Imagine a situation where you are given no edible food, forced to bathe in freezing water, and have nothing to do but stare at a bare wall.  Would you go insane?  “Ten Days in a Mad-House” was published in 1887 by Nellie Bly, who first hand experienced what living in an asylum is actually like.  The story starts without an explanation as to why Nellie is there, but we clearly understand that she's not actually mad.  Immediately, the text reminded me of the Salem Witch Trials.  Being that this was written after the witch trials, one can see how these two events mirror each other, and how “Ten Days in a Mad-House” makes a statement toward it and vice versa.  The book also reflected on aspects of how the Jewish were treated in the Holocaust. Through the gruesome details given in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” one can further understand the struggle of those under the witch trials, concentration camps in the Holocaust, and how mankind so commonly in history is evil and cruel to one another.  

To further understand the text, one first needs to understand the severity of the mad house described.  It was the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island.  In the first paragraph, Nellie describes the patients as “being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life” (Bly 281).  This quote alone leaves the reader with a sense of despair, and empathy for this person.  After a couple days, Nellie describes that “The patients looked blue with cold, and the minutes stretched into a quarter of an hour” (Bly 285).  By introducing the severity of the patients, the length of their time there, and the brutality of it all, an immediate impression of situations similar to this one are made.

The first historical period that the text and the situation might be responding to are the Salem Witch trails.  The events of the Salem Witch Trials are so similar to that of the asylum, that (having been after the trials) one might wonder if the asylum was inspired by some ideals from the old Massachusetts trials.  The Salem witch trials took place in the last 1600’s, when young girls accused women in their town to be doing witchcraft.  One by one people were put on trial, which most of the time ended in death, and the legacy of the trials was left for hundreds of years.  Women in the trials would try to defend themselves, and through doing this they were only accused more… once one was accused, there was no way out. The trials are a blatant reflection of the story “Ten Days in a Mad-House.”  On page 282, Nellie explains what happened when she first entered the asylum.  She explains that women “begged” the doctors to test their insanity and give them a chance to prove they were sane, but this only dug them in a deeper hole.  After seeing this situation she explains “I determined then and there that I would try by every means to make my mission of benefit to my suffering sisters; that I would show how they are committed without ample trial.”  While reading this, I immediately connected to a quote from the witch trials, “I never saw the Devil’s book nor knew that he had one” (Ann Pudeator).  In both cases, innocent women are being accused wrongly.  “But here was a women taken without her own consent from the free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity” (Bly 282).  Through studying the quotes and references of the Salem Witch trials, one can see how it inspired a fire in Nellie Bly, to write about a similar and equally as tragic situation.  

The second historical incident that the story “Ten Days in a Mad-House” reminds me of is the holocaust.  Different from the witch trials, the Holocaust and the treatment of the Jewish and other minorities during that time occurred after experiences like Nellie Bly’s were published for the world to see.  This leads a reader to infer that the terrible events that people endured during the Holocaust and concentration camps, could have been evolved from events in the last 1800’s such as the treatment at insane asylum’s.  There are many points in Bly’s story where the similarity is apparent.  One example is the similarity between the nurses and the leaders at the concentration camps.  Bly explains how after asking for a dry nightgown a nurse said to her, “Well, you don’t need to expect any kindness here, for you won’t get it” (Bly 287).  It is explained in many other incidences in the story how the nurses would beat them, pinch them when they had fits, or refuse them of basic rights.  An Auschwitz survivor Jenny Schaner recalls a time when she overheard a Dutch woman say to the work-detailed leader “For God’s Sake sir, I cannot work like this, I am pregnant.”  The guard responded with, “What you swine, you pig!”  The Holocaust is obviously a much more appalling and inhumane account of events, but the similarity to concentration camps and the asylum Bly describes can be seen.  Another example of this closeness is the food the people in both situations were given.  Nellie explains “The hungry and even famishing women made an attempt to eat the horrible messes… The most insane refused to swallow the food and were threatened with punishment” (Bly 293).  Bly explains how they were fed barely nothing, and what they were fed was almost not edible.  Food in concentration camps was similar, but worse, “For lunch, prisoners may have been given watery soup.  If they were lucky, they might find a piece of turnip or potato peel” (theholocaustexplained.org).  In both situations, the prisoners were being basically starved, and denied of simple rights.  A reader can see how the the situation addressed in the text “Ten Days in a Mad-House” can compare and maybe even have sent a ripple effect to the cruel and hateful actions that were done in the concentration camps. 

Overall, Nellie Bly gives an extremely detailed explanation of her time in the asylum.  She makes it very clear that she wrote the article to make a statement, and it led future readers to learn about how tragic the acts were.  As a reader, it sparked a reminded how people in the witch trials were unfairly treated, and showed how things only got worse as the Holocaust followed the publishing of this story.  Through Nellie’s explanation of being admitted in the asylum, along with how she was treated and the food she was given, one can see the terrible case of humans treating other humans with zero compassion.  Events like the Salem witch trials reflect with events like “Ten Days in a Mad-House” which reflect on a massive scale with events like the Holocaust.  By looking at these situations in relation to one another, the reader understands how they are all unjust, and how humans treat each other has only gotten worse over time.  These most severe of these three historical events is the holocaust, and it is also the most recent.  This story proved clearly how often humans are put against their will, and let the reader sympathize with other similar if not more awful situations.  
