Madness as Resistance: A Socio-Psychological Analysis of Non-Conformity in Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Manto’s Toba Tek Singh

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16889018

Abstract

This paper investigates the concept of madness as a form of socio-psychological resistance in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sadat Hassan Manto’s short story, “Toba Tek Singh”. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault’s notion of madness, Emile Durkheim’s theory of anomie, and Branimir M. Rieger’s thought of madness in literature, this study examines political, psychological and social concepts of madness in conjunction with duality in social structures, human cognition and geographical boundaries.  In both texts, madness emerges not simply as an aberration from reason or sanity but as a narrative tool that critiques widely accepted and oppressive norms, whether moral, social, or political. Through a comprehensive close reading, it has been argued that Dr. Jekyll’s descent into psychological duality due to the overt emphasis of Victorian values on upholding benevolent appearances and Bishan Singh’s refusal to conform to Partition’s binary nationalism represent acts of rebellion against systemic repression. The study culminates in the deduction that in both Victorian England and Partition-era South Asia, madness serves not as a collapse of reason, but as a radical form of non-conformity and existential dissension.

Keywords: Madness, Resistance, Non-conformity, Victorian Literature, Partition Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Socio-Psychological Analysis