Mad is an Everyday, Ordinary Word: Foucauldian Resemblance in Jerry Pinto’s Em and The Big Hoom

Abstract

In discussions of mental illnesses, writers of all cultures have dealt with narratives envisaging the frailty of the human mind. However influential such works of literature are, there remains a scarcity of analogous narratives from the Indian subcontinent. This form of illness is specifically constructed and controlled by the intellectual and cultural forces that operate within a society. This article analyses Michel Foucault’s theories of insanity in Madness and Civilization (1961) and draws on his ideas to interpret Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom (2014), a narrative of a family gruelling to hold together in Indian society while dealing with their bipolar, suicidal mother. This essay offers a potent insight into such people whose voices have traditionally been marginalised and suppressed. Though written in different decades, both texts help trace the development of psychiatry, societal stigma on the patients and caregivers and approach towards the mental health care system in India today, with sufferers already at an edge.