October 2, 1998

'The Madwoman Can't Speak: Or Why Insanity Is Not Subversive'

By NINA C. AYOUB

The madwoman as subversive is a treasured trope for many feminist literary critics, but does the image reflect the actual experiences of mentally ill women? And what is gained or lost, asks Marta Caminero-Santangelo, "by yoking utopian conceptions of women's subversive speech to notions of madness?"

Many of the texts she examines in The Madwoman Can't Speak: Or Why Insanity Is Not Subversive (Cornell

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