The Insanity Plea in The Butcher’s Wife

Abstract

In 1983, Li Ang, a Taiwanese writer, adapted a case about the killing of a husband, committed by Zhan Zhou Shi in Shanghai in 1945, into the novel The Butcher’s Wife (1983). The case is also recorded in The Hearsay in Shanghai (1955) written by Chen Ding-Shan. The Butcher’s Wife depicts a woman who, due to her traumatized childhood and psychological condition caused by her husband and neighbours, kills her husband, a butcher, and dismembers the body the way he does pigs. Li Ang’s novel tries to offer a legal explanation to exonerate the butcher’s wife, Lin Shi, through a plea of insanity. In this article, I will compare the case of Zhan Zhou Shi both in the media and in The Hearsay in Shanghai with The Butcher’s Wife to illustrate Li Ang’s reinterpretation of the case and explain how Li Ang goes beyond the insanity pleas that strengthens a stereotypical image of insane female offenders.