By comparing the book “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and the television show “American Horror Story: Asylum” we can see that the treatment of people with mental illness was often horrific. The first story “Mad-House” was originally a newspaper article about a reporter’s actual treatment in a mental health institution and was intended to educate the public about the treatment of the mentally ill. The second story “AHS: Asylum” was a fictional horror show intended to scare its audience. Both works however have striking similarities. In both of works a female journalist goes undercover in an insane asylum to uncover how the patients are being treated there. Also in both stories the mentally ill patients were treated horribly. It is very sad, but the only major difference between the nonfictional account of a woman’s time in a mental health institution and a fictional horror show that was created to scare its audience is that the fictional one involves aliens.

Both “Mad-House” and “Asylum” are about female reporters who goes undercover in mental institutions to expose the injustices being performed on the patients there. In “Mad-House”, Nellie Bly is the reporter who goes undercover. She goes undercover in Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum. In “AHS: Asylum”, it is the reporter Lana Winters who goes undercover in Briarcliff Mental Institution. Nellie Bly and Lana Winters have different approaches to going undercover. Nellie Bly pretends to be insane to get committed to Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum. Lana Winters on the other hand gets committed to Briarcliff after getting caught snooping around there. Nellie Bly was actually pretending to be insane, but Lana Winters was locked up for being homosexual. Both women would soon discover first-hand the horrific treatment of the patients in these institutions.

From the moment that Nellie Bly enters Blackwell’s, she is immediately subject to harsh treatment. First off she was stripped of her clothes and made to put on paper like clothing even though it was freezing outside. Then She was forced to eat a horrible supper that consisted of bread, prunes and a pinkish-looking drink called tea. She would soon discover that all of them were almost completely inedible. Then, she was subject to a freezing cold bath in which she was held under the water and almost drowned. Lana Winter’s treatment at Briarcliff was not much better, she was almost immediately subject to electro shock therapy to try and cure her of homosexuality. The treatment of the mentally ill at these locations was simply horrible, especially since both were places where the mentally ill were sent to be taken care of and cared for. As Nellie Bly pointed out “But the city pays to keep these places up, and pays people to be kind to the unfortunates brought here.” (Bly 287) These two mental health institutions were supposed to be helping to treat these two women and the rest of the patients. However, in each case a perfectly healthy woman walked into the institution and then because of the institutions practices, were driven crazy.

There are so many striking similarities between “Mad-House” and “Asylum”. Most of these similarities have to do with the deplorable treatment of mental health patients in institutions. “American Horror Story: Asylum” was written to scare its audience with tales of the horrors inside of asylums in America and yet the nonfictional account of Nellie Bly’s time in one is just as horrific. The only major differences between these two works is that in “Asylum”, there were aliens and serial killers. The treatment of Nellie Bly in “Mad-House” was something that you would see in a horror film. From the food and the cold baths to a massive parade of the patients down the islands in which they were forced to walk down a road tied together and could not touch the grass or leaves. This was almost as bad as the electro shock therapy and experiments done on the patients in “AHS: Asylum.” Luckily in both stories, the women’s findings and treatments in these institutions led to changes in the way mental illness was treated.

By comparing these two stories of women’s experience in mental health institutions, we can conclude that the treatment of patients in institutions was often very horrific and deplorable. There are so many similarities between the nonfiction account of the treatment of mentally ill people “Mad-House” and the fictional horror television show called “American Horror Story: Asylum.” Both Women were subject to torture at the hands of the people that were supposed to be caring for them. From the food and freezing cold baths that Bly received to the electro shock therapy that Winters received. Both stories were truly horror stories even if one of them wasn’t intended to be. The bravery of the fictional character Lana Winters and of the actual reporter Nellie Bly led to changes in the treatment of mentally ill people in America and shined a light on the injustices that were happening in the institutions that were supposed to be helping them.