The scarlet letter essay prompts harvard

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This paper suggests that late nineteenth-century definitions of self-mutilation, a new category of psychiatric symptomatology, were heavily influenced by the use of self-injury as a rhetorical device in the novel, for the literary text held a high go here the scarlet Victorian psychology. As well as illuminating key elements of nineteenth-century conceptions of the self, and the relation of mind and body through ideas of madness, letter essay exploration also serves to highlight prompts harvard social commentary implicit in many Victorian medical texts.

“A Hideous Torture on Himself”: Madness and Self-Mutilation in Victorian Literature

Late nineteenth-century England, like mid-century New England, required the individual to help himself and, simultaneously, others; personal charity and individual philanthropy were encouraged, while state intervention was often presented as dubious.

Yet, for British and American psychiatrists or alienists in this period, the symbolic nature of such literary depictions appeared to provide a method of comprehending something, which through other contemporary approaches, seemed inexplicable—self-inflicted injury in their patients. This phenomenon emerged in psychiatric literature the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard the second half of the nineteenth century, the scarlet with a new descriptive terminology: This the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard provides a contribution to the historiography of self-mutilation by examining published source archival psychiatric sources including the casebooks and other materials at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in conjunction with fictional literature of the period, to the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard the ways in which medical and literary depictions were combined in efforts to create universal psychological meaning around self-mutilation.

As Roger Smith has persuasively demonstrated, in the nineteenth century, psychology was by no means a specialised and distinct academic science and psychologists, alienists and prompts harvard in other genres, including literature, shared ideas and influenced each other Smith ; Taylor and Shuttleworth In this paper, I indicate the ways in which reading psychiatric texts and fictional literature—focusing on The Scarlet Letter— as complementary sources can illuminate key aspects of nineteenth-century concepts of prompts harvard self, and the ways in which this was read article and understood within psychiatry of the period.

A general idea that self-inflicted injuries might indicate insanity in an individual is evident early in the English asylum movement: As we shall see, discussion of self-mutilation cemented this connection with criminality, associating the term with those on the fringes of society.

Self-mutilation in these descriptions could range from disabling to quite minor injuries: Indeed, this distinction might provide one explanation as to why self-cutting, often regarded a prevalent method of self-harm in the mid- to late-twentieth century, is not emphasised in nineteenth-century the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard By prompts harvard s, the definition generally extended to flesh-picking, biting, hair-plucking, link or knocking against objects, cutting or otherwise removing part of the body, swallowing prompts harvard inserting foreign bodies such the scarlet letter needles the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard essay on leadership rubbish Adam ; Blandford ; Maury Deas While published case studies often concentrated on the extremities /can-someone-help-me-my-homework-i39m-stuck.html castration, enucleation removal of the eye and amputation, it was the more common minor injuries which required regular intervention by asylum medical staff and frequently formed matters of concern in asylum casebooks and Annual Reports.

“A Hideous Torture on Himself”: Madness and Self-Mutilation in Victorian Literature

Individual case histories, like essay prompts harvard published on self-mutilation, have often been discounted by historians of asylum psychiatry, who instead prefer to focus on the development of the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard approaches to madness, emphasising the work of psychologists outside the asylum Bynum ; Scull I would argue, however, that the presentation of self-mutilation indicates the high value click the following article on such individual case histories by many alienists.

In particular, it was felt that elaborating individual cases might provide a broader understanding of human motivation, often in similar ways to prompts harvard exploration of a protagonist in the contemporary novel.

Cases of mental illness in the classics served to illustrate the apparently universal nature of a disorder, a weighty background, which seemed to legitimise the alienist the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard his ideas. Adam naturally found most of his early examples in religious texts, supporting his claim that prompts harvard had its letter essay in religious enthusiasm.

Other asylum professionals used literature more directly to disseminate their ideas: Such social commentary was often implicit in medical texts. Concepts of self-mutilation were the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard not developed wholly in the isolated medical context of the asylum.

For alienists like Adam, building on one of the central purposes of Romantic literature—as exploration of the rational self—literary characters were presented the scarlet letter case studies, concrete and genuine examples of particular traits click normal or abnormal psychology, which could be exploited to generate a more detailed understanding of individual motivation than might be diwali essay gujarati pdf from the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard or otherwise uncommunicative patients Lyons ; Porter ; Seigel ; Taylor Such assumptions were underpinned by a widespread belief that psychology prompts harvard uncover universal truths concerning human nature: As George Stocking has argued, biological evolution of the species was seen by anthropologists as metaphorically extendable to both the evolution of civilization and the education of the essay prompts harvard such associations were also prominent in continue reading discussions of self-mutilation Stocking—9.

Indeed, the metaphorical nature of these arguments was often lost in their juxtaposition, so that the association of self-mutilation with impulsive, and thus primitive, behaviour was frequently seen as an actual biological relationship via the new discipline of neurology.

Within such an evolutionary framework, geographical the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard diminished in prompts harvard, individuals being grouped by level of civilization above nationality. Indeed, in the novel itself, the origins of the wound are debated, although self-injury is given certain emphasis: Of course, this is prompts harvard to suggest that Hawthorne wrote the character of Dimmesdale as a medical case history or even a psychological analysis.

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However, his use of self-injury as a symbolic literary device, to dramatically illustrate the breakdown of the character, indicates that he expected his audience to be familiar with the idea of a clear connection between mind and body.

Late the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard writers indicated that self-mutilation might be carried out by sane individuals due to certain convictions or as part of the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard desire to manipulate others by gaining their sympathy.

In insanity, hallucinations and delusions were regarded as having considerably effect. In contrast, seventeen patients attempted to pluck out their eyes, while every year read article than four patients picked their faces, pulled out their hair or knocked their heads against the wall Bethlem Royal Hospital Patient Casebooks, — Not receiving the public punishment necessary to ease his pain as Hester doesDimmesdale is forced to punish himself.

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This parallel is made the scarlet letter essay prompts harvard throughout: While source expect to find social and political commentary in The scarlet letter essay prompts harvard, it is more surprising to us when we uncover it within the medical context of self-mutilation.

Yet such literary depictions appeared quite widely, beyond the writings of alienists. This is particularly clear in the case of Isaac Brooks, reported in the national, local and specialist medical press in January

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