Monomania
Encyclopedia
In 19th century psychiatry
, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania
) is a single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed
with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas. In 1880, monomania was one of the seven recognized categories of mental illness. After the 1850s monomania faded as a diagnostic category in psychiatry, and does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
. However, a number of disorders once classified under monomania survive as impulse control disorders or conduct disorders or delusional disorder
s.
In general terms, many of the disorders previously classified as monomania now are identified as varieties of impulse control, conduct, or delusional disorders.
describes monomania in Eugenie Grandet:
Additionally, in Balzac's novel Lucien De Rubempre, the title character is referred to as in a hallucinatory state similar to that of a monomaniac.
Monomaniacal fear is explored in great depth in M. E. Braddon's novel, Lady Audley's Secret, through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:
In Emily Brontë
's Wuthering Heights
, Heathcliff
is described as a monomaniac, obsessing over his reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel.
In Crime and Punishment
, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
, the main character, Raskolnikov, is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions.
It is said that Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois and their bêtise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania.
In a 1993 Outside magazine article about Christopher McCandless
that he later expanded into the best-selling book, Into the Wild (which was also made into a film
), Jon Krakauer
summarizes the portrait of Christopher painted by friends, family, and schoolmates thusly: "McCandless could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well, characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed to intensify throughout his college years."
In Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
(1851), Captain Ahab is a monomaniac, as shown by his quest to kill Moby Dick. One particular situation where he is shown as a monomaniac is in the crew's first encounter with the whale, stating:
The 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe
would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania, becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental and/or physical destruction. Poe uses the theme of monomania in:
In H.G. Wells' The Time Machine
, the time traveler states that "To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania."
, is eventually diagnosed with peace monomania.
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
) is a single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas. In 1880, monomania was one of the seven recognized categories of mental illness. After the 1850s monomania faded as a diagnostic category in psychiatry, and does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...
. However, a number of disorders once classified under monomania survive as impulse control disorders or conduct disorders or delusional disorder
Delusional disorder
Delusional disorder is an uncommon psychiatric condition in which patients present with circumscribed symptoms of non-bizarre delusions, but with the absence of prominent hallucinations and no thought disorder, mood disorder, or significant flattening of affect...
s.
Types of monomania
Monomania may refer to:- de Clerambault's syndrome (erotomaniaErotomaniaErotomania is a type of delusion in which the affected person believes that another person, usually a stranger or famous person, is in love with him or her. The illness often occurs during psychosis, especially in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar mania...
): Delusion that a particular man or woman is in love with the patient. This can occur without reinforcement or even acquaintanceship with the love object. - Idée fixeIdée fixe (psychology)For other uses, see Idée fixeAn idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind held so firmly as to resist any attempt to modify it, a fixation. The name originates from the French [French : idée, idea + fixe, fixed]...
: Domination by an overvalued idea, for example, "staying thin" in anorexia nervosaAnorexia nervosaAnorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate... - KleptomaniaKleptomaniaKleptomania is an irresistible urge to steal items of trivial value. People with this disorder are compelled to steal things, generally, but not limited to, objects of little or no significant value, such as pens, paper clips, paper and tape...
: Irresistible urge to steal - ParanoiaParanoiaParanoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
: Delusions of persecution - PyromaniaPyromaniaPyromania in more extreme circumstances can be an impulse control disorder to deliberately start fires to relieve tension or for gratification or relief. The term pyromania comes from the Greek word πῦρ . Pyromania and pyromaniacs are distinct from arson, the pursuit of personal, monetary or...
: Impulse to deliberately start fires
In general terms, many of the disorders previously classified as monomania now are identified as varieties of impulse control, conduct, or delusional disorders.
In literature and film
Honoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
describes monomania in Eugenie Grandet:
- As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a monomania.
Additionally, in Balzac's novel Lucien De Rubempre, the title character is referred to as in a hallucinatory state similar to that of a monomaniac.
Monomaniacal fear is explored in great depth in M. E. Braddon's novel, Lady Audley's Secret, through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:
In Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
, Heathcliff
Heathcliff
Heathcliff may refer to:* Heathcliff , a comic strip about a cat of the same name** Heathcliff , a cartoon based on the above comic strip, produced by Ruby-Spears...
is described as a monomaniac, obsessing over his reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel.
In Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, the main character, Raskolnikov, is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions.
It is said that Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois and their bêtise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania.
In a 1993 Outside magazine article about Christopher McCandless
Christopher McCandless
Christopher Johnson McCandless was an American hitchhiker who adopted the name Alexander Supertramp and hiked into the Alaskan wilderness in April 1992 with little food and equipment, hoping to live for a time in solitude...
that he later expanded into the best-selling book, Into the Wild (which was also made into a film
Into the Wild (film)
Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama film directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless with...
), Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer is an American writer and mountaineer, primarily known for his writing about the outdoors and mountain-climbing...
summarizes the portrait of Christopher painted by friends, family, and schoolmates thusly: "McCandless could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well, characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed to intensify throughout his college years."
In Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
by Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
(1851), Captain Ahab is a monomaniac, as shown by his quest to kill Moby Dick. One particular situation where he is shown as a monomaniac is in the crew's first encounter with the whale, stating:
- But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. ... so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand-fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any reasonable object.
The 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania, becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental and/or physical destruction. Poe uses the theme of monomania in:
- "BereniceBerenice (short story)"Berenice" is a short horror story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835. The story follows a man named Egaeus who is preparing to marry his cousin Berenice. He has a tendency to fall into periods of intense focus during which he seems to separate himself...
" (about a madman who gets obsessed with the teeth of his cousin and fiancee Berenice) - "The Black CatThe Black Cat (short story)"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"...
" (a man fears his cat and kills it, adopts another cat, kills his wife, and is then punished by the cat) - "The Fall of the House of UsherThe Fall of the House of Usher"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
" (The main character Usher is obsessed with the fear of death) - "The Masque of the Red DeathThe Masque of the Red Death"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death" , is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a...
" (a prince fears a terrible disease but finally gets ill from the red death and dies) - "The Oval PortraitThe Oval Portrait"The Oval Portrait" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842.-Plot summary:...
" (about a painter who is obsessed with painting his wife) - "The Tell-Tale HeartThe Tell-Tale Heart"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
" (a madman is obsessed with an elderly man's "vulture eye) - "The Man of the CrowdThe Man of the Crowd"The Man of the Crowd" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London, first published in 1840.-Plot summary:...
" (the narrator follows an old man wherever he goes)
In H.G. Wells' The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
, the time traveler states that "To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania."
Onstage
The eponymous protagonist of the musical, Johnny JohnsonJohnny Johnson (musical)
Johnny Johnson is a musical with a book and lyrics by Paul Green and music by Kurt Weill.Based on Jaroslav Hašek's satiric novel The Good Soldier Švejk, it focuses on a naive and idealistic young man who, despite his pacifist views, leaves his sweetheart Minny Belle Tompkins to fight in Europe in...
, is eventually diagnosed with peace monomania.
See also
- Idée fixe (psychology)Idée fixe (psychology)For other uses, see Idée fixeAn idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind held so firmly as to resist any attempt to modify it, a fixation. The name originates from the French [French : idée, idea + fixe, fixed]...
- Moral insanityMoral insanityMoral insanity is a medical diagnosis first described by the French humanitarian and psychiatrist Philippe Pinel in 1806...
- Psychology of Addictive BehaviorsPsychology of Addictive BehaviorsPsychology of Addictive Behaviors is a journal that publishes peer-reviewed original articles related to the psychological aspects of addictive behaviors.The journal includes articles on the following topics:*alcohol and alcoholism*drug use and abuse...
External links
- Marina Van Zuylen, Monomania: the flight from everyday life in literature and art, Cornell University Press, 2005, ISBN 9780801442988