Images of epilepsy in literature

Abstract

Literature primarily reflects and affirms existing attitudes and conceptions regarding the epilepsy population. In the fiction of many nations for many centuries, individuals with epilepsy have emerged as evil or saintly, as geniuses, or as objects of pity whose lives were not worth living. The character who had epilepsy was outside the realm of personal identification--too far beneath or too far above us. Nevertheless, there were exceptions. Literature, as well as film and television, especially in the last 2 decades, has shown both readers and audiences that there are human beings who have epilepsy (rather than who are epileptics). These human beings are simply part of the continuum of what we know as normal: no more and no less than merely human.