Patricia Moran
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474418218
- eISBN:
- 9781474444996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474418218.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter discusses White’s illness within the context of medical and subjective accounts of bipolar disorder. It opens with a selective overview of White’s life that highlights the key sites of ...
More
This chapter discusses White’s illness within the context of medical and subjective accounts of bipolar disorder. It opens with a selective overview of White’s life that highlights the key sites of disruption and signs of illness. It then turns to an overview of manic-depressive illness, followed by a more detailed description of the characteristics of manic, depressive and mixed episodes. It ends with a brief comparison of White’s experiences of illness to those of her contemporary Virginia Woolf. This comparison demonstrates not only the diverse expressions of manic-depressive illness but also the different approaches that the writers themselves as well as family members adopted to cope with it.Less
This chapter discusses White’s illness within the context of medical and subjective accounts of bipolar disorder. It opens with a selective overview of White’s life that highlights the key sites of disruption and signs of illness. It then turns to an overview of manic-depressive illness, followed by a more detailed description of the characteristics of manic, depressive and mixed episodes. It ends with a brief comparison of White’s experiences of illness to those of her contemporary Virginia Woolf. This comparison demonstrates not only the diverse expressions of manic-depressive illness but also the different approaches that the writers themselves as well as family members adopted to cope with it.
Patricia Moran
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474418218
- eISBN:
- 9781474444996
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474418218.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia instead of what was bipolar or manic-depressive illness, Antonia White turned repeatedly to psychoanalysis and Catholicism to resolve the emotional ...
More
Misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia instead of what was bipolar or manic-depressive illness, Antonia White turned repeatedly to psychoanalysis and Catholicism to resolve the emotional conflicts that she believed were the cause of her tumultuous moods, her inexplicable behaviour and her writer’s block. This study rereads White’s writing within the context of manic-depressive illness to show how the misdiagnosis of her illness shaped the identity narratives White constructed in her life-writing and then used as the basis of her strongly autobiographical fiction. White’s self-narratives have skewed critical interpretations of her work; at the same time, her fiction has not been studied as expressive of affective disorder. By contextualising White’s work within the contexts of manic-depression and narrative identity, this study proposes a new model for reading White; documents the complex interplay of biological, psychological and environmental factors involved in affective disorder; and historicises the diagnosis and treatment of White’s illness in medical, psychoanalytic and Catholic contexts.Less
Misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia instead of what was bipolar or manic-depressive illness, Antonia White turned repeatedly to psychoanalysis and Catholicism to resolve the emotional conflicts that she believed were the cause of her tumultuous moods, her inexplicable behaviour and her writer’s block. This study rereads White’s writing within the context of manic-depressive illness to show how the misdiagnosis of her illness shaped the identity narratives White constructed in her life-writing and then used as the basis of her strongly autobiographical fiction. White’s self-narratives have skewed critical interpretations of her work; at the same time, her fiction has not been studied as expressive of affective disorder. By contextualising White’s work within the contexts of manic-depression and narrative identity, this study proposes a new model for reading White; documents the complex interplay of biological, psychological and environmental factors involved in affective disorder; and historicises the diagnosis and treatment of White’s illness in medical, psychoanalytic and Catholic contexts.
