Out of his mind : masculinity and mental illness in Victorian Britain

Out of his Mind is a study of the consequences of a diagnosis of insanity for men, their families, their friends, and the culture at large.Studying the madman allows for an exploration of the cultural expectations of male behaviour, how men responded to those norms in their lived experiences, and what defined the bare minimums of acceptable male behaviour. Men’s authority in society was rooted in control over dependants within their household and beyond; without that power, the foundation of their manhood was in question. As such, madness touched on a key tenet of nineteenth-century masculinity: control. Building on accounts from sufferers, doctors, government officials, journalists, and novelists, Out of his Mind offers insight into the shifting anxieties surrounding men in mental distress. Exploring everything from wrongful confinement panics, to cultures of shame and stigma, to fears of degeneration, this study makes an important contribution to histories of gender and medicine. This text puts the madman at the centre of the history of Victorian masculinity and helps us better understand the stigma of men’s mental illness that continues to this day. Front matter 1 Contents 7 List of figures 8 A note on the text 10 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction: madmen in the attic? 15 Men in care: the asylum 35 Men in the community: home care, doctors’ care, and travellers 73 Personal shame: failures of morality and the will 112 Madmen out of the attic: reputation, rage, and liberty 154 Media panics: stories of violence, danger, and men out of control 197 Degeneration and madness: inheritance, neurasthenia, criminals, and GPI 235 Epilogue 277 Bibliography 284 Index 317 In a society that defined manhood as a mastery of self-control, the madman stood as a horrifying example of what could go wrong. Out of His Mind is a socio-cultural study of the madman in Victorian society; through in-depth case studies and broad surveys of emergent trends it explores popular anxieties about health, gender, and modern life. -- .