Yesterday during the panel presentation, the idea arose that Antoinette was not fully mad by the end of the book. Several students were saying that of course Antoinette is mad, that you cannot argue otherwise, because obviously society claims that she does not act normally, and therefore she could not be sane. It does not matter how she became mad or why, but simply that she is mad.
I would like to dispute this argument by drawing a connection between societal perceptions of Antoinette and Meursault. Society writes off Antoinette as mad because she tries to kill her uncle and because she says weird things and acts oddly; society writes off Meursault as guilty because he killed a man, and therefore must be guilty. Society cannot understand either of their actions, and it decides that the character is guilty or mad by default. But society only tries to figure out why, and to what extent, in Meursault's case. Unfortunately, in Antoinette's case, they feel secure in simply writing her off as mad, and not trying to legitimize or figure out why: they think of it as a hereditary issue. She has no trial, no defensive attorney, just a world of prosecutors to face. This in itself could drive her mad: in fact, I think it does.
Anyways, I think it is difficult for society to believe, to conceive, or to explain Antoinette's saneness for the same reason it is difficult to accept Meursault's innocence. Yet this does not mean that Antoinette is in no way sane, that Meursault is in no way innocent. Yet because we occupy Meursault's consciousness as he becomes guilty (during the murder scene), we can become easily frustrated by his prosecuting attorney. I see that Antoinette is in a similar situation as Meursault, but it is more difficult for the class to become frustrated with the society labeling her solely insane because we did not inhabit her consciousness during the transformation and thus do not have her perspective
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