The Book Of Margery Kempe ( Bmk )

Since Lynn was a busy town of commerce and trade, the middle-class inhabitants were wealthy. The status of Margery?s father, John, several times mayor of Lynn, helped to instill Margery with self-respect. She was very much influenced by the people of Lynn?s concern with status and wealth: ?She had a very great envy of her neighbors that they should be as well arrayed as she.? In her Book, she even goes so far as to say that her marriage to businessman John Kempe did no justice to her ?worthy kindred? and was a socially-imbalanced relationship, although they both belonged to the same social class. This haughtiness and sense of pride are distinguishing features of Margery throughout her life.

Margery Kempe: mother, mystic, mentally ill? Throughout The Book of Margery Kempe, Margery is burdened with the gift of tears. To onlookers, her behaviour seems erratic and threatening; strangers and acquaintances often wonder if devils possessing her cause her passionate wailing. Margery is often questioned about her tears, and isolated from people who fail to understand that she is one of Christ’s “chosen souls” (24). Margery sees these social difficulties as trials of her faith, and says, “For ever the more slander and reproof that she suffered, the more she increased in grace and in devotion of holy meditation” (Kempe 4). Even when her community berates her, she maintains that her tears are a gift and a form of penance, that her

“Postpartum psychosis is a severe psychotic syndrome that is estimated to occur after 1.1 to 4 of every 1000 deliveries. More than half of the affected women meet diagnostic criteria for major depression” (Weissman and Olfson 800). Postpartum depression is a further common mental illness than postpartum psychosis, however Margery Kempe displays serious symptoms. Several readers believe that Margery Kempe was a woman who devoted her life to God, however, after her first child was born Margery Kempe was recognizably sick due to the feelings that she should not live. In The Book of Margery Kempe, the first autobiography in the English Language, Margery Kempe displays the symptoms of hallucinations, crying episodes, and depression to show that she has postpartum psychosis.

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.

Trauma is an experience of such intensity, that it overwhelms the boundaries of the self. The intensity of trauma might indeed overwhelm psychological resources, fragmenting the idea of the ego and altering the ability to sense self, and distinguish reality from fragmented reality. From such trauma many issues may arise, including psychosis. Psychosis is characterised by an impaired relationship with reality and can be seen through a depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness or paranoia, withdrawal from family and friends, and hallucinations. Psychosis could mean a complete loss in being able to distinguish between truth and reality, and losing a sense of self. Literary works, through different literary elements can shape the meaning of

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Birthmark” you find a couple fairly prevalent disorders. Although psychology was as of yet not existence, Hawthorne describes them quite well. Alymer suffered from an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, while his actions caused Georgiana to develop a body dysmorphic disorder. Both of which attributed to the eventual demise of Georgiana.

Beatrice Hinkle, whose own interest in psychological processes led her to a medical degree and a psychoanalytic career. Beatrice overcome her grief

Starkey's "hysterical bobbysoxers" diagnosis has entered the popular canon and school textbooks, while Hansen's verdict of "hysterical in the scientific sense of that term” has been accepted as true by the majority of scholars, Demos, McMillen, and even Karlsen, who treat the cause of affliction as settled and go on to other projects. While I see the cause as not settled, I will look instead at the way the same descriptions of affect have produced such mutually exclusive interpretations -- fraud and illness -- and suggest why fraud went entirely out of fashion, after being accepted for over a century, while hysteria came into fashion oddly, only Upham allows a mixture of fraud and illness. I will suggest that these shifts in interpretation are not founded on any new knowledge or new theories of psychology, but grow out of changes in cultural and ideological attitudes, especially toward women, and that they are made possible by the ambiguities of historical documents, by inadequate analyses of the explanations that were available in 1692, and occasionally by poor reasoning on the part of the historians.

Then later on Margery has a literal marriage to God, followed by visions of angels, divine smells and music, and a warmth in her breast which lasts, she tells us, 16 years. One result is that she weeps when she sees a handsome man on the street, because it makes her think of Christ. Later on she elaborates on the marriage with a strong suggestion of a sexual consummation. Here and in the next chapter 37, there are more conversations with God and he promises to be closer to her. She is also told to resume wearing white, which her confessor allows because he sees it's God's will and doesn't dare object. Then God has her give away all her money, so that she must live on charity. She doesn't like this at all, but God reassures her with people who give her charity and help. Then a Priest came from England who helps her get back home.

Throughout history, mental illness has been labeled as a defining deformity, that harnesses in its “victims,” into a box, parallel to the familiar “mime in a box” image. In a world where we glorify “normality,” a lack of illness, which by all means is a gift, the beauty of one mind takes away from the beauty of an outlier, even though, ironically people may not even recognize their differences. Hester, at a glance suffers from a literal scarlet letter, but an imprint on her brain may exist as well. Irrational actions, sudden emotional episodes, and destructive thoughts can only prevail for so long following sin; Hester’s persona has branches of self-defeating personality disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. No one of her time, however, will bring the issue to light, Hester will be left known as the mistress, a witch, or “A,” rather than to explore her “complicated” condition. As decades pass, Hester’s state will remain, as the “A,” the mark of the stigma on mental illness today. When left neglected, society rejects the possibility that under a visible coating, mental deformities may lie; those who are divergent, who require affection more, are made subordinate, marginalized with no quest for a cure.

Considering the events of her life, would it be more realistic to consider that Mary Todd Lincoln went insane/ diagnosable to today’s standards of being bipolar, or was she just in a state of post traumatic stress? From the deaths of her 14-month old brother and mother during childhood, to the neglect she faced from her son later in life, it was clear that Mary Todd Lincoln certainly dealt with a considerable amount of stressors in her lifetime. Throughout this study, journal articles, websites, primary sources, and books were used to provide more insight on the details of her life and what she went through.

A comparative literary study of the effect of mental illness on the central characters is the semi-autobiographical novels The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Comparing two women trying to deal with mental illness and are trying to cope with the mental pressures they put on themselves and by other people. Although the differences between these two novels are The Bell Jar shows Esther’s life before she descends into mental illness whereas Susanna’s story is about her time in a mental institution and experiencing other patients who are in similar situations.

Before beginning her arguments towards the idea of Moral Saints, Susan Wolf distinguishes between two behavioural figures of

This is a wonderful monograph by Melissa Archer with a comprehensive study of the theme of “worship in the Apocalypse”. It illustrates various aspects of worship and the role of worship in the Apocalypse. The language of the book and different approaches to the theme are appreciated, because those are simple and clear to understand the theme.

Many people had different contrasting views of Anne Boleyn; on one hand she was viewed as a jezebel or concubine by the Catholics but at the same time she was viewed as a saintly queen by protestant writers. Both these conflicting portraits of Anne Boleyn have a degree of truth but at the same time are inaccurate. Through both of these characters Anne Boleyn’s relationship with Henry VIII caused many effects upon England during his reign such as