Chopin, another celebrated female writer from the late 19th century, writes in an unpublished poem about the "ecstacy of madness." She takes something used to oppress women, in this case: madness, and celebrates the freedom of it. Although this is not a well-known work, Chopin frequently used her status as a writer to speak about the oppression of women. This particular poem calls attention to the ways in which Chopin was celebrated for her acts of resistence to the dominant culture.
Mitchell pioneered the rest cure, a treatment that entailed the patient being bed-ridden in an effort to stop the exertion of energy. Many women, including author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, were ordered to lay in bed and could not rise to feed, bathe or even use the bathroom themselves. This form of treatment for female "neuralgia" or other forms of mental illness imprisoned women inside their homes with their husbands and doctor as their captors instead of the previously used asylums.
Ruvtz-Rees writes about her experience in the insane asylum in the 19th century. Although she speaks positively about her time in the aslyum, she calls for more home treatments, as she believes "mental disease is infectious." This idea, along with the development of treatments such as the rest cure, begins to make the home a place of imprisonment rather than an outside institution. It is then the family, not the asylum workers and nurses, that imprison the female body.
This except from a medical book from the mid 19th century explores the idea of insanity as a uniquely feminine problem. Jarvis explores the idea that the female body is prone to insanity much more than their male counterparts. Rhetoric such as this medical book provided grounds for courts and doctors to see women as inherently insane without any evidence, leading to misdiagnoses and forced hospitalizations.
Lydia B Denny was kidnapped and forcebily commited to an asylum by her husband from whom she was attempting to divorce on grounds of physical abuse. Her personal statement, followed by letters she wrote while committed, illustrate the ways in which members of the larger society, including those in the medical and legal systems, became agents of abuse against women in the 19th century. Although other websites have tagged this manuscript with terms like "battered woman" or "Reuban Swan Denny" (her husband), I find these terms take away from the power Lydia found to resist not only the social pressures of an abusive marriage but also the oppresive legal system that attempted to label her insane.
Bly investigated an asylum in the 19th century by feigning insanity. The included excepts display Bly's attempt and ultimate success in being declared insane by the courts. Most of the book explores what the asylum was like; however, this particular section enlightens what female insanity "looked like" in the 19th century, even to other women. Although Bly's work was inevitably a positive force for institutionalized women, she also plays into stereotypes of the "insane woman," which inadvertently legitimizes the harmful stereotypes that led to these systems of abuse.
Gilman's unpublished poem was written during the final months of her pregnancy with her only child. She cries out to God, asking for him to "help [her] to live" in a "noble and earnest and pure" way. Although this was written before she was subjected to the rest cure, Gilman's poem candidly explores her relationship to depression and mental illness.
Moss' letter to Chopin reveals some of the ways in which Chopin's writing was important to the community of women. Her praise of Chopin's writing goes beyond the fictional and enlightens the ways in which Chopin's resistence affected other women who might not have had the same ability to pubically speak up.
This collection of drawings from Gilman's personal collection explore themes of depression, death and motherhood. Although Gilman never officially published these works, her personal drawings offer an insight into her mind that many other, more edited works, cannot. Given that these drawings have no official context, one can read their own interpretations into each one.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's most famous work brings the reader into the mind of a woman on the rest cure. With the male figures in her life as her captors, the narrator is forced into a room with nothing to do but think. What's surprising about Gilman's story is the fact that it was so widely celebrated when it was a clear form of resistence against the forms of control over the female body in the late 19th century. Was it simply cognitive dissonance where her audience could believe the story to be entirely fiction, or did her writing stand in to support women who could not share their voices?
