Madness, Isolation and the Female Condition in Gisele Pineau's Writing

WIMBUSH, ANTONIA ORCID: 0000-0001-9689-5328 (2022) Madness, Isolation and the Female Condition in Gisele Pineau's Writing. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF FRENCH STUDIES, 59 (2). pp. 158-170.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/ajfs.2022.13

Abstract

<jats:p> This article examines themes of madness and mental illness in fictional and non-fictional writing by Guadeloupean author Gisèle Pineau. Madness is an important trope in French Caribbean literature that critiques the enduring legacies of colonization, slavery and forced displacement. It is a prevalent theme in Pineau’s work because her writing is inspired by her parallel career as a psychiatric nurse. The article explores madness from a gendered perspective in her short stories “Ombres créoles” (1988) and “Ta mission, Marny” (2009). Arguing that here, madness is a specifically Antillean condition that both erases the agency of the female protagonists and grants them power to resist, the article then examines how Pineau explores the theme from a metropolitan viewpoint in the autobiographically inspired Folie, aller simple: journée ordinaire d’une infirmière (2010). Through her writing, Pineau bears witness to the ordeals of Caribbean women haunted by the collective trauma of slavery and patriarchal power.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	14 Dec 2022 11:00
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 19:39
DOI:	10.3828/AJFS.2022.13
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3166644