Critical Reflection 3

For my primary research I read the book called Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly. The book is all of her accounts while faking lunacy and getting committed into an insane asylum during the 19th century and mentions a great deal of how women were treated back then and reasons as to why no one believed them when they were actually sane. I read the book and took notes by chapter, only jotting down things that described how women were treated, not what she ate for food everyday. Nellie Bly's book and one of the books I read for secondary research called The Female Malady by Elaine Showalter had a lot of the same concepts when it came to looking at how women were viewed during the 19th century. Although Nellie's book didn't explain why there was such a rise of the Victorian madwoman, it stated why each woman Nellie talked to was committed, and most were either cases where the woman didn't know English and couldn't properly communicate or her husband got sick of her and sent her away. This will help me to answer my research question of why was there such a rise in the Victorian madwoman during the 19th century. My primary and secondary research had a lot of the same concepts, like mistreatment of women in insane asylums and how women were viewed as hysterics and why. For structuring my research paper, I plan to look up some more work about the psychological and scientific background to madness in the mind and will most likely read articles by Freud on this. I think when writing my paper, I will start off with explaining Nellie's story and then go into the actual facts about the rise of the Victorian madwoman, referencing to Nellie's account whenever possible.