Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth-Century BritainNineteenth-century Britain did not invent chronic illness, but its social climate allowed hundreds of men and women, from intellectuals to factory workers, to assume the identity of "invalid." Whether they suffered from a temporary condition or an incurable disease, many wrote about their experiences, leaving behind an astonishingly rich and varied record of disability in Victorian Britain. Using an array of primary sources, Maria Frawley here constructs a cultural history of invalidism. She describes the ways that Evangelicalism, industrialization, and changing patterns of doctor/patient relationships all converged to allow a culture of invalidism to flourish, and explores what it meant for a person to be designated—or to deem oneself—an invalid. Highlighting how different types of invalids developed distinct rhetorical strategies, her absorbing account reveals that, contrary to popular belief, many of the period's most prominent and prolific invalids were men, while many women found invalidism an unexpected opportunity for authority. In uncovering the wide range of cultural and social responses to notions of incapacity, Frawley sheds light on our own historical moment, similarly fraught with equally complicated attitudes toward mental and physical disorder. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 11 | |
Confession Cure and the Hypochondriacs Narrative | 64 |
Invalids Abroad | 113 |
Christian Invalids and the Literature of Consolation | 156 |
Self Surveillance and Life in the Sickroom | 200 |
Locating Invalidism in the Nineteenth Century | 245 |
Works Cited | 255 |
Index | 279 |
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affliction anxiety argues associated author of Confessions autobiography believed British Bulwer-Lytton century Christian invalids chronic claims climate commonplace books confessional Confessions and Observations consolation consumption convalescence culture Davos Davos in Winter depicted describes Diary discourse disease doctors England English essay Essays of Elia Evangelical experience figure Florence Nightingale Gaskell Harriet Martineau History hydropathy hymns hypochondriac identity idleness invalid abroad invalid authors invalid narratives John Addington John Addington Symonds kind Letters literary literature London Magazine male Margaret Dawson masculine Matthews medicine Memoirs middle-class mind nerves nervous nineteenth nineteenth-century Britain overwork pain passage physical physician prayer references resignation reveal rhetoric Richard Lane Robert Louis Robert Louis Stevenson Room Roy Porter Search of Health sense sexual sick person sick role sickroom social society spiritual status Stevenson story suffering Symonds Symonds's tion titled tracts understanding valid Victorian Water Cure Water Patient Wilkie Collins women writes written wrote York
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Page 156 - Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
Page 27 - Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns; And all about her clings an old, sweet smell. Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl. Well might her bonnets have been born on her. Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother The subject of a strong religious call?
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