SOURCE: "Alice James: Neither Dead nor Recovered," in American Imago, Vol. 45, No. 2, Summer, 1988, pp. 127-62.

In the excerpt that follows, Cappello analyzes the relationship between femininity and self articulation within the context of hysterical illness, using Alice James's Diary as an example.

I. Illness and Femininity; Hysteria and Writing

As I listen to the work of particular women who have achieved voice in twentieth century English-speaking culture, Plath, Sexton, and Woolf, for example, I am led to the question of whether a woman can do the new things with words that her self-expression calls for without getting ill or being perceived as ill; and, further, if she can make the necessary aesthetic gesture that compels her toward a new position in the community, in language, and stay alive. It is a general question for now, but it grows, for me, out of the particular phenomenon of hysteria as...