UW THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
Manipulating Madness into Existence:
The Abuser Behind the Abused
“I am no more mad than you are.”
Linus Ma
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will explores the intricacies of mental health, constructions of appearances, and the blurred lines between being mad and treatment of madness.
When examining the pranking, manipulation, and gaslighting of Malvolio, interesting parallels emerge with the treatment of people considered mentally ill or mad in Shakespeare’s time during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the early days of understanding mental health, London’s Bethlem Hospital, commonly known as Bedlam, housed people considered to be “mad”, or in today’s terms, those with mental illnesses. It was a prominent institution for treating such patients. However, the treatment of its patients were often a far cry from what we would consider as humane treatments. An example would be the first medically qualified ‘keeper’ of Bedlam, Helkiah Crooke. It was revealed that they had been falsifying accounts, stealing donations, and deprived patients of food and basic comforts. Furthermore, Beldam had become notorious for displaying patients as public attractions as a form of entertainment (Belarde), highlighting how individuals who are perceived as ‘mad’ or mentally ill could become targets of scrutiny, hostility, or amusement. The treatment of patients in Bedlam parallels Malvolio and how his “midsummer madness” (3.4.61) becomes a spectacle for people to ridicule. Shakespeare even mirrors his time in jail as akin to being in the Bethlem asylum as an attraction.
In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will, there are many avenues in which the characters’ psyche can be analyzed. A particular avenue that offers an interesting perspective on Shakespeare’s characters is manipulation, as well as the subsequent treatment and attitudes towards mental health. Specifically, Twelfth Night, or What You Will provides a nuanced take on the public’s outlook and reactions to madness. Moreover, these views serve as a reflection of the societal attitudes towards or against such afflictions during Shakespeare's lifetime (1564 – 1616).
To begin, let us consider the meaning of madness. What is madness? According to Joost Daalder, Shakespeare utilizes this word more often in Twelfth Night, or What You Will than in any of his other plays, and that it is “a state of mind in which a character seriously confuses reality as most of us see it” (105). While there are many characters that could be analyzed in relation to madness, Malvolio is by far the character in Twelfth Night, or What You WIll that most embodies such a definition. A defining moment for Malvolio is when he gets manipulated by Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Lady Andrea, and Feste into believing that (a) Olivia loves him and requests him to perform embarrassing acts, and (b) that these acts appear to be “mad”.
In addition, there is an interesting discussion around the act of diagnosing individuals with mental disorders or madness. In D.L. Rosenhan’s article, On being sane in insane places, he and his team conducted an experiment where they had eight mentally healthy subjects (pseudopatients) enter into different psychiatric hospitals to study if psychiatric professionals would be able to distinguish the mentally sane versus insane. His results showed that the psychiatric professionals were unable to do so, despite the pseudopatients dropping displays of symptoms when they were admitted into the asylums. During their time there, the pseudopatients experienced considerable psychological distress, reported desires to be discharged immediately after admission (Rosenhan et al., 252), as well as several other accounts of: powerlessness, depersonalization, segregation, mortification, and self-labeling (Rosenhan et al., 257). Rosenhan et al. note that one of the reasons professionals were unable to differentiate their patients with the pseudopatients was because of their very surroundings (Rosenhan et al., 257). Institutions and asylums impose an implicit biased lens where behaviours can be easily misunderstood.
Taking this context into account, Shakespeare’s depiction of Malvolio parallels the experiences of people institutionalized in asylums, such as Bedlam. It is established that although Malvolio himself is not mad, the construction of his appearance by the other characters in the play condemns him to be humiliated and abused, similar to those in Bedlam. Any action that he takes is perceived to be motivated by madness, and this perspective is confirmed by Olivia.
Shakespeare expertly uses Malvolio to raise the question of: who is mad? The abuser or abused? It is without question that Malvolio is viewed as unlikeable due to his strict, uptight nature and that “he thinks [...] that all that look on him love him” (2.3.149-150). However, does he deserve such a treatment? Is his crime simply being unlikeable and being prideful? Shakespeare thus presents a blurred line between being mad and being treated as such, and the consequences of such treatments.
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