Madness and Creativity in Postmodern Latin American Female Fiction a Case Study: Delirium by Laura Restrepo

Abstract

The "she" has always been oppressed, traumatized, and marginalized in the patriarchal societies. Fortunately, this woeful fact motivated women to raise their positions and eliminate this inequality. They were and still always resisting to promote their subjectivity, and to break the expectations imposed by the "he" community, and the oppressive regimes. The study of this research paper is built upon a close reading of the twentieth century Latin American female writers. Women writers expressed a sort of literary themes like myths, sexuality, and madness. Madness is the most eminent theme in female works that led to literary creativity. This study tends to correlate the two lopsided concepts of madness and creativity; by highlighting and analyzing their significance in raising the standards of literary works. The theme of our analysis entails us to adapt the psychoanalysis and feminism theories. Laura Restrepo's Delirium is taken as the selected novel to anatomize the female insane malady, and the social chaos in the Colombian society during the postmodern period. This project is a thematic and stylistic study that dissects madness and creativity. Our aim is to present their repercussion in the novel of Delirium.