How Does Nellie Bly Use Dramatic Irony In Ten Days In A Mad House

Insane Asylums in the 1920-1930’s were disturbing places to live. Men and women were held in different wards, each ward had up to fifty patients (D’Antonio). Patients lived incredibly close to one another. Not one patient knew what

In this both heart wrenching and slightly humorous memoir, journalist Jeannette Walls tells the bittersweet story of her rather dysfunctional and poverty stricken upbringing. Walls grows up in a family trailed by the ubiquitous presence of hunger and broken homes. Throughout the memoir she recounts memories of moving from one dilapidated neighborhood to another with her three other siblings, insanely "free sprinted" mother, and incredibly intelligent yet alcoholic father. The author focuses on her unconventional childhood with parents who were too lazy and self-absorbed to obtain decent jobs. Although Walls's childhood gushes with heartbreaking tales of searching through dumpsters for food, she remains as unbitter as possible and

In Amy Bloom’s short story, “Silver Water”, the main character Rose takes her own life as a result to living with mental illness. Throughout the story the narrator, Rose’s sister, shows the difficulties of living with mental illness not only for Rose’s family, but also for Rose. A common obstacle for the family is getting Rose proper care; this is difficult because the family could not find long term insurance or doctor. In “ Silver Water”, Amy Bloom makes a point about how mental illness is treated; the specific point she makes is that mental illness is not taken as seriously as it should be. This is shown through how difficult it is for Rose to receive proper treatment.

"The Faithful Wife" by Barbara L. Greenberg is a fascinating, satirical account of what the speaker would do if she were unfaithful to her husband. Upon the first reading of this poem, I thought the woman in this poem was saying that her husband was irreplaceable and because of that she would never be unfaithful. Also I thought that if she did betray him, she would choose someone totally different from him, which somehow wouldn't dishonor this great man. However, with repeated reading, my opinion changed. Greenberg did an incredible job of revealing the truth of the situation. She used verbal irony to explain how the wife in the poem is actually revealing the relationship

“Now the position of a social worker in an asylum can be precarious. This does not look good for me or for you, does it?” (p23)

During the 1800s, treating individuals with psychological issues was a problematic and disturbing issue. Society didn’t understand mental illness very well, so the mentally ill individuals were sent to asylums primarily to get them off the streets. Patients in asylums were usually subjected to conditions that today we would consider horrific and inhumane due to the lack of knowledge on mental illnesses.

Mayella is able to lie her way to making Tom look guilty and win the case because of her power against a black man. However, no matter how powerless Mayella was according to her class and gender, her race in a racial society gave her the ability to win the case against Tom. Because of her low class status, Mayella Ewell’s family lives in their “home”, otherwise known as their shack, which is fenced by tree-limbs and broomsticks (Doc A). In an attempt to make their home look beautiful, Mayella decorated their yard with red geraniums. Mayella’s low class status is also shown when she misunderstands “ma’am” as a term of disrespecting her (Doc C) and being ignored by black people and by white people of a higher social class (Doc E).

Dix was greatly horrified to find that mentally ill women were confined with hardened criminals in a bare, foul-smelling, unheated jail room. After witnessing this she brought her findings to a local court, though her charges were denied they did improve the women’s living conditions. Only few institutions offered adequate treatment towards the mentally ill. Determined by her newly found knowledge, Dix sought to change the conditions of the mentally

Asylums of the 20th century were deplorable places created for insane people because of the ignorance of the medical community about helping or treating the mentally ill, the way the asylums were use to get the insane out of the way, and the sheer fact that the hospitals felt the need to withhold the information about what was going on inside the institutions from the public. Some Americans today may believe that in the last few decades we had treated our patients suffering with mental illness with dignity and respect. However, the conditions in which many of them lived and the treatment they received were worse than that of animals. Treatments of these patients were so inhumane that, in Athens, Ohio, an asylum nicknamed the Ridges, a female patient named Margaret Schilling disappeared from one of the active wards. Schilling went missing on December 1, 1978, and on January 12, 1979, her body was found on an abandoned top floor of ward N. 20. The ward had been used for sick, infectious patients, and had been abandoned for years. When searching for Schilling, employees had forgotten to search in ward N. 20. Eventually, when Schilling was found, a maintenance man discovered her body lying on the floor in front of a window. Her body had been laying there for several weeks unattended. According to Carolyn M. Zimmerman, Ünige A. Laskay, and Glen P. Jackson, her body was left laying for so long that it had begun to rot and had left a stain that can still be seen today. This

In this section of the legislature Dix discusses the evidence of the treatment at multiple towns asyulms. The memorial addressed the care of the patients with mental illness. In each place there is evidence of torture or inhumane treatment. Therefore, with this letter Dix hoped to persuade the government of Massachusetts to reform care for the insane. It was Dix’s first attack onto the government. The popular reaction to the report inspired Massachusetts legislators to enlarge the state psychiatric hospital by 60

For centuries societies have been superstitious and afraid towards mental illness; mainly due to a lack of knowledge. While there were “cures and treatments” for individuals that were deemed insane many were sent to either prisons or asylums. The conditions of these facilities were unsanitary, the physical and sexual abuse was frequent, and the staff was not properly trained to care for patients. Patients were also chained, caged, or restrained to beds in rooms that were often unheated.

Wright, D. (1997). Getting out of the asylum: understanding the confinement of the insane in the nineteenth century. Social History of Medicine, 10, 13

Insanity: the state of being seriously, mentally ill. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gliman the narrator spends a short three months in an isolated house that some are to believe is an insane asylum. She spends the days resting and the night time staring at the yellow wallpaper trying to figure out the pattern, and eventually on the last day of her stay, she escapes the wallpaper. The twist and turns of the creepy house drive the narrator insane. Her insanity comes to life because of the details of the house, her husband, and the isolation she is put under for her illness.

“Both the book and the movie are insightful views into societal problems such as stereotypes about the people who have mental disorders. But the film is largely out of date in terms of depicting hospital staff as manipulative or evil. From what I saw when I worked in a similar institution, mental hospitals are a calm, healing environments—as they should be” (Wind Goodfriend, 2012).

Nellie wasn't an easy girl to impress. Every day, she would walk out of a shop empty-handed. She was brave but cruel and would do anything to get herself what she wanted. She was greedy and selfish. She definitely won't be in Candor. She can be either be in Erudite, who would do anything just for knowledge or in Dauntless, who are, like her, brave and cruel. She hated cowardice and blamed it for the way humans are. She hated animals and if she saw a puppy on streets she would catch it and take it home. Many people who saw her on the streets would think of her as an animal lover, for they thought she was helping the puppy. But really she would starve the puppy to death or lock it in a