FAITH AND HYSTERIA: THE DIAGNOSIS OF GEORGE MACDONALD’S ADELA CATHCART Cover Image

FAITH AND HYSTERIA: THE DIAGNOSIS OF GEORGE MACDONALD’S ADELA CATHCART
FAITH AND HYSTERIA: THE DIAGNOSIS OF GEORGE MACDONALD’S ADELA CATHCART

Author(s): István Szabadi
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Editura Universităţii de Vest din Timişoara / Diacritic Timisoara
Keywords: hysteria; MacDonald; medicine; psychology; religion; storytelling;

Summary/Abstract: George MacDonald’s “Adela Cathcart” narrates the process of curing an ill young woman through storytelling. The individual stories subtly criticize the medical discourses and practices, social and gender roles and the spiritual and religious life of the era; Adela’s malady of “hysteria” is cured, eventually, by addressing and alleviating the sickness in the above fields. I compare and contrast diagnoses and cures of female maladies (both material and spiritual) prevalent in late Victorian medicine with those in the novel, demonstrating the extent to which MacDonald differed from his contemporaries and was, in fact, ahead of his time.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 21
  • Page Range: 101-107
  • Page Count: 7