Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Literature: Critical Essay by Claire Kahane

SOURCE: "Invalids and Nurses: The Sisterhood of Rage," in Passions of the Voice: Hysteria, Narrative, and the Figure of the Speaking Woman, 1850-1915, The John Hopkins University Press, 1995, pp. 34-63.

In the excerpt that follows, Kahane examines several major works of literature to reveal the structure of hysteria as an aggressive act of self-expression.