Losing the plot: Twentieth-century literature's deconstruction of gender and love

In the nineteenth century female writers were only able to conceive of and construct two types of narrative endings for their gender: heterosexual love and marriage, or death. In response to this dichotomy many feminist writers of the twentieth century attempted to construct stories that transcend the interaction and interconnection between gender, heterosexual love and narrative closure. Novels such as Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and Margaret Atwood's Surfacing separate the concepts of the female and heterosexual love, but ultimately end in madness or paralysis. These texts, which sever the narrative from formerly conventional structures of fiction, may momentarily imagine a world devoid from the patriarchal expectation of heterosexual love yet they ultimately leave their characters with feelings of futility, confusion and resignation. This chapter argues that the narrative impact of separating female protagonists from heterosexual love is the creation of a new 'madwoman in the attic'; what I term the 'eternal madwoman'. Building on Rachel DuPlessis' Writing beyond the Ending, and the collection of writing Famous Last Words edited by Alison Booth, the chapter aims to offer possible responses to Marta Caminero-Santangelo's question, 'How can the symbolic resolution of the madwoman in fictional texts contribute to the transformation of gender ideologies?' Rather than reinforcing further ruptures in the female/love narrative, Maureen Murdock's The Heroine's Journey is seen as a possible framework for a more hopeful narrative world where descent and ascent and, in turn, the concepts of love and the female can be reunited.