Mental Illness In Literature

Mental illness has always existed in society, but it is now becoming more acknowledged and subsequently treated. Especially in 19th and 20th century pieces of literature, mental illness is portrayed among characters, but is often not directly acknowledged as mental illness. Specifically Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf depict how mental illnesses differ among men and women and how it is generally stigmatized in society. In a patriarchal society, women are expected to be subordinate to men and emotionally collected enough to maintain a positive image, even though they are stereotyped to be more emotional to men. However, when women suffer from mental illness, men often utilize

their patriarchal power to isolate them to hide their conditions. In addition, women are frequently viewed as “mad” or “crazy” instead of the correct terminology. On the other hand, men are expected to maintain their masculinity by concealing their emotions and become societal outcasts if they display them. Therefore, these gender roles lead to mental illness being ignored and instead harm individuals of both genders.
In order to understand repression of mental illness throughout history, it is essential to understand the “rest cure.” In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was common for cases of depression and other mental illnesses among mostly females to be treated through this repressing method. Neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell’s treatment of “rest cure” consists of “bed rest, isolation, force-feeding, and massage” for people showing signs of mental illness (Stiles). Not only does this practice stigmatize mental illness among specifically females, but it portrays how during the 19th and 20th centuries, it was not socially acceptable for female mental illness to be visible in the public sphere. This also demonstrates patriarchal power because men take control of “treatment” of mental illness, instead of allowing women to seek their own methods of receiving help.
In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë portrays the differences between temporary and permanent madness, without specifically acknowledging mental illness. When Jane is trapped in the red room, she claims that her confinement is “‘unjust! — unjust!’... forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious through transitory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression — as running away...never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die” (Brontë 22). Jane lives an unsatisfying life due to lack of attention and general support from her family, but being locked away in this room brings out the worst of her inner emotions. This treatment is similar to the “rest cure” because she is temporarily separated from basic individual rights, which therefore dehumanizes her. Jane’s acknowledgement of the unjust nature and the manipulation of power of this situation portrays how treatments like the “rest cure” are forms of unfair oppression, especially for females. Brontë also describes the conditions of the red room as “yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought” (Brontë 23). This description demonstrates the emotional trauma caused by isolation and how her aunt possesses ignorance towards “I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down — I uttered a wild, involuntary cry” (Brontë 24). However, Jane’s mental state was only temporary because she is not confined for life and eventually gains her own mobility.
Bertha Mason’s portrayal in Jane Eyre depicts how the perception of mental illness as “madness” can have increasing detrimental effects on the individual. Mr. Rochester states that “Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; — idiots and maniacs through three generations!” (Brontë 326). Mr. Rochester’s repetition the word “mad” portrays how he is disregarding her mental illness, and instead dehumanizes her to justify excluding from society. Mental illness certainly can be inherited, but Mr. Rochester utilizes her familial patterns to avoid his fault of worsening Bertha’s mental health conditions. In addition, Mr. Rochester employs a method similar to the rest cure in which he locks Bertha “in that third story room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den — a goblin’s cell” (Brontë 348). Due to living in the Victorian era, Mr. Rochester resorts to the method of female isolation.
However, Bertha, or Antoinette’s portrayal in Wide Sargasso Sea demonstrate more insight into the reality of her mental illness and how Mr. Rochester worses her conditions due to his natural instinct to trust gender roles at the time. “I’ll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She’s mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me” (Rhys 99). “I shielded with my hand and it burned up again to light me along the dark passage” (Rhys 112 probably more from this page v important).
Septimus’s mental health and eventual suicide in Mrs.

Dalloway portrays how not only do gender roles impact mental illness treatment of females, but also males. “When Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably. The War had taught him” (Woolf 86). Even in a time of war, men are expected to cultivate their masculinity. Septimus at first feels numb when his best friend is killed due to the dehumanizing nature of war, by expecting soldiers to move on and not confront their inner pain. However, after the war “for now that it was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he had, especially in the evening, these sudden thunder-claps of fear. He could not feel” (Woolf 87). Woolf’s description of Septimus’s post-war reaction demonstrates how he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A study found that many veterans feel isolated from society because they only can relate with fellow war veterans and are often “reluctant to seek treatment” (Mittal 90). “So when a man comes into your room and says he is Christ (a common delusion), and has a message, as they mostly have, and threatens, as they often do, to kill himself, you invoke proportion; order rest in bed; rest in solitude; silent and rest” (Woolf

99).
In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa represents female pressures to preserve an acceptable image and the consequences on an individual’s mental health. Even though Clarissa is preoccupied with her past and has mental health concerns of her own, she throws parties as a coping mechanism. Clarissa throws parties in hopes of promoting a positive image of herself and in return gaining approval from others. For example, she worries, “oh dear, it was going to be a failure, Clarissa felt it in her bones… she could see Peter out of the tail of her eye, criticising her, there, in that corner. Why, after all, did she do these things… Might it consume her anyhow!” (Woolf 167). Clarissa certainly isn’t satisfied with her life, especially with an unfulfilling marriage in which she always wonder what could have been with Peter Walsh. However, she always fails to express her inner concerns . When Mrs. Dalloway hears of Septimus’s suicide, Woolf describes, “Oh! Thought Clarissa, in the middle of my party, here’s death, she thought” (Woolf 183). After the announcement, “there was nobody. The party’s splendour fell to the floor, so strange it was to come in alone in her finery” (Woolf 184). “Somehow it was her disaster—her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress” (Woolf 185). “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away” (Woolf 186).