Skip to main content
Log in

A Journey to Madness: Jane Bowles's Narrative and Schizophrenia

  • Published:
Journal of Medical Humanities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This work is a study of Jane Bowles's madness as revealed through several of her literary works and her life story. On a parallel plane, it is an epistemological exploration of the points of intersection between humanistic psychoanalysis and deconstructive literary criticism. Here we consider the schizoid traits in Two Serious Ladies (1943) and in “Camp Cataract” (1949), using the theories developed in this area by the psychiatrist R. D. Laing (1927–1989).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Allen, C. J. (1997). The narrative erotics of Two Serious Ladies. In J. Skerl (), A tawdry place of salvation: The art of Jane Bowles (pp. 19–36). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binswanger, L. (1963). Being-in-the-world. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, J. (1943). Two serious ladies. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, J. (1954). In the summer house. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, J. (1966). Camp cataract. In My sister's hand in mine. An expanded edition of the collected works of Jane Bowles. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, P. (1949). The sheltering sky. New York: Ecco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brookner, A. (January, 1984). Going to pieces. Collected works of Jane Bowles. Books and bookmen, 22.

  • Bultman, R. (1956). Primitive Christianity in its contemporary setting. London: Thames & Hudson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burston, D. (1996). The wing of madness.The life and work of R.D.Laing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chesler, P. (1979). Women and madness. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dillon, M. (1981). A little original sin: The life and work of Jane Bowles. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dillon, M. (Ed.). (1985). Out in the world: Selected letters of Jane Bowles 1935–1970. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, H. (Ed.). (1983). The anti-aesthetic: Essays on post-modern culture. Port Townsend,WA: Bay.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freud, S. (1924). The economic problem of masochism. (pp. 157–170). Standard Edition. Vol. 19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, E., & M. Fuchs. (Eds.). (1989). Breaking the sequence.Women's experimental fiction.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fromm, E. (1955). The sane society. Greenwich: Fawcett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of post-modernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hibbard, A. (1997). Toward a post-modern aesthetic: Indeterminacy, instability, and inconclusiveness in Out in the World. In J. Skerl (Ed.</del>), A tawdry place of salvation: The art of Jane Bowles (pp. 153–170). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, J. (19 March 1978). A talk in the casbah. Washington Post Book World, H1.

  • Jameson, F. (1983). Postmodernism and consumer society. In H. Foster (Ed.), The anti-aesthetic: Essays on post-modern culture (pp. 111–125). Port Townsend, WA: Bay.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laing, R. D. (1959). The divided self. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laing, R. D. (1961). The self and others. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laing, R. D., & D. G. Cooper. (1964). Reason and violence: A decade of Sartre's philosophy, 1950–1960. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laing, R. D., & A. Esterson. (1964). Sanity, madness and the family.Families of schizophrenics. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lougy, R. (1997). Some fun in the mud: Decrepitude and salvation in the world of Jane Bowles. In J. Skerl (Ed.), A tawdry place of salvation: The art of Jane Bowles (pp. 119–133). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

    Google Scholar 

  • McEwan, I. (1997). Enduring love. London: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masterson, J. F. (1981). The narcissistic and borderline disorders. New York: Brunner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, D. (1991). Haunted journeys: Desire and transgression in European travel writing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roditi, E. (1992). The fiction of Jane Bowles as a form of self-exorcism. The review of contemporary fiction 12(2), 182–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sass, L. (1992). Madness and modernism.Insanity in the light of modern art, literature and thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shattuck, R. (1958). The banquet years. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shloss, C. (1997). Jane Bowles in uninhabitable places: Writing on cultural boundaries. In J. Skerl (Ed.), A tawdry place of salvation: The art of Jane Bowles (pp. 102–118). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Showalter, E. (1985). The female malady: Women, madness and English culture, 1830–1980. London: Virago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skerl, J. (Ed.). (1997). A tawdry place of salvation: The art of Jane Bowles. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toles, G. (1998). The toy madness of Jane Bowles. Arizona Quarterly, 54(4), 83–110.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Inmaculada Cobos Fernández.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fernández, I.C. A Journey to Madness: Jane Bowles's Narrative and Schizophrenia. Journal of Medical Humanities 22, 265–283 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016658825813

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016658825813

Navigation