Comparing the Treatment of Madness in The Bell Jar and The Yellow Wallpaper

Throughout Shakespeare’s many works, mental illnesses have played an undeniable part in many of them, especially his tragedies. From Lady Macbeth hallucination of a bloody spot leading to her suicide, to Hamlet’s faked illness and Ophelia’s very real illness, afflictions of the mind are featured prominently in the Bard of Avalon’s many works. Still, in the Elizabethan era, understanding of mental illness was rudimentary at best, as were the methods of treating it. During the Middle Ages and Elizabethan Era, numerous theories about mental disorders and how to treat them abounded. Three plays of Shakespeare’s that feature mental illness most prominently are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, while also managing to showcase the conception of

Generally people with mental issues are cast aside in society. The mentally impaired are immediately labeled as different. Questions on what to do with these people are common. In literature they are seen being locked into a tower room where they are forced to live their days peeling back the yellow wallpaper. This confines the characters to a world where it's just them and their insanity. These characters are present in many different stories. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Shakespeare's King Lear are two prime examples of characters suffering from mental disabilities and disorders. Although they are not locked in a tower, the mental illnesses are apparent when studying the Mad Hatter, Alice, King

Edgar Allan Poe was an extraordinary author whose horror and mystery stories leave an impression on readers even today. In some of Poe’s works, the narrator’s thoughts and actions make the reader question the narrator’s sanity. Two good examples are Poe’s poem “The Raven” and his short story “The Black Cat”; there is plenty of evidence to support that both of the narrators are not completely sane. In Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Black Cat,” both narrators exhibit symptoms of mental illness, including hallucinations, illogical thinking, mood swings, and substance abuse.

What happens when an individual descends into madness? This process is the focus of both Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.” Both texts use many structural techniques and literary devices to draw attention to the central idea of insanity. This insanity takes the form of a deviation from what the reader would consider normal. In spite of the two authors’ drastically different writing styles, one element remains constant, the masterful use of punctuation.

Sylvia Plath wrote a captivating novel following a young girl through her battle with mental illness. In her novel, Plath illustrated the extent of prejudice which society exhibited towards people with metal illness in the 1950's. Like Plath, Susanna Kaysen wrote about the effect of mental illness on the patient's lives. Kaysen also revealed how in the 1950's and 1960's, the unwillingness of society to come to terms with the prevalence of mental illness affected the girls diagnosed. Thus Plath and Kaysen brought to light the issues surrounding mental illness and society's negative views towards those who suffer from psychological issues.

During the nineteenth century, women and men played vastly different roles. While men had the free will to choose the life paths they desired, women lacked such privileges. Women, instead, were expected to tend to domestic responsibilities. Unlike men, they were unable to voice their opinions, instead, myriads of them lived monotonous lives with their, often condescending, husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, portrays a woman in the nineteenth century descending into psychosis. After the birth of her daughter, the unnamed narrator presumably endures postpartum depression and is forced into bed rest as a cure. In her male-dominated society, the narrator often feels as though she is at a loss of control over her life. Despite what she believes is best for her own betterment, her husband, John, overrides her inputs. She is stripped away from the outside world and left with nothing more than her concealed diary entries and the horrid yellow wallpaper of her bedroom. Although John seemingly wants the best for his wife, his dismissiveness towards her mental state and solicitations necessarily cause her to become deranged; her breakdown is a result of feeling powerless as she is encaged in a house she does not care for, restricted from her activities, and her inability to communicate effectively.

“When the Elizabethan era started… the most prevalent type of insanity was situational rather than biological ("Historical").Things like the death of family or loved ones was a big source of the madness.” ("Elizabethan Times”)

The term sane has many different perspectives and is truly questioned in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Sane in modern society is commonly known as the ability to have a sound mind, or not mentally ill. Although this book was written not too long ago, this definition of normality is insanely different. Nurse Ratched’s tyranny makes clarity of how “insane” the patients really are. Although the patients are considered abnormal, many of them could live on the outside world. Are they actually mentally-ill, or do they just not fit into the norm of society? Due to fear and lack of gut they choose to stay inside the institution. The difference between normality and insanity definitely has a distinct line between them. Sanity in

    In the late 1800's/early 1900's, when Charlotte Perkins Gilman experienced her episode of "temporary nervous depression" (Gilman 885), and wrote her autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," the workings of the mind were mysteries that few medical people attempted to investigate. A patient who was poor and ill-educated and exhibiting signs of mental disorder was institutionalized -- ala Bedlam. The patient who was rich, educated, and/or from a "good family" was called eccentric and given a prescription for complete mental rest and controlled physical exercise combined with the consumption of phosphorus enriched tonics. This regimen was to be followed in an environment

Mental illness plays such a significant role in these two gothic stories. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick Usher admitted to the narrator that he felt mentally unwell in his letter. Of course, the house was already messing with Roderick’s mind, but with lady Madeline in

First, let me start off by saying I loved what this book tries to shed light on. Mental Illness and Social Behavior. This book could be a trigger for those who deal with suicidal tendencies. Reading The Bell Jar, I felt the pathos that was heavily inlaid into the story of this semi-autobiographical novel and it melted my heart.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the story of a woman spiralling into madness whilst her physician husband refuses to acknowledge that she has a "real" problem. On the other hand The Black Cat by Edgar Alan Poe is about a man who is initially fond of cats however as the plot progresses he becomes an alcoholic making him moody and violent, which lead him to torture and kills the animals and eventually also his wife. In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt .The recurring theme present in both these stories is that the main protagonists claim that they suffer or have been taken over by a form of madness. In this essay I shall examine the

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, is as much a mystery as a tale about depression, madness and sanity. Shakespeare reveals how the scourge of corruption and decay rapidly spread; and the emotional consequences that follow. Insanity, madness and depression are as intolerable as corruption and deceit; and just as intertwined. The play makes one ponder if it is possible to be sane in an insane world full of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption? By examining the themes of melancholy, madness and sanity in Hamlet, Shakespeare details his character’s descent from depression to madness. Additionally, Hamlet’s psychological state can be

Whether it is a natural talent or an acquired skill; writing allows artists to bring their creative expression to life. Interestingly enough, there is a widespread belief that some writers develop their creativity and knack for writing through suffering from a mental illness. This belief stems from past research based on the relationship between madness and creativity, especially in the writing field. Katherine M. Thomas and Marshall Duke wrote the article, Depressed writing: Cognitive distortions in the works of depressed and non-depressed poets and writers. Their article focuses on digging deeper into the relationship between madness and writing by making an in- depth analysis of writing samples from depressed writers versus the writing samples of those who weren’t. Duke and Thomas found that there is a need for analyzing works of writing because it may provide understanding in the relationship, which will lead to an understanding of depression and mental illness. Due to this widely known relationship, some may look at mental illness in a positive light. This relationship may cause people to look at the distortions as simply art; thus, diminishing the severity of mental illness. When looking at psychological distortions from an artistic perspective, this may remove the humanity of the writer; therefore; it is important to analyze and seriously look for the signs of cognitive distortions because it may help us understand and possibly distinguish the relationship between

A/N: It's slow at the start but kinda explaining things and the way Maehys it was always going to be slow.