‘Tired Inside’: Illness as Social Resistance in George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart

Academic discussion has long limited the works of George MacDonald to their function as fairy tales and didactic narratives. This article explores the notion of illness as a form of resistance against the confines of upper-class femininity in MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart (1864). The article suggests that Adela’s mysterious illness, diagnosed as 'moral atrophy', is symptomatic of limits enforced by contemporary expectations for women, and that this incapacitating illness prevents Adela from fulfilling these expectations. Whether conscious or unconscious, the article explores both, Adela’s resistance against the duties of performative femininity necessitate her management by an all-male storytelling club who are tasked with restoring Adela to her role as dutiful daughter and suitable marriage-prospect. I argue that MacDonald uses illness to query contemporary gender ideals through Adela’s corporeal legibility, read through the lens of patriarchal medical theory.