The Importance Of Mental Ilursess In Victorian Literature

During the 1700’s the jails were not only used to confine criminals, but they confined people with mental illness as well. People with mental illness were subjected to inhumane treatment, even when the individual was admitted

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” has received wide praise for its accurate depiction of madness and the symptoms attributed to mental breakdowns (Shumaker 1985).   While these symptoms may seem obvious from today’s psychological perspective, Gilman was writing at the close of the 19th century when the discipline of psychology was still emerging out of a rudimentary psychiatric approach to treating the mentally ill. Though doctors have attempted to write about the treatment of insanity since ancient Greece, the history of madness has most often been characterized by a series of popular images, images that may have stunted the

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

Mental illness and madness is a theme often explored in literature and the range of texts exploring these is tremendously varied. Various factors can threaten a character's sanity, ranging from traumatic events which trigger a decline to pressure from more vast, impersonal sources. Generally speaking, writers have tried to show that most threats to sanity comprise a combination of long-term and short-term factors - the burning of the library in Mervyn Peake's novel 'Titus Groan' precipitated Lord Sepulchrave's descent into madness, but a longer term problem can be discerned in the weight of tradition which caused him to worry 'that with him the line of Groan should

Ten days in a madhouse is an experience of a woman who chooses to commit herself to an insane asylum. Nellie Bly decides to commit herself to an insane asylum in Blackwell Island to investigate the experiences which criminal inmates were considered to be insane are subjected to. The document is a first-hand experience of the author’s observation. Bly goes undercover to fix his insanity to be admitted into the asylum. The reason why he fakes insanity is to ensure that the author can document everything which is seen and experienced within the walls of the asylum that is built for the insane (Bly 24). This piece of literature is critical since it seeks to shed light on the ongoings of the asylum and provide sufficient information as a way of reducing the limited knowledge and addressing the speculation that surrounded the criminally insane. The observations are that a life of mistreatment of patients at the Blackwell asylum gives insight into the mental health care system. Notably, these investigations had a profound effect on the rights of women by providing information that enabled women to have a voice in society and to advocate for better conditions for the criminally insane. Although women’s rights have been on the forefront for quite some time, there is still much to be done to address women rights.

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.

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.

The doctor’s anecdote of his wife taking phosphates, tonics, journeys and air along with exercise was above reproach. If women had more of a voice, would approaches to treatment for mental illness have been more effective? Feeling powerless, the wife was relieved of her duties and cared for by her husband, the housekeeping was done by Jennie, her sister-in-law, and Mary cared for the baby.

During the latter portion of the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson published his novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The fin de siècle saw the rise of different thoughts and ideas surrounding science and society. These concepts and interpretations sparked the discourse surrounding the theory of degeneration; which was the concern that civilization would fall to a lower state of being. This chapter will be reading multiplex personality as a manifestation of this broader cultural fear. Stevenson’s story played upon the changes society was facing during this time and the interest in scientific explanations for mental illness. He creates the character of Dr Jekyll, a scientist who invents a potion to unlock his inner,

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

Psychological Condition Essay Many great works of literature revolve around characters who possess some type of mental sickness. It helps to keep the story interesting and forces you to look deeper into the character’s minds to find out what they are really thinking. In “Hamlet”, the Shakespeare play, the Prince Hamlet himself is observed to be quite messed up in the head, although nothing is actually confirmed. In contrast, Holden Caulfield from, “The Catcher in the Rye”, shares the entirety of his story from the bed of what is believed to be a mental hospital. After psychoanalyzing these characters as they go about their respective stories, it is clear that their psychological states are very similar, particularly when it comes to suicide and depression.

Until the late 1800’s when psychoanalysis was introduced, there was little to no distinction between classifications of mental illness. The female protagonist in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Bartleby of Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivenor” are both characters that seem to suffer from depression. Gilman’s narrator suffers from a ‘temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency’ that regresses into insanity and irrational behavior as Bartley is unmotivated, passive resistant and reticent. The regressing mental illnesses of the

Did women go undiagnosed with depression due to an idea of women having hysteria versus a legitimate mental health issues in the 1800s? In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, “The Awakening” and “Trifles”, the undiagnosed mental illness is apparent. All three women are suffering from some sort of mental illness and due to the oppression of women during those times; the mental illness was not addressed. In the “Yellow Wallpaper” and “the Awakening” these are cases where doctors and men close to them didn’t try and hurt them intentionally, however due to lack of knowledge and psychological care mental health illnesses were a major issue among women. Unlike Trifles this an example of how the oppression of women paired with a male who did not have the best intention can all result in the same way death, suicide, and complete madness!

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Silas Weir Mitchell were part of two worlds, one having to live and be treated for a nervous condition and the other having to study the conditions of nerves. Yet, in this particular moment in the late-19th century United States, one can detect a dialogue between doctor and patient in each of their short stories. That is exactly what is detected between Charlotte Perkins Gilman and S. Weir Mitchell. While both The Case of Dedlow and the Yellow Wallpaper use fiction to express themselves more thoroughly about mental health and science, The Case of Dedlow is more concerned with the aspect of scientific case study while the Yellow Wallpaper focuses on indicting science. This paper will compare and contrast the narratives of the aforementioned short stories and discuss the significance of their reception and how their audience understood them.

Victorian literature was produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), so Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) are bright representatives of the Victorian period because their famous novels such as “Jane Eyre” (1847, Charlotte Brontë), “Wuthering Heights” (1847, Emily Brontë), “Vilette” (1853, Charlotte Brontë), “The Professor” (1857, Charlotte Brontë), appeared during the Victorian period. Other leading novelists of the Victorian period were Charles Dickens (1812-1870), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), as well as many others. England in the 19th century experienced technological, medical, scientific and social advance due to the Industrial Revolution. So much of the writing of this time dealt with the pressing issues of the Victorian period. The following chapter will display main themes, characteristics and description of