In Pagli, madness can be read as the ultimate mark of female transgression. The main character, Daya, defies her obligations as a married Hindu woman existing within the striated society of Mauritius on several levels. Consequently, she is labelled Pagli (« the mad woman » in Hindi). Conversely, Daya’s imprisonment in a chicken enclosure by her husband’s family leads to a form of liberation. She reclaims the appellation Pagli because it a sign of her ability to escape her destiny as a woman. Because of her exclusion from the Mauritian Hindu society in which she exists, Daya becomes free of its limits and boundaries. She is thus able to comment on and to act upon it. This article analyses the three elements which constitute the triad of grotesque motifs, that is doubling, hybridity and metamorphosis by reading Daya’s doubled identity as a representation of the fractured, multiple identity of Mauritius. Her insanity is understood as a criticism of the Mauritian society, which, in seeking to divide its various cultures and peoples, has itself become deranged, and has ceased to function effectively. It is proposed that Daya’s madness is a kind of neutral third space (Homi K. Bhabha) in which a negotiation between the different cultures of Mauritius might be possible.