Woman and Society

Women and Society

Throughout the course of the semester we have looked and discussed through the many ideas of how women are treated, what I’d like to discuss is how women in these societies attempt to lead better lives and how society rewards or punishes their actions. The works that best embody this are The Castle of Otranto where women are viewed as resources for the men to use and disregard at will, Geraldine who controls her fate though manipulating men, The Thorn where society disregards Martha Ray without thought to compassion, and finally The Cenci where Beatrice makes her own destiny only to be thrown on the mercy of a unjust society.

The Cenci and Helplessness

In The Cenci, Beatrice father is a uncaring and brutal man who has no redeeming qualities at all, the helplessness of Beatrice is brought fully too to the reader’s attention when Beatrice reveals that her father has raped her effectively showing the reader his depravity and because no one is willing to stand up to him, due to his less than merciful nature she is effectively left with no choice but to protect herself through ending his life. This is similar to a anime named Elfen Lied where a girl named Lucy (shown above) is a Diclonius or race of beings mutated from humans and filled with an instinctual need to wipe out every human life, though she effectively has the power to destroy all humans she herself is as emotionally fragile as a toddler and receives absolutely no sympathy from her captors, making her lash out at humanity even more for treating her as a non-sentient being. Both characters effectively try to take revenge Beatrice by having her father killed and Lucy by killing everyone in the entire research facility then killing everyone with any knowledge of her species, leaving her singularly alive and both suffer An, Young-Ok  said it best in his article “Beatrice's gaze revisited: Anatomizing The Cenci” (I argue that The Cenci provides a feminist reader with a particularly useful textual instance to investigate not just abominable incidents of paternal tyranny and parricide but much more complex operations of violence, law and desire that intersect with gender issues) by having to face the consequences, where Beatrice must face the death penalty because she refuses to say she didn’t seek to have her father killed and Lucy must face the rest of her life struggling with the desire to be connected to humanity but being forced to be alone in order to not destroy the entire human race, a slow death by absolute loneliness. If society had thought to help Beatrice instead of leaving her to face her situation alone things wouldn’t have had to take such a radical and dark turn, and if the researchers and humanity in general had thought to treat Lucy as a person instead of a freak of nature it’s possible she could have overcame her instincts and not murdered people.

Lamia and the seductress trope

Geraldine a Lamia creature or mixture of human and snake that manipulates men then traditionally kills them is defiantly shown in a light that the men in the world she inhabits are beguiled while the only other women sees what she really is. The picture above works to show the empowerment of women by having a large cat, traditionally cats are associated with power and grace, two traits that women of this time period would give a woman a sense of pride. But Geraldine who is a snake is shown to be told and manipulative having none of the “warm” tendencies that we appreciate about what was commonly referred to as the “weaker” sex yet Geraldine’s society has given her the “perfect” place to get everything she wants just by playing a part to the egos and sympathies of men. This best shown in her made up tale about being taken by a group of men and needing to be protected when there aren’t any men in any direction, causing doubt to her story and the fact her otherworldly nature is only ever seen by a women. The men of the house eat up this story and within a small amount of time she has them in the palm of her hand manipulating them until she is getting married to the richest and most powerful of them. It’s incredible in a literature at this time would actually have a woman would have such power by an immoral means because she’s only powerful through manipulation and faerie like she doesn’t seem to have any caring about who’s hurt so long as she gets what she wants. A social critique of how men thought that women were either sacred virgins or demonic seductresses.

The Thorn and a Women’s Need for Compassion

Martha in The Thorn desperately could have used some compassion, because due to the uncompassionate society around she is stuck completely within the prison of her own guilt. Martha in her early life got pregnant out of wedlock and when she was going to be married the father ran out on her, and then in her madness she killed her child out of disgust and a sense of failure. The society she lives in instead of helping this poor women did nothing but criticize and mock her till all she can say is “oh misery”. Martha’s inability to see herself as someone of value even though she did things that weren’t right, the hatred and condemnation she receives by both men and the townswomen is nothing short of disgusting and frankly inhuman. The thorn, a animated personification of her child shows up to torment her along with the belligerent and condescending nature of the townspeople results in a never-ending cycle of abusive behavior where the curse of the hatred and guilt between the town, thorn, and Martha is constant and all are caught in this cycle unable to get out. The need for compassion is desperately needed for all parties, Martha needs compassion in order to forgive herself and heal so the grief and rage of her child that has taken the form of the Thorn can rest and be at peace. The town’s people need to forgive Martha in order to get past what happened and be able to look to the future and have their community become more of a family instead of just a menagerie of people that gossip about each other to the point where it seems to look like all these people do is just find new and creative ways to back-stab each other. The lack of compassion for Martha by anyone and the continued appearance of her child as “the thorn” that is constantly infecting this town with its hatred and desire to punish Martha for her sin means that it can’t administer the compassion necessary that’s needed to heal this town meaning that no one is capable of having compassion on anyone, such a problem is the catalyst for the repeated cycle and the fact that only the reporter who is an outsider is even remotely capable of showing even the smallest crumb of compassion to Martha, but it isn’t enough to stop the curse of hatred between all parties.

Maria: The Wonder Woman of Novels

The women of Maria and how they rebel against the established order of male dominated society is just as strange to their society as Wonder Woman was when she came out to men in our society. In the article Power Through Comics by Devoney Looser wrote (Wonder Woman's archetypal message is 'Remember Our Power) the power of womanhood is strange, fragile, yet incredibly resilient and these women in the face of wrongs by their husbands seem to grab onto that by coming together to support each other. Jemima seems to be this idea incarnate because by having her come to support other women even after she is abused, raped, and suffers at the worst of societies misfortunes still wishes to help others and feels a sense that her life could get better. Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote the book truly is a Wonder Woman figure to all woman in that her crusade for the advancement of woman in education, the job market, and a like Wonder Woman a vehicle through which other woman could be inspired by and strive to be like as a role model show that even ordinary woman can be just as famous and inspiring to generations of woman even years later.

Works Cited:

Beatrice's gaze revisited: Anatomizing The Cenci

An, Young-Ok. Criticism38. 1 (Winter 1996): 27.

Power Through Comics

Looser, Devoney. Minnesota Review 63/64 (Spring 2005): 239-243,253.

Philosophy in Anime: The Helpless Elfen Lied-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNoKkD0GksE

A Feminist Otaku-http://www.afeministotaku.com/?p=1909

Of Monsters and Madness

The most striking correlation in our semester of reading was the introduction and development of both monsters and the corresponding madness. Several of the main characters of our texts are easily categorized as monsters, two fathers, a creator, and a creature. In this course, we also read works by two men whose madness created within them a personal monster, which for one also appeared in their work. 

Regarded as the first gothic novel, and the first text we read in our course, The Castle of Otranto by Walpole is the first time we see a character defined both by his madness and his monstrosity. As Karoc mentioned in his post “Names”, the name Manfred traditionally comes from words meaning peace or strength, and his name can be interpreted as “man of peace”. Manfred’s life is entirely consumed by a prophecy, which states, “the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.”  Manfred interprets the prophecy as a sign that his lineage will be brought to an end, an obsession which turns him both mad and into a monster. The prophecy consumes Manfred, and after his son is killed at the onset of the novel, he eventually kills his daughter, affectively ending his line and fulfilling the prophecy. While the picture below is a disturbing and disgustingly literal interpretation of a father’s filicide, it captures the panicked and crazed act of Manfred monstrously killing his daughter, driven by madness.

              A more troublingly mad example of a monster is the character of Francesco Cenci in “The Cenci”. An interesting connection can be made between the first piece and the last piece we read in our course, but the similarities between the two fathers end with their shared madness and being monsters. While Manfred is prophecy consumed and madness ridden, Francesco is a sociopathic terror, evil and brute, committing physical, mental, and emotional terrors against his family. Francesco commits the most monstrous act possible against his own daughter, a monstrous act that ruins her body and soul. When revealing her father’s crime against her, she proclaims,

“I am choked! There creeps a clinging, black contaminating mist about me … ’tis substantial, heavy, thick, I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues my fingers and my limbs to one another, and eats into my sinews, and dissolves my flesh to a pollution, poisoning the subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life! My God! I never knew what the mad felt before; for I am mad beyond all doubt!” (line 20-29)

The most monstrous act of Francesco is creation of his daughter’s madness, while he remains entirely un-self-aware of his own. It is compellingly both entirely understandable due to the crimes committed against her and yet entirely to blame upon her madness that she desires to kill him. Francesco is such a monster that even patricide does not bring him any sympathy. If anything it bring more fury because it results in Beatrice’s death as well.

            Unlike The Castle of Otranto and “The Cenci”, Frankenstein is a story of two monsters, a man and his creature, and both of their turns into madness.  The titular character, Victor Frankenstein, is introduced first, and we see him first delve into madness in his creating his “monster”. By invoking the power of creation, it does not make Victor godlike as he first imagined, it makes him a monster both in his unnatural desires and his eventual abandonment of the creature. Victor’s later madness, created by the creature’s actions against him, is a direct result to his abandonment of his creation. Only a monster could be so cruel.

           

            The creature in Frankenstein however remains unsullied for part of the novel, entirely immune to man’s questionably inherent wickedness. His development as a monster only begins after his encounters with the outside world, as he realizes, “‘and what was I?  Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant… hideously deformed and loathsome… I was not even of the same nature as man.  I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge…’” His enforced solitude is one of the most maddening actions committed against him, as solitude is, “the total and perpetual exclusion from all society, (which) is as great a positive pain as can almost be conceived” (Burke). His negative interactions with humans create madness within him, a madness that combined with his resentment for his creator, result in his monstrous acts.

            The topic of madness and its monstrous effects on people cannot be discussed without mentioning John Clare. Clare, a man who was entirely consumed by both pain and creativity, was by all reasons of the time, considered mad. Wordsworth commented, “We poets in our youth begin in gladness; but thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.” (Wordsworth 48-49) In 1837, Clare was entered into an asylum after suffering a mental breakdown largely because of his sudden fame and fortune. His “diagnosis of madness further endangered his status. Though it allowed him the privilege to enter the tradition of inspired genius, yet clinical madness was a different order of difficulty.” (Chatterjee 433) (more about Clare’s madness here) Madness, especially madness that was perceived as a mark of shame by both reviewers and contemporary society, created within Clare a monster. Inner-turmoil became his biggest demon, his biggest monster.

           

          Another author who suffered from a sense of madness and the turmoil it created within him was Coleridge. Coleridge suffered from both anxiety and depression and perhaps bipolar disorder, all contemporary perceptions of madness. He was in poor health, somewhat unstable, and opium addicted. Coleridge wrote of his addiction in a letter,

“I was seduced into the accursed Habit ignorantly – I had been almost bed ridden for many months with swelling in my knees – in a medical journal I happily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case … by rubbing in of Laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally – it acted like a charm, like a miracle! … At length, the unusual stimulus subsided – the complaint returned – the supposed remedy was recurred to – but I cannot go thro’ the dreary history – Suffice to say, that effects were produced, which acted on me by Terror & Cowardice of pain and sudden death.”

Coleridge’s addiction serves as his monster, the more reliant he became on the drug, the more his work suffered, and the more his relationships were strained.  

       It is interesting to look at Coleridge as a man who suffered from both madness and a monster of an addiction, but what is also compelling is his depiction of a monster in one of his poems. In Christabel, monstrosity is seen as a questionable parallel to Coleridge’s madness. The titular character stumbles upon Geraldine, a beautiful woman, who perhaps to Coleridge is similar to the deceptively intoxicating initial affects of opium, but is later revealed to be of a monstrous nature, similar to the eventual evils of addiction.

Both monsters and madness have their place in Romanticism. The two cannot be separated, madness is found in all monsters, perhaps because madness creates monsters. 

WORKS CITED

Chatterjee, Anindita. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities

(ISSN 0975—2935), Vol.3 No.4, 2011.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Collected Letters in 6 volumes, ed. E. L. Griggs, Clarendon Press:      Oxford (1956–1971)

Wordsworth, William. Resolution and Independence London: Macmillan and Co., 1888; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/145/. May 7, 2013

Nature of Monstrosity

Nature of Monstrosity

Throughout many of the works we’ve covered this semester, the theme of monstrosity has been peeked at, glanced, and later fully discussed.  It is the nature of monstrosity that we try, over and over and throughout multiple stories and poems, to define.  The nature of monstrosity is in the juxtaposition of the supernatural, the sublime, with everyday life.  This fascination with the monstrous emphasizes the interest people have held about the definition, and antithesis, of humanity.  In feeling this curiosity, many authors have explored the thin line dividing humanity in general from the non-human, from the other.  According to http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/6/post/2012/10/bloodlines-ii-the-rise-of-modern-horror.html, horror and monstrosity can “Through superior allegory,…help the audience understand their world, and what’s happening to it; indeed, what’s happening to them!”

Let’s start with one of the more obvious examples of monstrosity: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  In this piece, the nameless creature is a concrete example of this “other”, of monstrosity itself.  The creature’s appearance, as noted in http://suite101.com/article/the-monster-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein-a215222, is supposed to be a “hybrid” of different races, partly Caucasian but also possibly “Mongolian”.  It is this hybridization, and gigantic size, that casts the creature as “other”, different, monstrous.  Size does also have a role to play, however: as Canguilhem states in his article “Monstrosity and the Monstrous,” “The relationship between the enormous and the monstrous has yet to be clarified.  Both are well beyond the norm.” Even in creatures that resemble us, mere size and coloring variations are enough to cast the shade of “other”.  The contrast of the creature’s original willingness to please and later avowal that he is the master, the very way in which he appears to Victor after so long, show monstrosity.

In Fuseli’s painting, The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches, the witch reminded me very much of Frankenstein’s creation, from the grayish pallor of the skin to the sheer size of the witch.  In but another moment, the witch will have done something terrible to the child she is semi-holding on the sacrificial slab in front of her.  I also noticed the disembodied hands in the front, center of the piece that are threatening the witch with what appears to be a shard of glass of some sort.  In this painting, even the “heroes,” those there to defeat the witch, are not quite human, thrusting into sharp relief the idea of heroes being monstrous.

In Blake’s “The Tyger,” he wonders if the God was happy with the creations He had made: in lines 19-20, “Did he smile his work to see?/ Did he who made the lamb make thee?” leads me to ponder if Victor Frankenstein had ever read any of Blake’s poetry.  I see many parallels between Victor and the narrator of Blake’s poem.  The second half of the first and last stanzas, asking who made such a fearful creature, cannot but put me in mind of Frankenstein. 

Monstrosity is not only about physical strangeness, however.  According to Thanem, “One can therefore argue that monsters, monstrosities and the monstrous disrupt the boundaries of the normal, whether a matter of size, shape or morality.”  Appearances aside, monstrosity can be caused by actions as well as looks.  In William Wordsworth’s “The Thorn,” the narrator begins by describing in great detail a very beautiful mound of moss and flowers, “All lovely colors there you see” (38).  Wordsworth spends two entire stanzas describing how vibrantly radiant this is, before moving on to the weeping woman who is frequently near.  This is the first juxtaposition of the work, but so far it’s okay, nothing overtly monstrous waiting to jump out and say “Boo!”  In stanza twelve, Wordsworth again makes the juxtaposition, contrasting how joyful Martha was with “A cruel, cruel fire, they say,/Into her bones was sent:/It dried her body like a cinder,” (127-131). So Martha has now gone from the radiant bride-to-be to something consumed by an inner fire.  The transition from stanzas fourteen to fifteen is the last and most damning concurrence: in line 154, Martha goes from having finally “looks [that] were calm, her senses clear,” to the narrator having no concrete facts to give the reader, merely that the child she was carrying was never seen by another person.  It is the juxtaposition of the beautiful hillside’s appearance with what is buried beneath that smacks of monstrosity.  Two full stanzas to describe the beauty of an infant’s resting place.  The implication that Martha murdered and then buried her child, whilst never fully proven, is monstrous.

In Coleridge’s “Christabel,” too, is a monstrosity caused by the intersection of two contradictory senses: a beautiful woman in desperate need of help, the quintessential archetype of damsel in distress, who is later revealed as the evil monster.  Not only is the lamia described as “Nay, fairer yet! And yet more fair!” in line 374, Geraldine is also described as having “A snake’s small eye blinks dull and shy;” in line 585.  It is this juxtaposition of beauteous woman and conniving snake that shows the monstrosity of Coleridge’s piece.  Even more so, though, is the lamia’s perversion made evident in subverting Christabel’s father away from her; in turning the man who should protect his innocent daughter into the enemy she needs protection from, Geraldine has truly become monstrous. 

In “Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers” by Henry Fuseli, the monstrosity of Lady Macbeth, already in our minds as we know she is shortly to commit murder, is made the more apparent by the dog-faced man in the back ground of the picture, holding his companion steady as they observe Lady Macbeth rush off to do foul deeds.

Throughout this semester, we have studied the horrific, the terrifying, the sublime, and the monstrous.  I propose that it is really only a few of the many facets of humanity we have studied.   Humanity itself is monstrous, at times, and beautiful at times, and occasionally both at the same time.  It is our fears that cause us to create these works, in order to put a face to our fears so that we may name them.  Monstrosity is always changing and will probably continue to always change; human perceptions are constantly evolving and putting new bogeymen in our minds. 

 

 

Citations

Organization 2006 13: 163

Torkild Thanem.

Living on the Edge: Towards a Monstrous Organization Theory

DOI: 10.1177/1350508406061677

http://org.sagepub.com/content/13/2/163

 

Georges Canguilhem and Therese Jaeger.

Monstrosity and the Monstrous Diogenes December 1962 10: 27-42, doi:10.1177/039219216201004002vv

http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2555/content/10/40/27

 

Abstract and Extreme

               The period of British Romanticism was a time of large expansion in the use of the abstract in literature. This is not to be confused with fantasy or fantastical elements. Fantasy has been around for most if not all of literary history. Whether it be religious stories of the exploits of the gods or St. George fighting a dragon, there has been fantasy. However, these examples of fantasy are still rooted in concrete reality. Lord Shiva’s presence on the battlefield is not questioned by the people in the story. No one questions the existence of the dragon. They may be fantastic, but they are not abstract. There is no question of the reality of these elements within their respective stories. The Romantics begin to have their characters question these elements, and even begin to examine the effects of these elements, leading to layers of abstraction.

                The initial source of the abstract for the Romantic writers is the Supernatural. The Supernatural is directly at odds with humanity. When the two cross paths, negative reactions come out of humans. The Supernatural manifests itself, in these works, in various ways from magical, unexplained anomalies to mental activity. Regardless of the specific manifestation, however, there is a pervading sense of obtrusiveness when discussing the Supernatural. The painting “The Nightmare” by Henry Fuseli” illustrates this intrusion.

                Fuseli depicts this woman, either unconscious or dead at the mercy of two supernatural beings or entities. The gnome-like, imp creature that sits on top of the woman represents the emotional oppression brought about by the supernatural. This is a relatively direct and simple symbol. However, the ominously voyeuristic horse creature on the left is much more subtle and sadistic. This is that idea of the supernatural being obtrusive and lurking around humankind. “The Nightmare” is actually a very appropriate title, as one of the most sinister and a common forms of the abstract, the supernatural, is, in fact, dreams. James Hogg in “The Expedition to Hell” has a character go to the gates of Hell, find out he will die by the next day, and go back, all in a dream. This prediction of death does indeed come true, leaving the reader with the idea that dreams and in turn are more palpable than originally thought. This is extremely important to the Romantic view of the abstract. Just because it is abstract does not mean it does not have an effect on humans. In fact, many times, abstract things are actually part of the humans they plague, like the dream in “The Expedition to Hell.”

                Other times, the abstract is something outside of the individual. In The Castle of Otranto, the abstract is a very concrete, giant helmet which has absolutely no explanation as to its origin. This helmet kills a boy, yet another direct message as to the possible dangers of the abstract. Also, just like the previous example of the dream, this abstract item had a very concrete effect on a person. Abstract occurrences do not just have abstract effects, though. They also spawn more abstract problems. In The Castle of Otranto, Manfred, the father of Conrad, the boy who gets killed by the helmet, goes into a panicked frenzy. This abstract occurrence, the helmet killing Conrad, inspires this panicked frenzy. While this one is a bit more indirect, the point is the idea that abstract occurrences inspire more abstract effects, not just concrete ones. This insanity leads to the problems in the rest of the novel, and, ultimately, the downfall of Manfred. In “The Brownie of the Black Haggs,” another piece by James Hogg, the abstract comes in the form of Merodach who is possibly a Brownie, a creature from Scottish folklore, referenced in the title of the story. Merodach torments the lady of the family, Lady Wheelhope, into complete insanity. Insanity is an abstract occurrence that, in this case, arose from another abstract, the Supernatural creature, Merodach.

                The abstract effects of abstract occurrences are mental and emotional. Romantics understood this and began to explore the extreme emotions, like insanity, and to conclude that these emotions were as powerful as any other more concrete forces. Manfred’s insanity and personal panic led to his downfall. Lady Wheelhope and her insane obsession with bringing about Merodach’s downfall brought about her end. In order to communicate these effects to the readers, Romantic writers began to explore the uses of emotional tone in writing. In many works, the plot is not as important as the emotional environment created. Ann Radcliffe in Romance of the Forest is particularly aware of this. She often uses epigraphs in the novel to establish a particular mood, for example, at the beginning of chapter two in volume one. She uses a quote from Horace Walpole to establish this ominous, Gothic sense of fear and decay. By using this establishment of tone, a new aesthetic is introduced which immediately alters the reading of the ensuing chapter. The supernatural creates a very specific aesthetic experience, the sublime.

                The sublime is a natural aesthetic response caused when the supernatural is recognized within the natural. This causes the spectator or viewer to feel belittled. When the imp from “The Nightmare” is shaped like a mountain, and sits on the stomach of the innocent witness, it is difficult for the person to not sense that feeling of being crushed under the huge weight. That crushing, overwhelming feeling then turns into terror and despair.

                This painting inspires that feeling of terror and despair. The painting is “The Great Day of His Wrath” by John Martin. As was mentioned in the presentation about Aesthetics done by Brian Sherry and Mitchel Baccinell (hey that’s me!), this painting is a perfect example of a representation of the sublime. The viewer is supposed to naturally feel a sense of simultaneous fear and awe by looking at this painting. At the bottom of the painting is a sea of people all lying on the floor, in various states of death and half-death. Above them is a scene of massive natural and supernatural warfare. The lightning bolt seems to be coming from the heavens, and is striking a massive mountain, all while the people cower. This feeling that the people feel is what the viewer is supposed to feel. The topic of the painting, the inter-realm warfare that is happening, is not important. The sense of belittlement and powerlessness is the important thing in the painting. This same feeling comes up in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. After the men shoot down the albatross, shooting down an innocent piece of nature, the natural world combines with the supernatural to get revenge on the men. However, the plot is told indirectly, through the ancient mariner recounting the story at a wedding. The plot is not as important as the emotion inspired. The reader is supposed to take the role of the wedding guest hearing the story, and is supposed to take the emotions felt as well. Despair was the feeling relayed. However, there is also the emotional state of the ancient mariner. He was in despair, before, but now is alone and isolated.

                This isolation is another variation on the sublime feeling actually. The sublime grants that sense of belittlement, which can become a sense of isolation. The creature in Frankenstein feels this intense feeling of isolation. The sublime is caused by the combination of the supernatural and the natural to go against humanity. The monster is the combination of the supernatural, the natural, and the human. The sense of isolation is natural, as he has all of the factors combined. What is interesting, however, with this sense of isolation is that it seems to be a reflection of the feelings of Mary Shelley, the author. Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft “died of puerperal fever” (Eleanor). In other words, her mother succumbed to the natural world attacking her. Luck, a supernatural force, left Mary Shelley alone, much like the monster was abandoned. The creature is her way of venting these feelings. She understands the power of the abstract, and chose to write about it.

                Mary Shelley was by no means the only writer to know this. Coleridge dealt with illness first, then addiction to opium (Curran).The Romantic period was defined by this knowledge of the power of the abstract. The most accessible form of the abstract is emotional and mental issues, so of course people would revert to their own emotions and experiences. After that, it was just a matter of how best to convey the supernatural which so often causes the abstract reactions. Hogg knew that folk tales would play on “the folk and their common belief in the supernatural,” (Sandner).

                The big importance to all of this, then, is that the Romantics were able to put, in writing, a radical idea which was just starting to take hold. As said by Robert A. Scott, during this time there was a “radical switch from treating the mad as animals in the 18^th century to treating them as people in the 19^th,” (Scott). The Romantics were able to identify the power of the abstract, use aesthetic tones to have people understand the vulnerability that everyone has to these problems, and help push a thought process that formed the basis for modern psychological thoughts on mental health.

Works Cited

Curran, S. N.p. Web. 8 May 2013. <http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Coleridg/bio.html>.

Eleanor , T. N.p. Web. 8 May 2013. <http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/shelleybio.html

Extrapolation 48.1 (2007): 73,83,4. ProQuest. Web. 8 May 2013.

Psyccritiques 34.11 (1989): 989-990. PsycCRITIQUES. Web. 8 May 2013.