Essay

1. Edward Correa
Humanities
2/2/10
Analytical Essay on Civilization and Madness
The ideology of madness because a rudimentary cycle that seems to challenge its
meaning as every age passes. From the Ship of Fools, Lunatic hospitals in Bethlehem,
and the diverse imagery of Art; we can only speculate and integrate “Madness” as a
spectacle seen at the horizon of human nature. Is Foucault’s imagery of Madness really a
self awaking system that only defines itself as human consciousness seems to evolve, or
is there really a justification for what we label Madness in our current state? Does
madness truly exist?
“At the end of the Middle Ages, leprosy disappeared from the Western world. In
the margins of the community, at the gates of cities, there stretched wastelands which
sickness had ceased to haunt but had left sterile and long uninhabitable.” Foucault
explains the plague of leprosy that existed in the middle ages and its profound effect on
the ideology of madness from our historical existence. Now do we see this as a plague of
madness or just a need for medical attention? Is the idea of unusual and unreason really
structure from a city plagued from a disease? The Ship of Fools, or its idea of, makes it
relevant to emphasize that the unconditional and differences push the comfort level of

2. humans. These two ideas, Leprosy confinement and Ship of Fools, explore the nature of
human characteristics in how we distinguish madness. This conscious shift is important
because madness defines itself. Leprosy is excluded from society while the healthy are
deemed accepted. Foucault would not deem this madness but rather a separation in
society but in its relevant state is it not the same? Are the un-sane and un-healthy also
excluded while the healthy are deemed accepted?
There is a permanent space that exists in which certain people can be defined and
excluded. The seventeenth century explains this when buildings are established for
confinement of “the poor, unemployed, the prisoners and the insane” (59). The link to
madness is very subtle, fragile, and can easily be manipulated. It seems as if animalistic
nature is significant in defining someone. The poor, unemployed, and prisoners are the
offset of a human balance. They seem to struggle to survive and will tend to animal
characteristics in order to live. It sets a principle in what is “human” and what is not. The
past contradicts this because the course of animalistic characteristics has now changed as
well. It comes back to the nature of language. The human tendency of now understanding
what cannot be explained. It’s easy to define someone as mad and confine them but does
that truly make them mad? Those confining the mad; are they themselves mad? Foucault
asks “What’s the unity that lies of confining such a disparate group of people?” (44)
Seeing the perspective of both opposite groups only contradicts each other and we have
to wonder whether this notion of madness is bound and exist in the laws of nature.
This idea of madness seems to appear itself whenever the truth seems to be
clouded in some form or fashion. Foucault explains his term of discourse, a system of
knowledge where false and true statements are entirely possible. This is our form of

3. imagination though. Our belief in our thoughts that is entirely impossible. Some choose
to express these ideas while others seem to shed them underneath an invisible blanket. It
is this blanket that underlies the nature of madness. Civilization tends to be weary of what
it cannot understand. It is language that defines it as mad and confines what is said to be.
We hand out degrees to help people with psychological problems. You never see the
inside of a mental hospital. The insane are often confine and never praised. The geniuses
that often see “madness” are never seen after their demise. It isn’t that madness actually
exists in the boundaries of nature. It is what we define it and forever shall it be that way. I
agree with Foucault about the controversy about the existence of madness. The mind and
body are connected in different manners and just because some fashions are clouded does
not mean we are to define it. There will always be a permanent space to define this term
but it will only existence as long as we believe that space truly exist.