Theme Of Mental Illness In Literature

Social disorders and mental illness is a common theme in literature with the authors and their work. Literature uses the mentally ill as a way to understand and address the views of society. Mental disorders fascinate people and that is one reason why literature presents mental and social disorders. From early Greek works, people went mad under circumstances of the gods, and Greek philosophers introduced psychology. Biblical examples may involve mental disorders like biblical king Nebuchadnezzar, entered an animal-like state. (Bosky) The eighteenth and nineteenth century mentally disturbed people often seen as a touch from God, and other mental illness seen as signs of demonic activity. Religion and supernatural are associated with mental problems that link many artistic geniuses. Before

Today, writers see mental disorders in many artists, whether or not the artist is diagnosed at the time. English poet William Blake, known for his elaborate personal mythology with his claimed visions, shows signs of schizophrenic. (Bosky) Twentieth century literary authors write about either schizophrenic or mood disorders, including writers Joseph Conrad, Franz Kafka, and Taylor Coleridge. Many of these authors wrote about mental problems, like in Coleridge’s depressed “Dejection, an Ode” or Kafka’s dreamlike paranoid works. According to Bosky, researches argue that mental disorders are much more common in artists that than the general population. Another argument is that authors draw their work from their own personal experiences. Many artists have recorded personal mental problems or time spent in asylums. As Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses references from personal mental illness, depression, in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” However, not all authors of literature suffer from mental illnesses; but it is interesting to see how mental disorders contribute to their writing