "mad person", otherwise we are all "mad people..."

Juliet sees Tybalt's ghost while drinking the sleeping potion, and kills herself just after waking up, and after realising she has inspired Romeos suicide. Also she may have drunk some of the potion before she sees the ghost, so her "madness" might (like Titanias) be partly drug induced - it's ambiguous:

http://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T43.html#36

Cleopatra - here again she is confronted by the death of her lover. But she is also confronted by imminent downfall of her empire. Again enough for the momentary "madness" of suicide.

But I suppose you could argue that Titania was also "mad for a short time", and not really a mad women.

So are there any other *consistently* mad women in Shakespeare? Women who are barking mad over a period of several days/weeks, without drugs as an excuse - like Lady M and Ophelia.

One candidate - the jailer's daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen, forsaken by the man she loves she goes mad. She sings and babbles in the forest. She meets a troupe of local countrymen who want to perform a Morris dance before the king and queen, the jailer's daughter joins in (madly...)

While I can agree with most of this, the question becomes "is there a consistent mad woman?" Isn't Ophelia's madness as brief and emotionally spurred as Juliet's? Isn't Lady Macbeth's madness brought on by the same fear of downfall as Cleopatra's? The tragedy (or comedy) of madness is brought on by external circumstances that the characters fall victim to. Really the only consistent "mad" characters would be the fools, but this is another matter.

(I have not read Two Noble Kinsmen (I know: for shame! It my resolution in the next few months to read/re-read all his plays) so I cannot speak to jailer's daughter, but from what you provide, she sounds like a comic Ophelia.)