Heal Your Heart Through Powerful Stories

Have you ever been captivated by a book that delves into the minds of a troubled soul, those characters wrestling with their inner demons, or are striving to find their place in a world? What about others who watch a loved one’s struggles, stood by the sidelines not knowing what to do or how to react?   Were you struck by how some characters seemed indifferent to these struggles? Sometimes literature can serve not only as a reflection of the human condition but also as a mirror to society’s perceptions of the times. Find out more in Heal Your Heart Through Powerful Stories

Our modern literature takes a far more tender approach than 100 years ago. People with mental health disorders were portrayed in the early stages of the 20th century, as outsiders or people who were feared and condemned by the people around them.

100 years ago people didn’t have the opportunity to talk so openly about anxieties or any inner problems they were struggling with as we are able to today, but rather would have had to sweep them under the carpet and conceal their true selves, while they were in the public eye. It’s even fair to say at this point society didn’t understand mental health or discussed it freely.

But it can be through the gate of literature that we can contemplate ourselves and others’ emotional issues. Literature offers a world that is available to dissect and conquer, emotions as a portal for truth.

Interestingly, over the last 100 years the approach writers have taken with characters or angles in books, that deal with mental health, has changed drastically. This mirrors our evolution as a society and understanding of the transition about general well-being and good mental health. 

Starting in the early 20th century, in 1925, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ by Virginia Woolf is a great book to look at. Clarissa Dalloway, a woman of high social standing, feels enormous pressure on her social reputation, is very insecure because she suffers from clinical depression, and has spent time in a mental hospital throughout her life. 

While she does not open up candidly about her own disorder in the book, through the character Septimus (a war hero), she expresses the pain she feels battling mental illness in the early 20th-century oppressive society.

Septimus is a war veteran who has undergone a lot of trauma in his life; his hallucinations and despair are juxtaposed against the rest of the characters in the tale and societies as a whole continuous ignorance. 

He is a symbol Woolf uses to highlight the stark lack of empathy and ineffective treatments. The remedies for mental disorders in the 1920s were nearly nonexistent, and those affected were often treated with electroshock therapies and forced confinement.

Woolf revolts against an ignorant society, confronting the obstacles she faced while navigating the early 1920s living with bipolar disorder. 

Socialite Nicole Diver, from the novel ‘Tender is the Night’ (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is another perfect example of soldiering on and dealing with difficult mental challenges in a stigmatising and unsupportive society. She is depicted as a beautiful, wealthy, and complex woman who suffers from mental illness.

Nicole is married to Dick Diver, a charismatic and talented psychiatrist who initially treats her. Actually, she is believed to be inspired by the author of the book, Fitzgerald’s, wife Zelda, who also struggled with mental health issues.

In fact, Nicole is the embodiment of strength and resilience. Initially, Nicole’s life seems blessed and enviable rich, beautiful, married to a successful doctor, living out her life in the lush landscape of the French Riviera and the vibrant streets of Paris during the Jazz Age.

However, we soon learn that Nicole struggles with schizophrenia and is heavily and unhealthily reliant on her psychiatrist husband, Dick, emotionally attached and reliant on him for her medical treatment. Nicole’s initial fragility serves as a mirror, showing us the potential dangers of placing our well-being in someone else’s hands.

Throughout the book, Nicole begins to realise the importance of her emotional independence and the colossal effect it has on her well-being, gradually finding strength in herself and reclaiming control over her life. 

Ten years have passed since the publication of ‘Mrs. Dalloway,’ yet Fitzgerald’s concerns about the lack of support within the repressive society seem to remain the same. By the 1930s, when Fitzgerald published the book, there had been no major breakthroughs in the support offered for psychiatric conditions; electroshock treatment was still the main practice carried out.

Through the crippled state of Nicole’s character and the revolting experiences she endures, such as hearing dear friends call being ‘somewhat afraid of Nicole,’ as well as the never-ending relapses she faces because of the inefficient treatments her husband carries out on her, Fitzgerald voices a powerful protest against an oppressive society.

Through Nicole’s crippled voice, the writer shows that the many victims of psychosis, just like Nicole, are in need of support and need to be embraced, rather than made to feel embarrassed and condemned.

Fitzgerald also mirrors this through Nicole’s husband, Dick, whose initial support aids her recovery, but whose eventual neglect exacerbates her struggles.

By the time the 1950’s came along, Jerome Salinger had published the acclaimed book ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and there appears to be a slight shift towards accepting mental disorders.

There seem to be more characters in this novel who try to understand Holden, the protagonist, and his emotional and mental struggles. 

Now, we turn our attention to books that explore the trials and angst of teenage years. Holden Caulfield’s story, where he struggles with alienation, innocence, and the difficulties of transitioning into adulthood, is an evocative work, where his quest to find genuine connection and his authentic portrayal of alienation and disillusionment provoke us to reflect on our own intrusive thoughts and emotional rollercoasters.

His teacher, Mr. Antolini, is a significant figure who is very supportive and understanding, repeatedly appearing in the story as trying to set Holden on the right path by offering him academic support and advice about life.

Also, Holden’s parents are exceptionally recognizing of his struggles and need for recovery. It offers an empathetic perspective into teenage angst and Holden’s complex tribulations of growing up amid the pervasive hypocrisy he perceives in the world around him.

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Kesey is another powerful example that stands to revolt against the harsh and inhumane treatment of the mentally ill. 

Published around 10 years after ‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ in 1962,  the novel is set in a mental institution and centres around the conflict between the rebellious patient Randle Patrick McMurphy and the authoritarian Nurse Ratched, who runs the psychiatric ward. 

McMurphy fakes insanity to serve his sentence for a criminal conviction in the hospital rather than in prison, believing it will be less restrictive. However, he finds himself in direct conflict with the oppressive Nurse Ratched, who tightly controls the patients with a mix of rewards and harsh punishments.

This work again comes back to criticise the harsh treatments that were still ongoing in 1962. Even if 1962 brought some more caring help, such as a few more antipsychotic drugs, the dehumanising Electroconvulsive therapy, was still one of the most popular treatments used. 

Kesey’s vivid portrayal of the horrific mental hospital, the harsh treatments the patients undergo as well as the grim resonance it evokes in the reader, alludes to the atrocious reality of those still having to undergo brutal therapy, calling for relief of those patients who were still entrapped.

‘Shutter Island’ published in 2003 by Dennis Lehane is essentially about the nature of reality, sanity, and trauma. It follows Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule as they investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient from Ashecliffe Hospital, a facility for the criminally insane located on Shutter Island, USA.

Yet again, this story sheds light on disturbing truths about a psychiatric facility. Through the illustration of treatments such as psychopharmacology(studies wide ranges of substances with various types of psychoactive properties) and the illustration of a dreadful and thrilling island where the mentally ill are imprisoned against their will.

The novel cries out against the inhumane treatments experienced still by the mentally ill. The book portrays a vivid and especially enthralling image that causes us to specifically think and ponder about the ethics behind the vile treatments they undergo. Why are they held unwillingly on the island? Why are they treated without any compassion?

Without a doubt, as we move into the new century, the 2010s, there is a traceable rise in psychiatric medication and an overdue, and dire need, for inhumane therapy treatments has majorly declined.

The rise of novels such as ‘All the Bright Places’ by Jennifer Niven is published. Novels like these don’t shy away and conceal the difficult topics, but rather talk about them and explore them in all their midst and glory.

This novel explores the intense emotions of two teenagers, Violet Markey and Theodore Finch, who are troubled by their mental illnesses, grief, and thoughts of suicide. The story is one of self-discovery and is a vivid and candid depiction of their struggles, difficult thoughts, and culminating moments that their problems cause them to find themselves in.

But in ‘All the Bright Places,’ things are different for Violet and Theodore. As they navigate their lives in the 2010s, they freely express their challenges and vulnerabilities. The story supports this openness, highlighting how much relief and freedom they find in being candid about their struggles.

The story truly shows how far we’ve come from more judgemental and restrictive times, like the years when Clarissa Dalloway or Nicole Diver were alive, where having even the slightest mental disorder would be enough to force you to live hiding in the fear of being judged.

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