This article examines the representation of women’s madness in the novel Misiá Señora by Albalucía Ángel to argue that the protagonist’s diagnosis of madness and subsequent institutionalization serve as a social construct, lack a scientific foundation and function as mechanisms of social discipline. I contend that the psychiatric procedures to which she is subjected operate less as therapeutic interventions than as punitive correctives aimed at regulating her defiance of patriarchal authority and her transgression of normative gendered behavior. This essay begins by reviewing scholarship on the novel that does not question the mental health diagnosis attributed to the main character. It then undertakes a close reading of the protagonist’s institutionalization to demonstrate how Ángel’s novel reveals madness as a device to neutralize women who resist socially prescribed roles. The analysis draws on feminist critiques of the “psy” disciplines—particularly those that interrogate the gendered construction of mental illness and the historical role of these disciplines in policing women’s bodies, emotions, and conduct. The conclusions highlight that, in Misiá Señora, the protagonist’s pathologization functions as a disciplinary tool that reinforces hegemonic gender norms by framing dissent as clinical deviance and justifying coercive forms of control.
Diana Vela (Fri,) studied this question.