People with mental illness … The art of storytelling should never be taken for granted. > Abstract The linking of mental illness and the Gothic is prevalent and persistent. At the beginning of the Gothic novel in the late 18th century, scholars were considering new ideas about human nature that considered a person in terms from his her her distance from the 'normal person', and used the term 'madness' flexibly to indicate a person's varying degrees of departure from the 'normal'. Melmoth also closely links madness and criminality, telling the sane man Stanton that "Experience must teach you that there can be no crime into which madmen would not, and do not, precipitate themselves; mischief is their occupation, malice their habit, murder their sport, and blasphemy their delight.". Mania. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Diary of a Madman, 1835 farcical short story by Nikolai Gogol. Madness, Madness (insanity) is a central theme in Gothic literature, although certainly this is not a Gothic invention. These films are also riveting contemporary popular culture narratives that are worthy of scholarly consideration that adds to that already in place. mental breakdown—particularly in Gothic texts’ weakest female characters. Print. In her book ‘Fashioning Gothic Bodies’ (2004), Catherine Spooner notes “a range of characteristic Gothic themes: sensibility, imprisonment, spectrality, haunting, madness, monstrosity, the grotesque.” We can see all of these Gothic themes at work in these films, even the one that would be seem to be the most distant from these modern depictions of mental health care — the hierarchies of feudal society operating in the asylums presented. > from politics to mental illnesses. While Jane Eyre maintains its roots in realistic fiction, Brontë draws heavily upon the Gothic tradition, particularly in the setting of Thornfield Hall and the character of Bertha Mason. Some patients put in an asylum for minor things like postpartum depression, anxiety, epilepsy, or even lust. The Victorians embraced the idea of the self in relationship to what is considered 'normal', then gradually changed their ideas about madness as a result of their expanding knowledge of science and evolution. I present it in this post as one trope, but madness is explored in many different ways in both the victims and the villains of Gothic literature, and the way it is presented has changed over time. Also, Romantics are extremists. Madness in Society : Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness . In fictional and historical portrayals, catastrophic ends … In 1824, James Hogg addresses similar concerns in his Gothic crime story Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Poe’s choice of writing King Lear, Don Quixote and Ophelia are certainly famous examples of earlier famous mad-people in literature. Print. My Account | Madness in Poe's Gothic tales is being studied in two ways: mental alienation and madness doesn't versus reason. Any modern-day zombie story, detective story, or Stephen King novel owes a debt to Poe. Literature is a valid resource to learn more about complex issues, including mental health and trauma. Mental illness, or madness, is a common theme in Gothic literature, and 'Dracula' is no exception. Over the course of the development of the Gothic, theories concerning the causes and nature of madness changed. Madness became less a moral or social failing than a biological regression, in which the person slipped back in evolution to a state just before the most recent advancement, which the Victorians held was the ability to reason effectively. Mental illness at that time was thought to be of the following types: Melancholia, or depression. In fact, books can also play a vital role in mental illness recovery, and “bibliotherapy” considers reading as therapeutic in understanding emotions. This focuses on the dark elements of the psychiatric experience including terrifying periods of isolation; threatening institutions set in eerie landscapes; a sense of foreboding, claustrophobia or ultimately, entrapment; besides horrifying treatments. In many cases, as David Punter and Glennis Byron suggest above, dark pasts of mental instability — personal or generational — haunt the present in these narratives, such as in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847) and Emily Jane Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847), while another characteristic of mental illness, “hyperbole and excess” drive many Gothic dramas. Josh Boyd continues this linkage of the grotesque and fearful and insanity — similarly finding that Southern Gothic fiction is “characterized by grotesque characters and scenes, explorations of abnormal psychological states, dark humour, violence, and a sense of alienation or futility.” In many cases, as David Punter and Glennis Byron suggest above, dark pasts of mental instability — personal or generational — haunt the present in these narratives, such as in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847) and Emily Jane Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847), while another characteristic of mental illness, “hyperbole and excess” drive many Gothic dramas. Characters grappling with mental illness or spiritual angst are often par for the course, as are manifestations of the supernatural — or what appears to be so. Become a member and unlock all Study Answers. To investigate mental health with the Gothic, we explore contexts in which mental health is represented in order to foreground the Gothic images and tropes they contain, proposing that this can help readers to be more aware of how a sense of fear and stigma can be developed and established in such representation. Mentally ill people often wandered the streets begging for provisions, and usually got none. Glossary In the early nineteenth century, popular understandings of madness permitted two categories, according to Colley: mania, or delirium in which a patient showed “violence, tempestuous passion, and fury”; and melancholia, or what would today be called depressive disorders (13). One example of this is in Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, in which the wanderer himself describes the sensation of insanity in fine detail, saying "You will echo the scream of every delirious wretch that harbours near you; then you will pause, clasp your hands on your throbbing head, and listen with horrible anxiety whether the scream proceeded from you or them." The Dullahan and Banshee in Irish Celtic Fairy Tales, The Gothic Horror Momentum In Graphic Novels. Abstract A Monster in the House: Gothic and Victorian Representations of Female Madness explores female madness and mental illness as perceived by Gothic and Victorian society over the span of three literary works: The Fall of the House of Usher (1839); Jane Eyre (1847), and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). Adolescent mental health is a growing concern in the United States, with researchers estimating that between 20 and 32% of American adolescents experience a mental health problem in any given year (Patel, Flisher, Hetrick, & McGorry, 2007; Blanco et al., 2007). Delirium, which was considered to be abnormal behaviour often accompanied by fever. In the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, written by the poet Edgar Allen Poe during the romantic period, it sheds light into a time where there was much darkness, mental illness, and an overall negative phycological outlook and misunderstanding to certain societal and personal identifications. Perhaps this is why insanity crops up as one of the most common themes in Gothic literature. OAKCLIFFE HALL OR THE FATAL EFFECTS OF FEUDAL QUARRELS. she was born in England. About | Catcher in the Rye by J.D. 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