Haunted : exploring representations of mental health through the lens of the gothic

The linking of mental illness and the Gothic is prevalent and persistent. In spite of sustained campaigns from mental health advocates to promote a realistic portrayal of mental health care and the services available, the public continue to be bombarded with perverse representations of its dark side. In this context, we explore three texts in which mental health is represented inorder to foreground their Gothic tropes – dark elements of the psychiatric experience, isolation, eerie landscapes, senses of foreboding, claustrophobia and entrapment, and the mad woman – proposing that this can assist awareness of how fear and stigma is established and maintained.