Female Hysteria in Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins and "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria" or "Dora" by Sigmund Freud were both written at the turn of the 19th century and share, not just a common theme of female hysteria, but also reflect the analysis and treatment of such a disorder in the highly male-dominated society of the times. It looks at the similarities between the books and shows how, in both, the protagonist's condition is made to worsen by the sheer refusal on the parts of the men to lend any credence at all to the "voices" of the sufferers.

From the Paper:

"Dora's tragedy lay in the fact that her own father refuses to believe her that Herr K is constantly making unwanted sexual advances, instead preferring to believe Herr K that the whole story is a concoction of Dora's, a result of the young girl's own sexual fantasies. Dora's tragedy gets accentuated by Freud choosing to believe her version, but thereafter proceeding to interpret her hysteria as resulting from her own repressed sexual desires that included tracing her throat symptoms such as loss of voice and coughing to her fantasies of her father and Frau K having oral intercourse."

More papers on Female Hysteria in Literature:

• Book Review # 74642 : "The 'Female Malady' in Literature"
• Analytical Essay # 23911 : "Male - Female Relationships in Literature"
• Comparison Essay # 102501 : "Male and Female Relationships in Literature"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: