The Politics of (In)sanity: Elif Shafak’s The Saint of Incipient Insanities and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Abstract

What is insanity? Is it only a psychological state or a discourse designed and established as something indubitable, unquestionable to serve the power? Elif Shafak’s novels, The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004) and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019) question and re-envision the existing concepts of sanity and insanity. Perhaps insanity is not simply a mental illness disconnected from social and cultural realities and politics. These concepts of sanity and insanity are often hegemonically created and propagated by several dominant groups in different power relations so that the hierarchical unjust structure can function smoothly. Sometimes, the demarcation between sanity and insanity is merely the demarcation between the dominant and the dominated. Insanity can be the result of different kinds of oppression but very often it is only a label for those who are against the grain. Any kind of nonconformity or difference is seen as a potential threat to the existing power-paradigm. Questioning the naturalised conventions, holding different opinions from what are considered as normal/ truth and raising voice against the customary crimes are considered insanity in societies. Whether such actions and responses are insane or it is just the obsession for a uniformed society that tries to label any forms of deviance from the structure as insanity — is the vital question that this paper tries to explore in the light of Shafak’s fiction.