Submission Date

7-19-2024

Document Type

Paper- Restricted to Campus Access

Department

English

Faculty Mentor

Kara McShane

Comments

Presented during the 26th Annual Summer Fellows Symposium, July 19, 2024 at Ursinus College.

Project Description

This paper investigates how nineteenth-century literature has been a site of resistance and representation regarding mental illness in women. The novels that are examined and analyzed are Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Both novels were published in the late 1800s and follow the life experiences of a female main character who struggles with mental anguish, displaying symptoms that can be read as symptoms of mental illness. Both novels seek to give insight into the internal lives of women. The authors develop extremely complex heroines who are faced with a multitude of challenges when it comes to achieving fulfillment and happiness. Adding to the deterioration of these characters’ mental health, both women find themselves in restrictive environments. Between social structures, societal expectations, and gender-based discriminatory treatment from men, the main characters experience a feeling of being trapped. Their mental, emotional, and physical struggles are dismissed by other characters and by society. This paper argues that while people have personal experiences of mental illness, the context for women exacerbates the mental struggles for the heroines in these novels, revealing that Tolstoy and Chopin’s commentary is then about how nineteenth-century societies contribute to the damaging of mental health for women.

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