

Mental health problems affect countless amounts of people every day. Two texts that highlight mental health concerns are Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. These two texts pertain to the significant issue of mental health because both exemplify how mental health issues can affect a single person throughout his or her life. These two texts illustrate, in detail, the negative impacts and disastrous outcomes of improperly treating those with mental health diseases and disorders.  

In conversation with one another, Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” show a misunderstanding of mental health from the perspectives of two different people. In both texts, there is a large array of instances in which each respective author exemplifies the misunderstanding towards mental health diseases and disorders and the mistreatment of patients with those diseases and disorders. Having this immense collection of examples from both texts provides a strong basis of evidence to support the notion that mental health abuse did exist and had a profound impact on mental health patients. An example of an occurrence of abuse within mental health centers is in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” when Bly describes her and the other patients being fed “oatmeal and molasses” that was “wretched” for breakfast and “a chunk of beef” that was “spoiled” for dinner (290-292). A further demonstration of a similar type of abuse is in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when the narrator is met “with heavy opposition” about writing during her leisure time (Gilman 300). These two anecdotes verify one another by showing the inhumane ways in which patients were treated. Nobody should be forced to eat rotten food or be denied the right to their favorite pastimes. Another type of mistreatment that the texts convey to the audience is physical abuse towards mental health patients. On one hand, there is a more directed type of physical abuse in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” that is hinted towards when Mrs. O’Keefe says “don’t let them beat me” referring to the nursing staff (Bly 297). On the other hand, this type of abuse that is not quite as physically involved is administrated when the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” wanted to leave her room to go downstairs, but her husband “John would not hear of it” (Gilman 300). The significance of this statement in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is furthered, when the narrator says “John does not know how much I really suffer” (Gilman 301). From these examples demonstrated in the texts, it is revealed that there were multiple incidences of physical abuse. These strengthen the argument for this type of mistreatment really happening or not happening, because multiple sources report it. 

A conclusion that can be drawn by Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that abuse and mistreatment of mental health patients is important. These two texts confirm the significance of mental health, by showing how badly patients suffer when the patients are abused and treated improperly. This is done with specific details of instances within each text. This is demonstrated when patients deteriorate throughout the duration of “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and with the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” going insane in the end (Gilman 310-312). After reading both texts, the reader becomes better at understanding that mental health mistreatment and abuse have an irreversible impact on patients in mental health facilities. Furthermore, the reader can see the mistreatment and abuse of mental health from two perspectives; this allows him or her to understand the circumstance from the point of view of someone observing the abuse and the point of view of someone experiencing the abuse. 

The similarity between “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the effect of the misunderstanding of mental health on patients with mental health problems. Both texts show that this misunderstanding of mental health was very prevalent. The similarity that these texts share of this misunderstanding shows the reader how a plethora of people’s lives were negatively affected at a time in which mental health was treated wrongly. However, the types of abuse vary between each text. In “Ten Days in a Mad-House” the abuse is clearly conducted physically and verbally through direct humiliation of the patients. On the contrary the abuse in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is conducted by isolation from society and deprivation of desired activities. These two different types of abuse demonstrated can help the reader perceive the full spectrum of ways in which mental health misunderstandings effect patients within mental health centers. A further difference is the perspective from which each text is written. One is from someone who is observing their surroundings and the other is from someone who is mentally ill and suffering severely. In the case of Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House”, the narrator is mentally healthy and is working undercover to make observations about occurrences of abuse towards patients in an asylum. However, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is mentally unstable and makes observations of the abusive constraints and tactics used specifically against her by her husband and doctor John. These two perspectives provide an external assessment of mental health facilities in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and an internal assessment of mental health facilities in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The reader having the ability to see these two points of view in context with one another, allows he or she to be able to see the entire picture of mental health abuse and mistreatment. This makes it easy for the reader of the texts to have an increased comprehension and feeling for the suffering patients within the facilities.

As the reader, it was difficult to fathom that these many types of mental health mistreatment occurrences took place. Also, it was problematic to believe that they were not over exaggerated in each text. To further understand this, research was conducted about the understanding of mental health during the late 1800’s. The research provided that “asylums were merely reformed penal institutions”, which helps to prove that is likely that Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum was as horrific as described by Bly in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” (Foerschner 2). Additionally, it supports the forced solitude of the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, because many penal institutions keep prisoners in solitary and it was as if the narrator was a prisoner to her husband John. The research further shared that patients were “treated like animals” at mental health institutions (Foerschner 2). This supports the anecdote in Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” when she and other patients were given nearly inedible, gross, and spoiled food to eat for breakfast and dinner (290-292). The research helped to conclude that it was highly probable for the incidences of mental health abuse and mistreatment mentioned in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper” to have occurred. 
