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In Sights Unseen, a female narrator, Hattie, tries to probe into the unfathomable mental landscape of her mother, Maggie, who suffers from manic depression, perceived as the consequence of women's repression in the traditional South. This paper points to Gibbons's (re)conquest of women's devastated mental space through stylistic simplicity and narrative strategies inspired by Southern humour and story-telling. It also highlights the ambivalence of the mother's recovery, since the 'mysterical' woman who both challenged and/or complied with Southern phallocentrism is finally tamed and subdued. Such an ambivalent association of healing with submission testifies to the ambivalence—the bipolarity—of Kaye Gibbons's writing which does not break away from Southern tradition although she advocates liberation from patriarchal discourse.