Insane Asylums in 19th Century (or earlier) literature???

[gruntingslime]

Does anyone know any prominent examples of insane asylums as a main theme in 19th century (or earlier) literature?

[kiki1982]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember Ted Danson in the role of Gulliver being in an insane asylum. I don't know if that was really Swift's set-up,though, in his Gulliver's Travels.

Dickens has somewhere written something about Bedlam (or Bethelem in London), I thought, but I can't remember the novel.

But be rather careful with this, because the image is not what was the reality in some places.

[johnw1]

I forget the exact details but the title character of Wilkie Collin's A Women in White is incararated in an asylum (so mid 1800's).

[IceM]

I think In The House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky provides a fictional dramatization of the author's arrest in Siberia. It'd almost be the effects of his "asylum-esque" treatment as relates to his psychiology. I think.

[myrna22]

Does anyone know any prominent examples of insane asylums as a main theme in 19th century (or earlier) literature?

In the Helen Keller story, her teacher, Anne Sullivan, had been in an insane asylum with her brother. Anne tells some details of the experience. They were placed there, I believe, because of their blindness and being unwanted. It was something people did to handicapped children in the 1800's. As a main theme, no.

[Pryderi Agni]

I don't know how relevant this is to the discussion, but there is an excellent non-fiction book based on this precise theme: Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization. It's available in English, and it's pretty good.

[myrna22]

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html

10 Days in a Madhouse, by Nellie Bly.....not sure how helpful this would be....

[Katy North]

It's not a main theme, but there is some discussion of how madness was sometimes treated in rich families in Jane Eyre. If you're writing a paper, it is probably worth a mention.

[johnw1]

You may want to look at Maria: or, The Wrongs Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft which is set in an asylum for the insane - just remembered it - not sure if it was actually finished. Can't remember it clearly, I read it a few years back at university.

[PeterL]

"The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" by E. A. Poe.

Someone mentioned "Gulliver's Travels", but that movie opening is not in the book.

[Three Sparrows]

Ward No. 6, by Chekov, perhaps.

[stlukesguild]

Check out John Clare and certainly Gérard de Nerval.

[Jozanny]

The Miracle Worker may technically be early 20th century, but the teacher's descriptions are basically late 19th century horror chambers; it is the only work I can think of that dwells on the issue with literary merit. Collins use of an asylum for his suspense story is simply to further the plot. The OP wouldn't get much to use as research.

[Night_Lamp]

Sheridan Le Fanu's The Rose and the Key has some frightening scenes showing the kind of 'treatments' used for mental patients in the 19th C. My girlfriend, who is a doctoral student in clinical psychology, confirmed to me that these methods were standard.

[kelby_lake]

Does anyone know any prominent examples of insane asylums as a main theme in 19th century (or earlier) literature?

In The Idiot, Myshkin is sent to the asylum.

[myrna22]

The Miracle Worker may technically be early 20th century, but the teacher's descriptions are basically late 19th century horror chambers; it is the only work I can think of that dwells on the issue with literary merit. Collins use of an asylum for his suspense story is simply to further the plot. The OP wouldn't get much to use as research.

Agree

[kelby_lake]

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman- the woman is locked up in a room.

[The Comedian]

The Professor and the Madman is a book about the creation of the OED, and one of the central characters is locked up in the madhouse. It's a great book.

[applepie]

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman- the woman is locked up in a room.

That's the one that came to mind for me.