The Quiet Room : A Journey Out Of The Torment Of Madness

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.

The tragedy could not have come at a worse time. Her husband, an academically brilliant mind, was unexpectedly diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was preparing for an academic career. The demands of mental illness interrupted their family

As I read On Being Sane in Insane Places and Mike’s musings I found both readings interesting. It really surprised me that Rosenhan called up eight friends and said “Are you busy next month? Would you have time to fake your way into a mental hospital and see what happens, see if they can tell you’re really sane?” (Slater, 2004) to know that those eight people were willing to pretend to be insane for an experiment; to give up their life, family and friends for a month to go live in a hospital with others in hopes to gain some knowledge from it all. If it was me, I would have been worried of what might have happened if the experiment went wrong or if the doctors would have figured out I was lying.

Madness is what essentially haunts humans. Whether they are born with it or it is brought upon, it leaves a blurred rush of lunacy in its habitants minds. Competently so, a handful of these beings can write and express these tangled minds into compositions that leave the reader cognized and fascinated. Respectably, an author that always seems to come along any viewer’s mind is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, known especially for her controversial short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. The piece deals with a woman who is on a forced vacation from her conventional role as a wife and a mother, diagnosed and treated by her doctor as well as her husband for a slight case of depression. Her primary “treatment” for this is predominantly a week-long stay in an ugly, yellow wallpaper-covered secluded room where she sits and “rests” mostly alone for an extended period of time. In the story, Gilman confronts ideas of isolation from her main character’s world, drawing out attributes from wallpaper and its designs to represent the escape from the society in which she lives in. Alike, she also ties the ideas of loneliness into this character’s stream-of-consciousness by discussing her situation in a passive mindset. Moreover, by using different symbols and stream-of-consciousness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman illustrates the deterioration of a female’s mental health when forced into isolation in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper.

I think the central intervention of The Insane is how those with the powers to be use confinement on those labeled as "insane" in order to avoid or suppress scandal/contagion; in doing this those confined became a source of entertainment and "a public scandal for the general delight." Foucault displays the contradiction used toward the "insane" or madmen that occurred during the eighteenth century and Renaissance period very clearly throughout the text. I wonder how many "sane" people were put through the hardship in these asylums and in turn became insane due to it, or how many people pled insanity to avoid further

As I glanced around the small room, I realized for the first time in my life, I'm addicted. Addicted to these people who aren't here, addicted to lying, addicting to the voices. They're always here. I like them here. They're comforting, most of the time. They're just hallucinations, but they're my only friends.

One day there was a bunch of friends together. They didn't know what to do,but they had a crazy idea they wanted to go to the creepy insane asylum. It was ten o'clock at night they got into the house and it was very dark.They heard footsteps when they got upstairs they didn't know what to do. There was a bunch of glass everywhere and they saw a body lying there all bloody and there was like horns in it.

The Oxford dictionary defines madness as “The state of having a serious mental illness”. Madness has been construed in several different ways throughout centuries and literature. Before and during the Middle Ages madness was mostly seen as a suggestion of sorcery/witchcraft or demonic possession, or an imbalance of the humors- blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm, or as an effect of the moon (since it was believed that madness was caused as a result of sleeping in a place where the moon beams struck a person’s head and thereby the word lunacy was derived from the Latin word “luna” for moon). However, some considered the mentally ill to be divinely gifted, that is, being gifted with the power of speech/words (poets, writers, etc) and thereby the treatment and attitudes towards the mentally ill varied from exorcism, confinement, trephination (used for people who were thought to be possessed by demons and involved drilling a hole in the person’s head to drive evil spirits out of the body), whipping, etc. The sixteenth saw the establishment of asylums and hospitals which accommodated and confined the mentally ill, destitute and vagabonds, the jobless and the outlaws. All the unwanted people or the undesirables were shunned by the society and sent to these institutions. St. Mary of Bethlehem in London which was popularly known as Bedlam and the Hopital General of Paris were two well known institutions that housed the mentally ill during the sixteenth and seventeenth

The 1950s was an era of civil conflict for the United States. Although it the post World War II era and the United States was the world’s strongest military, there was a war going on within its own society. (Ginsberg, 1) This generation dealt with civil rights movements and communism at the home. (“The 1950s”) But with all the pressure of all that is going on around this how did this generation turn out? It was during this time that author Allen Ginsberg wrote his poem “Howl,” which was broken up into three parts. In his poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg uses an outlandish writing style in order to demonstrate the madness and imprisonment felt by his generation.

In each section she approaches different life themes organized by chapters, such as Faith, Fear, and Truth. In each chapter, she provides a very relatable perspective on the subject, as she writes from her role as a wife, a mother, a teacher, or even just a driver stuck in traffic. She uses every day examples of life ups and downs, and she provides a yogic perspective on how to navigate through it

While the speaker is not always her, and should not always be assumed to be the author, they seamlessly pair up with her life experiences. Her poems, and her novel simulate a ride on the road of depression, and mental illness, leaving the reader with an everlasting, chilling

Being rushed into the emerancy room was a rush. My heart was beating so fast and I felt like my world felt apart. Having to be huched up with multible Iv vires and on top of that being told not to panick, when all you wanted to do was scream and cry. Laying there thoughts ran through my minds. What did I do wrong? Am I being punished? God is it my time to leave this earth? I tried to find ways I could of got this but, nothing came to mind. It was so rare for me to get sick, I never get sick and to find that this sickeness was cancer, scared me.

A scream escaped Rue’s lips, when she awoke from her dream, as her hollow gray eyes darted back and forth, confirming her surroundings. Her arms ached from a memory of excessive pain from being beaten by her father in the dark basement of her large home. She was beaten for being smart, silly, or kind with her friends she had made, years ago. She wanted to be an author, but her father thought otherwise, and gave much disapprobation towards her. He wanted her to become business woman. In fact, it was all she could remember from her childhood, and now as a 17 year old girl, she lives with her mom who has the starting stages of alzheimer’s disease. Rue slipped out the habiliments of her bed, and made her way through the labyrinth of her home, to the bathroom. The wall were draped with red velvet arabesque tapestries, and the floors were always furnished.

The main focus of this extended essay is to identify and understand the interpretation Susanna Kaysen expresses about her mental health’s state throughout the book. During their teenage years, many people may face themselves with certain issues like the author did so I think that analyzing this book can be a very good way to help us understand more about aspects of mental health issues.

Fear and trauma are two significant emotions shown throughout gothic novels. In “The Asylum” by John Harwood, Georgina finds herself in Tregannon Asylum where she discovers the dark secrets of her family and the Asylum. Harwood uses terror to evoke the sublime by foreshadowing the coming of danger in the reader. Furthermore, Harwood uses terror to evoke the sublime by portraying fear of the powerful. In the novel “The Asylum” by John Harwood, the author captures the fear and trauma of his characters by evoking the sublime and creating a sense of terror for the reader.