Nellie Bly 's A Mad House She Goes On Crazy Trip Through A Lunatic Asylum

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

Nellie Bly faked insanity and got into an asylum to journal in New York City. She wrote a book about her brutal experiences at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwells Island called 10 Days in A Mad House. Nellie wanted to get herself checked into the asylum because she read about the horrible conditions of other asylums. Her main goal was to expose the asylum and get help for the mentally ill. Nellie wondered as she asked her editor “How will you get me out, after I once get in?” “I do not know.” he replied, “but we will get you out even if we have to tell who you are.” Nellie didn’t have much faith in her plan to deceive the insanity experts, although, the plan worked. Nellie reported from the mad house, extreme temperatures, abuse from the workers, and rotten food. Not to mention, they were forced to sit on a cold hard bench from 6 A.M until 8 P.M, and if they moved or talked, they would be beaten. Nellie states “ the asylum was in such

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

In Bly’s time, mental illnesses were not taken seriously. Bly described the asylum she was admitted to as overcrowded, cold, and dirty (ch. 7). It defeated the purpose of trying to give extra attention to those in need. It was easy to get admitted into an institution, but nearly impossible to make it out because the treatment was not treatment.

Until the medical breakthroughs that we have made in the modern day, psychology as a science was not fully understood. Modern technology has given us a clearer idea of psychology, but in the past there was less known about the science. This alongside a predominantly male medical discourse led to a medical diagnosis in many women called hysteria. Female hysteria was a medical diagnosis given to specifically women as far back as the ancient Greek civilization. Hysteria started as a supernatural phenomena, but as medicine evolved it would be described as a mental disorder, (Tasca). Hysteria. in actuality, is an absurd and fabricated diagnosis that institutionalized and discriminated countless women. The way it makes a women feel, and the fact that it strips a woman of any sort of free will is a sickening display of blatant misogyny. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly displays not only the misogyny, but the torture a woman must face trapped under a hysteria diagnosis. Hysteria as a diagnoses fails to effectively treat many women, instead leading to the mistreatment and wrongful institutionalization of women.

In her first journal entry Kaysen tells how the decision for her to go to McLean Hospital was based on a twenty minute conversation with a psychiatrist. Kaysen had been picking at her acne and been acting out in ways which would not be considered unusual for teens today, but at the time it was a sufficient excuse for commitment to an institution. In an interview, Kaysen further develops the idea that her illness was influenced by outside factors saying, “ [Her] retrospective account of her confinement at McLean Hospital makes a cultural intervention that challenges the notion that mental illness is rooted solely in the individual.” (Kaysan, 18). Being surrounded by girls with serious illnesses forced Kaysen to assume the role of a girl with a real mental illness. Society forced her to find something wrong with herself in an attempt to fit in. Kaysen questions what mental illness truly is. She asks,“Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?” (Kaysen 41). Because Kaysen was labeled as being mentally ill although she was not, it became hard for her to tell what truly pronounced someone as mentally ill. Was everyone slightly crazy or were just some better at hiding it then others? Living in such an uptight society, people had no choice but to put on an act of perfection. When someone began to “drop the

Although the 19th century expansion of asylums in Europe and The United States was a movement initially based on moral principles, it led to significant negative implications for individuals, who were institutionalized as asylums became overcrowded, lacking hygiene, neglectful of patients and an overall place for poor living conditions (Wright, 1997). The rise in in-patient population in the early 19th century and patients’ inabilities to reintegrate into the community as a result of institutionalization have often been explained in terms of the mental health system and developments in psychology at the time. Sociologists on the other hand, have argued that these institutions have caused people to remain institutionalized. A compelling

The mentally ill were cared for at home by their families until the state recognized that it was a problem that was not going to go away. In response, the state built asylums. These asylums were horrendous; people were chained in basements and treated with cruelty. Though it was the asylums that were to blame for the inhumane treatment of the patients, it was perceived that the mentally ill were untamed crazy beasts that needed to be isolated and dealt with accordingly. In the opinion of the average citizen, the mentally ill only had themselves to blame (Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999). Unfortunately, that view has haunted society and left a lasting impression on the minds of Americans. In the era of "moral treatment", that view was repetitively attempted to be altered. Asylums became "mental hospitals" in hope of driving away the stigma yet nothing really changed. They still were built for the untreatable chronic patients and due to the extensive stay and seemingly failed treatments of many of the patients, the rest of the society believed that once you went away, you were gone for good. Then the era of "mental hygiene" began late in the nineteenth century. This combined new concepts of public health, scientific medicine, and social awareness. Yet despite these advancements, another change had to be made. The era was called "community mental health" and

The narrator describes the house as looking like "A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, almost like a haunted house..." (Gilman par. 2). It would not be uncommon for an asylum to feel like it is haunted. Also the older mental institutions had a colonial look to them which added a touch of suspense to the building. Another reason the narrator thinks she is living in a mental home is because the house she is living in is out in the middle of nowhere "There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down from the house" (Gillman 58). Usually insane asylums are out in the country and have a long lane that leads up to the house. John gives a couple hints that they are at a mental institution as well because he says " after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on" (Gilman par. 50). Normal houses do not have barred windows and gates at the top of the stairs. Mental institutions would have these to keep the patients from escaping and to isolate the patients from the workers. Another reason the narrator makes it seem like a mental hospital is that she says the house has the "most enduring odor she has ever met" (Gilman par. 177). Usually mental hospitals have a distinct smell to them that an ordinary house would not have. The narrator describes the first floor rooms to John and says " then let us go downstairs," "there are such pretty rooms there" (Gilman par. 52). In a mental home, the nicer rooms are probably downstairs for the staff while the rooms for the patients are probably upstairs and isolated from the staff. The narrator does not feel comfortable because she feels like she is living in a mental institution and that is definitely not what she needs to get

What comes to mind when you hear the words “insane asylum”? Do such terms as lunatic, crazy, scary, or even haunted come to mind? More than likely these are the terminology that most of us would use to describe our perception of insane asylums. However, those in history that had a heart’s desire to treat the mentally ill compassionately and humanely had a different viewpoint. Insane asylums were known for their horrendous treatment of the mentally ill, but the ultimate purpose in the reformation of insane asylums in the nineteenth century was to improve the treatment for the mentally ill by providing a humane and caring environment for them to reside.

Unfortunately, asylum founders could only guess at the causes of insanity. Patient after patient was admitted into the state hospitals, but the cause of their disturbance was often a mystery. Many were inflicted with various organic diseases, like dementia, Huntington’s disease, brain tumors, and many were in the third stage of syphilis. With no treatments available, providing humane care was all that could be done. In the years following the civil war American cities boomed and the asylum began struggling to keep up. Soldiers, freed slaves, and immigrants were stranded in a strange land. The asylum became organized more like a factory or small town. There were upper and lower classman, bosses and workers, patients with nothing, and patients with privileges. Sarah Burrows, a schizophrenic and daughter of a wealthy doctor had a ten bedroom house that was built for her on the hospital grounds. Burrows home was just a stone’s throw away from the hospital’s west wing, where over sixty black women slept side by side. (Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America). The hospital began to rely on the free labor the patients provided. However, isolating the hospital from the community meant there was no way of knowing what was happening inside the asylum. The asylum became a world apart. In the 1870’s, Elizabeth Packard, a former patient of St. Elizabeth’s, wrote about her mistreatment and abuse

Defined as a functional disturbance of the nervous system, hysteria is marked by convulsions, etc. and is usually attended with emotional disturbances and enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and intellectual faculties. According to the Oxford Dictionary, women are much more liable than men to hysteria, and it was originally thought to result from a disturbance of the uterus. As a result, hysteria “had served in the nineteenth century as the representation of women” (Heath 104). Another minor female character, Jekyll’s housemaid, experiences this phenomenon when she “[breaks] into hysterical whimpering” and “[weeps] loudly” (Stevenson 28). Considering hysteria as a female affliction, it makes sense that the female housemaid experiences this, but Hyde, a male character, also experiences

Is Hysteria, like nervousness, a legitimate medical problem or was it a way for women to escape the harsh realities of their lives or receive attention from their neglectful husbands? In the Los Angeles Times short article “Shattered Nerves” published in 1889 a normal school girl’s sanity is questioned. Brought before Judge Cheney, Alice Miller was deemed not insane and was sent to State Normal Institute for a year. “After a thorough investigation the commissioners decided that, while exhibiting much nervousness, the young lady is not insane…It is thought that this has affected her so severely that her nervous system has gone to pieces…and is affected with melancholia” (“Shattered Nerves”). The article concludes with, “There will be another examination Monday, when it will be decided what to do with the young lady.” This article does not detail what could have brought on Alice Miller’s nervousness, was it due to schooling or stress? Along these lines, women at the time were not allowed to pursue a higher education because too much stress would cause menstrual problems and that would mostly likely result in insanity. Could Alice have been overwhelmed due to school, was there a family issue occurring, was she on her menstrual cycle or could her nervousness been caused by the weather? The Los Angeles Times article “A New Crank,” a more severe case, an unnamed woman who was immensely fulfilled by her spirituality believed that she was meant to take

In this selection, “Ten Days in a Madhouse”, by Nellie Bly, the author confronts the prejudice and hierarchy in society as she takes on an undercover assignment investigating the brutality and discrimination at Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. Bly

Joan Busfield’s article also inspired this dissertation’s research concerning the gender anxiety of nineteenth-century mental illness. Busfield argued there was not a clear difference between women and men being admitted to the asylums based on ground of insanity. I found this interesting considering there was a social anxiety that women were committed