In Miss Sophia’s Diary, Ding Ling has created a full and three-dimensional character of Sophia, who experienced multiple psychological struggles and exhibited the characteristics of “madness”. Foucault, Gilbert, and Gubar have explained that “madness” often has complex aesthetic connotations and metaphorical meanings in modern literary contexts. This paper uses feminist and psychoanalytic theories to analyze Sophia’s “madness”, exploring the social roots and spiritual roots of her madness, as well as the way to eliminate it, namely, the oppression of the patriarchal society, the conflict between the spirit and the flesh, and writing diaries.

Yuanchen Jiang. The Madwoman in Miss Sophia’s Diary. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2021) Vol. 4, Issue 11: 99-101. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2021.041120.

[1] Ding, Ling. I Myself am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Edited by Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge, Beacon Press, 1989.

[2] Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. 

[3] Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard, New York: Vintage Books, 1965. 

[4] Dai, Jinhua., Meng, Yue. Rising to the Historical Surface. Zhengzhou: Henan People's Publishing House, 1989.