Author(s)

Lin Liu

Corresponding Author

Lin Liu

Abstract

Among the many different female images in literature, a special group is "mad women". The stereotype of mad woman may have changed along with the social transition, but their rhetoric functions in literature share some common grounds. This paper tries to apply feminist approach to analyze the classical mad women images in English literature, demonstrating that the female characters' madness in a patriarchal society is not mental disorder; but a female self-expression to challenge the male-dominated social structure.

Keywords

Mad women; madness; discourse power; patriarchal society; social norm