The Theme Of Madness In Michel Foucault's Madness And Civilization?

The Case of Valentine Shortis by Martin L. Friedland, discusses the question of whether Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis is sane or insane. On March 1st, 1895, Shortis murdered two payroll clerks, John Loy, and Maxime Leboeuf, wounding another clerk in the small town of Valleyfield, Quebec. In this case the dilemma remains in the hands of the jury to decide if he committed this crime in his actual senses. There is sufficient evidence on both sides, Shortis seemed to have a troubled childhood and was sent to Canada by his father to become independent, and able to support himself. From a juror’s perspective, the majority of the evidence presented in this case, Valentine Shortis is most definitely sane and therefore guilty. Firstly, Shortis had a motive to commit this crime, his actions were not abrupt but he had the intention and came prepared. The who examined Shortis all state that his actions of irresistible impulse and he can be classified as morally insane, but he does not entirely fall under the definition of either of these diseases. Lastly, witnesses was brought forward to prove Shortis’ insanity does not exactly prove insanity, but rather the actions of a hot-headed youth who found joy in his reckless acts. These evidences all lead to one thing, Valentine Shortis is sane and fully aware of his actions.

In Cervantes’s Don Quixote, we can see remarkably clear pictures of both the kind of unfair stigmatization of madness that McKay and Mitchell decry and the essentially demeaning nature of insanity to which Gardner and Macklem draw our attention. Don Quixote is treated with astounding cruelty. He is made an object of ridicule and trickery by almost everyone he meets.

Throughout history, there have been many criminals who used the insanity defence to receive a fair trial, but some of of these people were not actually insane. However, in the case the 1989 Montreal massacre, Canadian journalists medicalized Marc Lepine's deviance in their writing techniques to divert the public’s attention from the event. According to Horwitz (1981), the medicalization of criminal behaviour “refers to the tendency to define deviance as a manifestation of an underlying sickness, to find the causes of deviance within the individual rather than in the social structure. . .” (p. 750). The type of deviances that can be viewed under the term “medicalization” is mental sickness and child abuse. For example, some journalists referred

“People with mental health problems are almost never dangerous. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators. At the same time, mental illness has been the common denominator in one act of mass violence after another,” Roy Blunt, a United States senator, had said. Some individuals who are mentally ill are able to achieve their goals because they have the qualities associated with being a leader, such as having confidence typical of narcissism or willing to use others like psychopaths. The characters of Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest focuses on these states of mental health and how it ties into the people and setting. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, characters

The townspeople, however, refuse to believe him and think he has gone mad. Moché appears in every book; his role is usually that of messenger in the tale he tells. Madness is an essential element in all Wiesel’s works. On the one hand, it is indicative of the malady that struck the world during the Holocaust years. Wiesel, however, treats his madmen sympathetically. Their madness is not clinical but mystical. They are visionaries, saints, or messengers, endowed with the task of saving the world. As such, they become one with humankind, God, and creation. Wiesel’s point is that madness can be a force of evil or good. Hitler and his Nazis were mad. Their madness was employed to destroy the world. Most of Wiesel’s madmen want to bring about the Messiah; they want to redeem the

The madmen in Wiesel’s works have certain distinct characteristics, but they all seem to be fallen into commonalities. These madmen have surer, saner corner on the truth than we do (McAfee Brown 180). They present varying degrees of madness that sometimes alternate between a despairing madness to a mystical madness or a defiance madness. It is important to know that Wiesel is a scholar of Hasidic mysticism and well-versed in rabbinic teachings. These can be seen clearly in his writings. Wiesel believes to have the answer of insanity although he raises the question of whether someone is mad to have faith during the absence of divine intervention to the Holocaust, however, he sees madness a driving force that enabled Jewish people to survive the madness throughout the centuries.

Sanity and insanity are two deeply intertwined concepts. Any observation made upon the nature of either conversely reshapes our understanding of the other. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is a power struggle in a psychiatric ward between two conflicting definitions of sanity and insanity and what behaviour can be categorized as such. Miss Ratched’s sanity is achieved through a rigid hierarchal network of rules that enforces uniformity and order while the patients’ revolutionary sanity achieved solely through rebelling from the rules that limit the individual’s freedom and sense of self. In detailing the tension between two opposite views on sanity, Kesey scrutinizes the way society forms its perceptions towards sanity and exposes the flaws in its narrow definition of sanity. The process of defining sanity is formed by rules that act as the model of sanity which is inherently unjust to non-conforming

The use of the phrase “madness had infected all of us” emphasizes on the mental and physical obstacles the Jews had to overcome. His comparison of madness spreading like a disease also reveals the Jews loss of who they are and what they have allowed to overcome them. (negative)

In order to understand how insanity affected these artists’ works, the ways they developed it must first be examined. The first signs

It is my intention with this quote to show the crucial relationship between madness and the evolution of higher thought. I argue very plainly for this correlation linking the “truly wise” and madness because it demonstrates Socrates attempt to “dangle” an idea in front of Phaedrus, who after Socrates 1st speech was expecting a philosophical, structured way of defining the soul and now left to wonder what madness has to do with anything. The quote defends the claim that madness is an essential part of Socrates attempt to persuade Phaedus (the reader) that madness is not something bad; the way Lysias outlined it in his speech, but an obligatory element in developing a passion for something.

The concept of insanity as a defence was established in the early eighteenth century in the Arnold’s case (1724) and was further developed in the late 18th century in the Hadfield’s case (1800), but the standart test of criminal liability was only formed after the case of Daniel M’Naghten (1843). This case established the special verdict of ‚‘not guilty by reason of insanity‘.

Many factors hinder a truly effective study of and conclusion to the relationship between genius and insanity. For instance, who determines a genius? One can measure neither creativity nor madness, for these two factors are purely objective and up to the discretion of the individual carrying out the test (Simonton; Weisberg 362). In addition, the measures of genius and madness may simply depend on the culture and time period; Galileo, the famed astronomer who proved the Copernican theory that the planets revolved around the sun, a presently obvious but at the time completely heretical idea, was deemed a madman by the Roman Catholic Church (Ludwig 12; “Genius or Madness?”). The issue remains and probably will remain dubious; nevertheless, through much investigation and research, many credible speculations have surfaced that may explain the phenomenon.

Many criminal suspects today are found guilty by them attributing their insane actions to society by breaking human laws. In return, they are to make a contribution to in horrendous places such as place of confinement, guardhouse and correctional facility with their labour, effort and time. Nonetheless, what are the punishments for someone who feigned his or her madness and sparks off the death of the entire royal family? Shakespeare's Hamlet significantly demonstrates the consequences of dissimulating, in a way of dishonesty, but is Hamlet's madness simulated or real? This question is often left unanswered among the fans of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The idea of a character impersonating the concept or motif of insanity is not foreign to great literary works in modern days although many authors in ancient time use it to convey the sanity of the humor. There is much evidence in the play of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which Hamlet deliberately feigned fits of madness to confuse and plan to disconcert the king until he reveals his secret that he is responsible for Hamlet's father murder. However, the majority of the professors continue to argue that Hamlet's anti-decomposition is purely innocent and that he is not pretending. Nevertheless, with the similar saying of “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch”, in Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, Hamlet’s fatal flaw of

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear are not only exhibitions of human experience but also studies in the spiritual life of man. Through these two plays Shakespeare has elaborately attempted to get a meaning out of life, and not to show its mystery or madness despite the fact that madness as simulation has been a source of fascination in these two tragedies. In Shakespeare’s Madness and Music, Kendra Preston Leonard says that Hamlet and King Lear ultimately focus on crises of family and power and involve a recurring early modern trope: madness (1). Concerning madness, Foucault says in Madness and Civilization, that it constitutes the knot more than the denouement, the peripety rather than the final release (32). Foucault sheds light on the