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

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