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- Title
JOHN BROWN'S "MADNESS".
- Authors
GRIFFIN, CHARLES J. G.
- Abstract
This essay explores how divergent interpretations of John Brown's alleged "madness" in the aftermath of the Harper's Ferry Raid defined the meaning and import of his actions for the Republic's increasingly unstable social and political order. It argues that popular characterizations of Brown illustrate that "madness" can serve a number of rhetorical functions in the civic sphere. The essay first explores the popular etiology of insanity in antebellum America. It then argues that prevailing views of insanity in the mid-nineteenth century invited three metonymic interpretations of the origins of Brown's "madness"—and hence of the larger significance of his actions: Brown as pariah, Brown as pawn, and Brown as prophet. A concluding section discloses how these competing views may enrich our understanding of "madness" as a recurrent trope in American political and social controversy.
- Subjects
HARPERS Ferry (W. Va.); WEST Virginia; ESSAYS; BROWN, John; JOHN Brown's Raid, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 1859; MENTAL illness &; society; PUBLIC sphere; ETHICS
- Publication
Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2009, Vol 12, Issue 3, p369
- ISSN
1094-8392
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1353/rap.0.0109