Feigned madness

"Feigned madness" is a phrase used in popular culture to describe the assumption of a mental disorder for the purposes of evasion, deceit or the diversion of suspicion. In some cases, feigned madness may be a strategy—in the case of court jesters, an institutionalised one—by which a person acquires a privilege to violate taboos on speaking unpleasant, socially unacceptable, or dangerous truths.

Modern examples

To avoid responsibility

To examine the system from the inside

Investigative journalists and psychologists have feigned madness to study psychiatric hospitals from within:

Historical examples

In fiction and mythology

See also

References

  1. Otto, Beatrice K (2001). Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World. University of Chicago Press. p. 113.
  2. Anne Wynne-Jones, Fascinating life of doctor, Lancashire Telegraph, 16 August 2011
  3. Haygood, Tamara Miner. "Malingering and Escape: Anglo-American Prisoners of War in World War II Europe" (PDF). Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  4. the story does not appear in Homer, but was apparently mentioned in Sophocles' lost tragedy The Mad Ulysses: James George Frazer, ed., Apollodorus: The Library, II:176 footnote 2; Hyginus, Fabulae 95 mentions the mismatched animals but not the salt.
  5. "Goodbyeee". BBC Comedy. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
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