When madness becomes an artistic antechamber for resistance

Abstract EN

This paper aims to explore the concept of madness in artistic writing.

Fadia Faqir uses the trope of madness as an instrument of narrative in her novel Pillars of Salt (1996).

She creates a discourse in the utterances of the storyteller that is juxtaposed to a counter discourse in the utterances of the female protagonist from confinement.

Through this juxtaposition the reader could perceive the unreliability of the storyteller.

Though the female protagonist, Maha, is considered as mad, it will be demonstrated, through this paper, that this madness is rather a madness of non conformity and not a mental illness.

Maha's internment becomes a space for a counter discourse and her utterances a pretext to narrate proposing a reliable version of the story rather than a real state of unreason.