Table of Contents Economic Policy Causes and Consequences of the Subprime Crisis Brendan Dowling 11



Download 0.52 Mb.
Page6/9
Date18.10.2016
Size0.52 Mb.
#1271
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

Rethinking Biotic Resistance

Sarah Messenger


In his 1958 work The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants Charles Elton first applied the idea of biotic resistance as an important means of preventing invasions. In a nutshell, biotic resistance is the idea that areas with high levels of biodiversity are less susceptible to invasion by nonnative species than habitats with low levels of native biodiversity. This concept is based on three ideas that can be traced all the way back to Darwin.

The first important component of the theory of biotic resistance is occupied niches. Joseph Grinnell is credited for the original conceptualization of a niche as the biotic and abiotic factors necessary for a particular species to survive in a given habitat (Cadotte 2006). Elton was the first to redefine this idea as a specie’s “role” or status in its community. Niches are important in relation to biotic resistance because it is extremely difficult for an introduced species to take over a niche occupied by a native species (Cadotte 2006). Elton postulated that habitats with high levels of native biodiversity will have few unoccupied niches for introduced species to fill. Therefore, these habitats will be more resistant to invasion than habitats with less native biodiversity and therefore more open niches (Cadotte 2006).

Niche theory is closely related to the idea of competition which was initially proposed by Darwin. Again, Elton reinterpreted this theory and applied it to invasion biology. In habitats with high levels of biodiversity, there are very few available resources for an introduced species to take advantage of. Additionally, native species have evolved in this habitat making it likely that they are more resistant to invasion due to increased competitive ability for limited resources (Levine et al. 2004). Combined, these two factors make areas with high levels of biodiversity difficult to invade.

A final component of Elton’s theory of biotic resistance is that invasions occur more frequently on islands (Elton 1958). This relates directly to niche theory as islands, which typically have less biodiversity, will therefore have more open niches. Thus, the fact that we do in fact tend to see higher levels of invasions on islands could be interpreted as evidence supporting Elton’s theory of biotic resistance.

Since Elton’s time, biotic resistance has been heavily researched and the theory has been expanded (Levine et al. 2004). Besides competition, herbivory, species diversity, and fungi present, have all been found to be important components of a habitat’s biotic resistance to invasion (Levine et al. 2004). However, research has also shown that while these factors, in particular competition and herbivory, may limit the performance and spread of an invasive species, they are ineffective at preventing or stopping an invasion altogether (Levine et al. 2004). Furthermore, contrary to Elton’s predictions, areas with high native biodiversity are actually correlated with high levels of invasive biodiversity (Stohlgren et al. 2013). This could be because areas with high native biodiversity represent habitats with favorable climate and plentiful resources that may support the establishment of nonnative species.

The correlation between high native biodiversity and high invasive biodiversity suggest that Elton may have been wrong about biotic resistance. This also represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about invasion. There is an assumption that a given habitat can only sustain a set number of species. Thus if the habitat is comprised of many native species, there is little room or opportunity for nonnative invasion. However, the findings of Stohlgren and Levine suggest that this view is incorrect, there may not be a limit to the number of species a habitat can sustain (Simberloff and Von Holle 1999). Elton may have been the first to unify niche and competition theories into a unified idea of biotic resistance however, subsequent studies have found that high levels of biodiversity do not make a habitat less susceptible to nonnative invasion.



Weisbrot Critical Review Paper

Shannon Burke
In his two articles, Weisbrot and his co-authors offer academic perspectives on the prospects of economic recovery for Greece, both before the installation of the bail-out plan and three years later. The first paper claims that Greece needs to abandon its pro-cyclical fiscal policies which seek to maintain the fixed exchange rate created by the euro in favor of expansionary policies, a diagnosis similar to his analysis of Latvia. The second paper focuses on the need for stimulus once economic adjustments have been made, rather than preserve fiscal austerity. His arguments for Greece are incorporated into recommendations for other periphery European states, and offer an interesting comparison to initial analyses of the Euro for developing countries.

In the 2012 piece by Weisbrot and Montecino, the authors claim that the Greek government should abandon its pro-cyclical fiscal policies, which have been unsuccessful in their generation of an internal devaluation, in favor of an alternative strategy. This strategy is the process chosen by Argentina at the end of their 1998 recession; a planned default on Greece’s debit and subsequent exit from the euro. The authors organize their argument into six sections. The first section discusses how the output loss of GDP could be greater than IMF predictions under the austerity measures imposed by the ECB, the European Commission, and the IMF on Greece. Weisbrot and Montecino point out that the downside projections for real GDP and unemployment have been expanded several times, and that the IMF’s recovery plan is unrealistically reliant on tax revenues from the privatization of public assets. The claim, “If even a third of the privatizations do not happen in the next two years, this means that the government would have to come up with another 5 percentage points of GDP in revenues”63. Expectations of Greece operating below its targets also has detrimental effects on consumer confidence. The second section deals with the complications around Greece achieving its fiscal targets in the wake of a reduction in tax revenues and an increase in pertinent government programs, such as unemployment insurance, as the recession progresses. While Greece has been working to reach targets primarily by revenue-focused measures, the impact of the GDP deflator may eventually force the government into spending cuts. Section 3 looks at the social and human costs of the current austerity program. Apart from unemployment problems, access to healthcare has also reduced during the recession. The fourth section looks at the theory of internal devaluation, where the authors point out, “it is not clear that internal devaluations are ever successful, at least compared to feasible alternatives”64. Reductions in real wages can easily be cancelled out by changes in the euro to prevent devaluation. The fifth section examines the dynamics behind Greece reducing their public debt to GDP ratio. The authors reject the IMF baseline projection of debt reduction based on a struggling Eurozone, unrealistic PSI expectations, and overestimates in privatization gains. A predication after a “growth shock” of an increase in GDP loss in 2012 would put the debt to GDP ratio of more than 20% above target. This prediction and debt servicing costs prove that this is a very serious issue for Greece. Section six looks at the benefits and likelihood of Greece’s default in the wake of economic and political pressure from the Eurozone. The ECB would like to keep Greece in the Eurozone for the sake of preserving creditor confidence, and make Greece’s political structure more liberal in the process. They concluded that due to its high level of exports and substantial pressure from their debt burdens, Greece would be very likely to benefit form a default/exit strategy, and most likely recover at a faster rate than under the current program.

The 2015 Weisbrot et al article argues that the measured reduction of fiscal the fiscal austerity program in Greece should be replace with a program of moderate stimulus. While other influences, such as debt cancellation and low interest rates through ECB quantitative easily, moderate stimulus is favored. The article is structured in to three main sections. The first section is an examination of Greece’s economy, which despite its account surplus and new growth, is still experiencing very high unemployment. The authors claim that the current growth is a result of the end of fiscal consolidation rather than the benefits of austerity measures. Furthermore, the current growth is not assured, since non-performing loans and restricting conditions of IMF loan targets are still present65. Supporting the claims of the previous paper, the authors claim that recovery in the current account did not come from an increase in exports due to internal devaluation, but rather a decrease in imports. The second section discusses alternative recovery plans, which may be able to improve unemployment at a faster rate than the current troika –sponsored plans. The author’s plan of moderate stimulus involves cuts to sales taxes, temporary cuts to social contribution spending, and increase in government expenditures from 2017 through 2019. The ECB’s quantitative easing program could then contribute to the stimulus-based recovery. While debt forgiveness is unlikely, it would free up government resources to conduct such a stimulus program. Section three concludes that the moderate stimulus plan proposed could help avoid the risks of a slow, prolonged recovery and potential collapse back into recession for Greece.

Weisbrot’s plan for Greece, much like his commentary on Latvia, is based on the success of Argentina’s behavior under fixed rates during crisis. In both the Latvia and 2012 Greece paper’s he makes the point that “Expansionary monetary policy runs counter to the need to maintain the fixed exchange rate”66. For Greece, this implies that the motivations behind the austerity programs included keeping Greece within a fixed exchange rate, which is persevering the success of the Euro experiment. Latvia is a similar mentality, since the government has worked to keep rates fixed, at the expense of increasing unemployment and decreasing growth, in order to potentially join the Eurozone. Weisbrot’s point that internal devaluations do not solve the problems of over-valued real exchange rates is present in his argument for Latvia and the real case of Greece, with the effective exchange rate being unchanged in 2011, despite declines in wage levels”67.As such, the author clearly seeks to share theories of recovery among developing European nations.

The categorization tool of developing vs non-developing European nations and their reactions to the Euro are also prevalent in Lane’s work. In his assessments of “periphery” states, Lane states, “First, entry into the euro was a much bigger structural shock for peripheral member countries”68. Lane claims that these countries saw a much greater decline in real interest rates. However, such s shock could be translated politically as well, like in Weisbrot’s description of the austerity conditions as a method of making Greece’s economy more structurally liberal. His point of asymmetric shocks is also pertinent, since Greece’s attempts an internal devaluation can be negated by shows of strength in the rest of Europe, due to the common external exchange rate. However, Lane’s point that, “…the euro so far probably has acted to amplify cyclical divergences across the member countries”69, clearly does not hold in Weisbrot’s work, as Greece and Latvia are pressured into pro-cyclical policy’s which amplify recessionary trends on both a domestic and external level. However, it is clear the looking at the effects of the euro in countries at different stages of economic sophistication has some benefit in establishing points of comparison on which to base productive analysis.

The overall tone of Weisbrot’s work and comparisons to Lane suggest that the winding down of the Greek recession and initiation of recovery was not conducted in the most efficient way possible. Pro-cyclical measures dragged the recession on for a much longer period than necessary, and continued austerity could keep growth sluggish and unstable. As such, it seems that Weisbrot and his coauthors generally call for policies that abandon political goals of maintaining the success of the Euro experiment and preferences for policies based in theory rather than empirical success, in favor of unpopular policies which provide sustainable and measurable benefits for the struggling country.

Pasty White and the Seven Jerks


Kira Mason

Once upon this time, there lived a virgin named Pasty White. At the age of eleven, she was locked in a circular, windowless room with a ceiling of filmy, yet impenetrably dense fog, a cold, plastic floor and walls made of rounded mirrors. Her only companion was the Queen, and for seven years, she saw only their reflections.


Tall and slender, the Queen posed before the mirror with perfect posture, and Pasty was more than content to gaze upon her reflection. The lovely woman’s complexion was smooth, creamy and golden, like the butter that made Pasty’s thighs so thick and lumpy. Her hair was as smooth as the fine, silky dresses that clung to Pasty’s bloated figure in all the wrong places. Her eyes were large, glittering jewels, while Pasty’s were the tiny rock fragments left behind from the mining expedition that retrieved the jewels.
And though she was delighted to fixate on the Queen’s reflection, there was no escaping her own. Each morning, she would stand in the center of the room, clothed in only a translucent nightgown. The Queen stood to the side, but her breathy, mystifying voice echoed throughout the room as she chanted, “Mirrors, mirrors on the walls, who is the palest of them all?”
“Pasty White,” a warbled, inhuman voice answered.
“Mirrors, mirrors on the walls, who is the fattest of them all?” “Pasty White.”

“Mirrors, mirrors on the walls, who is the most worthless of them all?” “Pasty White.”

Once the Queen was satisfied, she would leave Pasty alone with the mirror and allow her to get dressed and do her makeup. She had a vast collection thanks to the Queen’s generous birthday gifts. At twelve it was nail polish for her chipped nails. At thirteen, powder for her greasy skin. At fourteen, lipstick for her cracked lips. At fifteen, eyeliner for her squinty eyes. At sixteen, mascara for her wispy eyelashes. At seventeen, eyeshadow for her puffy lids. Today, she was eighteen, and her stomach churned with anticipation at what she might receive.

Her throat tightened when she saw the Queen’s reflection approaching her from behind, empty-handed. The Queen placed her elegant fingers on Pasty’s shoulders, sending a tremor up the back of her neck. “Today you are eighteen and a woman. Today I give you an entirely different gift. Today, it is time for you to leave.”

The Queen lifted her hands from Pasty’s shoulders, and with a flick of those long, delicate fingers, one of the rounded mirrors freed itself from the fog ceiling and lowered like a drawbridge. Harsh sunlight scorched Pasty’s eyes and singed her skin. She thrust her arms in front of her face and cowered from the light, seeking solace in the folds of the Queen’s satin skirts. But chilling, bony fingers gripped her arms, yanking her to her feet, dragging her across the room and shoving her into the abyss of light. Pasty slid down the rounded mirror, her skirt twisting around her legs as she tumbled face-first into the dry, cracked earth.

She lay there, breathless, like she’d been punched in the lungs. She craned her neck back to see a wasteland before her. Everything was gray: the dirt, the sky, the tree stumps that were twisted and bent like deformed limbs. Why would the Queen have stranded her here? Pasty had always done everything she’d asked with unfaltering adoration. But if it was time for her to leave, then perhaps that meant it was too late for her to blossom into that beautiful young woman that she was supposed to become. She was utterly hopeless, a complete disappointment, and the Queen was giving up on her.


Inhaling sharply against the threat of tears, she gathered her skirt and pulled herself to her feet. She turned back, facing a fortress of black cinder. Although it loomed over her from the outside, she longed to be back inside those stone walls, safe from the piercing sun that pressed down on her from its perch in that unnervingly empty sky. But she couldn’t. So she turned back to the wasteland and forced her way towards the gray horizon.
The sun’s ferocity only grew as it raised itself higher above her. Her feet grew heavier with each step until she noticed traces of rich browns and greens appearing in the landscape. The land transformed into a forest with ancient, russet trees so gigantic that she wondered if she had come upon a world of giants. Desperately seeking shade, she quickened her pace. But the canopy of branches and leaves lacked the solidity that her fog had had. And so, she wandered aimlessly, stumbling over twisted roots and jagged rocks that tore the hem of her skirt.
“Are you lost?”
Pasty gasped and whipped around, both hands clenched against her rapidly rising and falling chest. She forced herself to gaze upon the source of the voice, and her hands dropped to her sides while the blood rushed to her cheeks. He was beautiful, like the Queen, but in a different way, in a sort of way that made her skin tingly and her insides fluttery.
The young man raised his eyebrows, his earthy, hazel eyes awaiting an answer. Her lips parted, but they flapped about like a dying fish as she struggled to make a sound. He took a small step towards her and extended his hand. “Please, don’t be frightened. I can help you.”
She stared at those calloused fingers that hung gently before her. She moved to place her hand in his, but her body tensed, and she panicked. It was too good to be true; he was too perfect to be real, or at least to be talking to her. It was a trick.
And so she ran. She ran until that low, rich voice faded away into the mist. She ran until the sun dipped below the tree-line, and all that remained was a hungry, burnt orange haze. She ran and ran and ran until they reached a clearing that was slightly illuminated by little orbs of light. At last, her brittle legs slowed, surrendering to a weary ache. They buckled beneath her just as she entered the clearing.
Several moments later, one of the orbs floated out of its fixed position and bobbed towards her. She watched with wide eyes as the outline of a glass jar containing the orb revealed itself, followed by the copper frame of a lantern, and at last, the large figure that was holding the lantern. The figure was moving quickly; it wasn’t running, but its strides were firm and direct.
“Are you hurt?” The man asked in a strained voice. Pasty shook her head dazedly, staring at the outline of his muscles and the angular features that were sliced by the shadows. He held his lantern over her to see her response, and something flickered across those burning, amber eyes. Perhaps it was just a flash from the lantern. “I’ll help you inside.”
Before she could process his words, he leaned over her, and she was overcome with a pungent mix of flower and spice aromas that had an aftertaste of raw meat. He grabbed her waist and lifted her to her feet in one strong jerk. She struggled to find her balance, and he threw a brawny arm around her, both supporting and directing her further into the clearing, towards what she now realized was a row of tiny cottages. They arrived at the one shrouded entirely in shadow, and he swept her inside, letting the door slam behind them.
His sitting room had a finely crafted chair and table. The chair was luxurious enough to have a cushion, but it was the only chair in the room. So he led her into the next room, which was smaller but far better furnished, with a beautifully polished wardrobe made of cherry wood, several small, round tables and a magnificent bed that filled most of the room. The man, whose smooth, taught skin revealed his youth, left to fetch her a drink. She sank into the mattress with an audible sigh, allowing herself to be engulfed by the plush, maroon bedspread. But she jolted up when he returned and accepted the dark amber liquid, startled by its burning sweetness.
“My name is Horny, by the way.” He didn’t ask for her name. And that was fine; she had no interest in sharing hers. Horny sat beside her, gulping down his own drink with such ferocity that she was sure his throat must be on fire. He rested a hand on her thigh, sending the same sensation of burning sweetness throughout her entire body. His moist lips curled into a playful smirk, “Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?” He put his empty glass down and slid his other hand around her waist.
His lips pressed against hers before she could answer, “no.” His tongue was in her mouth before she realized what he was saying. He’d called her gorgeous. Despite her glaring flaws, he thought she was gorgeous. And as his mouth devoured hers, Pasty determined that this was what it was like to be wanted.
His fingers swiftly unlaced her bodice, and she tensed at the thought of her pale, fleshy form being exposed. But he continued to undress her and kiss her hungrily, completely unaware that she had stopped kissing back. And then it was too late. The biting chill of the room and the scorching heat of his golden skin struck her flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of his withdrawal, of his disgust. But instead, he clutched and grasped her the way a victim of poverty would grasp fistfuls of gold from a treasure chest, letting out a throaty moan of ecstasy as he did so. Yes, he wanted her. And she wanted someone who wanted her. She took in clipped gasps of air as her heart pounded her blazing blood through her body.
Horny wasted little time after that. A few sharp thrusts that sent an electric mix of pain and euphoria shooting through her veins, and it was over. He would’ve taken her again, but her fuzzy head fell backwards onto the pillow, her dark curls spilling out around her. Her lids fluttered, then closed, and she fell asleep.
The next morning, or perhaps closer to midday, Pasty awoke shivering and tangled in the scratchy, threadbare crimson sheets. She hoisted up her heavy head, placed her weight on her shaky legs, got dressed and went into the sitting room. Horny was nowhere to be found. Neither was food, unless brandy, whiskey and a few eggs counted.
A scrawny figure slinked in from a room that she had not noticed until now. His face was guarded by greasy strings of dark hair. His head snapped towards her, and he immediately slicked his hair back out of his rat-like face and fixed his beady eyes on her.
“Might you be the young lady my ass of friend, Horny, spent the night with?” She nodded. He slid beside her and draped his arm around her shoulders. “Nevermind him, like I said, he’s an ass.” His hand crept down towards her breast. “I go by Sleazy, and unlike some people, I know how to treat a lady.”

Pasty’s stomach growled ferociously, and she bit her lip as blood rushed to her cheeks. Sleazy withdrew his arm from around her, his ashen skin now just as flushed as hers, but his expression held no trace of disgust. “Oh how inconsiderate of me; I completely forgot to offer you something.” He rummaged through the empty cabinets with a skittish fervor, then looked back to her with a tense grin. “Eggs and whiskey?” It didn’t sound appetizing, but she the corners of her mouth strained upward.


Sleazy made a poor attempt of cooking for her, but she forced down the runny, tasteless eggs. She thought to wash it down by gulping the golden liquid, but it was like drinking smoke, and she nearly choked on it. She meant to leave the cottage when she was done, but there was nowhere for her to go, and Sleazy insisted that she stay. For many tedious hours, he did his best to entertain her in that empty sitting room until they heard gruff footsteps outside.
“Horny must be back from hunting. It’s nearly dusk.” Pasty blanched, all her muscles clenching at once. She couldn’t bear to face Horny. Sleazy understood perfectly and ushered her into his own bedroom without a word, shutting the door behind them.
They sat on his bed, which creaked with every slight movement, and she absentmindedly ran her hand along the velvety black bedspread as those beady eyes soaked her in. “Horny has brought home many pretty girls before, but you are just,” he paused and leaned in to whisper, “ravishing.” His sickly sweet breath caressed her neck. Followed by his lips. It felt nice to be complimented, to be kissed, to be fondled. So she let him do all three… and then a little more. He was slower and sleeker than Horny, though there was still a twinge of hostility in his touch and a hint of sadism in his eyes.
Pasty awoke in the middle of the night, shaky and a little nauseous. Sleazy lay with his mouth hanging open, drool oozing out the side of it and one hand flung across her chest. She didn’t want to wake up next to him, and she didn’t want to wake up alone, so she slipped out of bed, threw on whatever clothes she could find and tiptoed out of the cottage.
The forest was eerily peaceful at night, and a misty indigo light peaked through the trees in uneven patches. Pasty hugged her goosebump-covered arms close to her chest and focused on the crisp crackle of leaves and twigs beneath her feet, until the sound of laughter drew her attention towards the glow of a distant fire. She drifted towards it in a trance and came upon a young man who was lying on his back and gaping at the sky with a fixed expression of bemusement.
He didn’t notice her until she was standing right over him, and then he offered her a sloppy wave and slurred something in an airy voice that sounded vaguely like, “Come look at this.” She returned his request with a blank stare, so he pulled himself up to meet her. His legs were wobbly, and he steadied himself by placing both hands on her shoulders and making intense eye contact with his glazed over, mossy green eyes. “You are the prettiest girl that I have ever… in the whole entire…” His voice trailed off, surrendering to a childish grin. He was cute, in a scruffy sort of way, with messy, sandy hair and an uneven layer of peach fuzz.
Doped-Up—that was his name, though Pasty never actually learned it—felt her shiver and pulled her down to sit by the fire. He offered her some mushrooms, and her stomach roared in approval despite her tongue’s protests at their chewy, rubbery texture. Soon her head was floating and swirling, and she tried to follow the distant laughter again until she realized that it was her own. They stared at the fire—now spurting colorful sparks—until it melted their eyes, which slid down their cheeks and left a salty taste in the corner of their mouths.
He rambled. She giggled. He kissed her… or licked her, since his lazy tongue went everywhere. She wiped her mouth with her hand and scrunched her nose at his foul breath. He continued to touch her with his limp fingers. She didn’t know how to stop him. He thought she was pretty. She thought he was funny. He took off his pants. She didn’t want him to stop liking her. He couldn’t stay aroused. She tried not to blame herself. He passed out on the ground. She was secretly relieved.
A beefy hand shook her awake the next morning. She yawned, then choked on the musty air she’d just inhaled. The first thing she saw was a pair of bulging eyes the color of faded denim. She groaned and rolled over, pressing the side of her face into the dirt and staring at the pile of charred wood next to her. Everything was achy and fuzzy. Time jerked forward in choppy images, from being pulled to her feet, to reaching the row of cottages in the clearing, to standing on the doorstep of a particularly shambled cottage, to being escorted inside and placed on a sofa that was covered by a heap of clothing.
She drifted in and out of a fitful sleep full of stretching and curving mirrors. The beautiful face of the Queen contorted into the faces of Horny, Sleazy and Doped-Up, though she didn’t quite remember the latter. At last, she jolted awake and looked about the cramped cottage. The parts of the floor that weren’t covered by dirty clothes, shoes, hunting rifles, scattered bullets, and half-eaten food were stained and scratched. Dirty dishes had colonized every table and counter, which were also coated with an impressive layer of dust and grime.
“Oh! You’re awake,” a brawny but doughy-faced young man said, shaping his words around a large spoonful of chunky, beef stew that dribbled to his chin and got stuck in his dirty blonde beard. He took a long swig of ale straight from the bottle, since all of his cups were strewn about the house, coated in a dried layer of whatever had once been in them. He smiled at her. “I’m Sloppy. You can stay for as long as you want.”
And though the air in the cottage was stuffy and musky, Pasty had the impression that if she stepped out into the clearing, there would be no air at all. So she forced herself to return his smile and proceeded to stay for a few days. Sloppy needed someone to clean and cook for him, and she liked being needed. So when, after the third day, he expressed a more physical need for her, she gave in to that too. Even though he was rough and clumsy, and it was painful. It happened again and again, and eventually, she was just too numb to mind.
But then there was Grungy, Sloppy’s elusive cottage-mate who would skulk out of his room in the middle of the night, ransack the cabinets, then return to his room, slamming the door behind him. Most nights, Pasty was too tormented with eerie, nonsensical dreams to sleep, and the pair of them would meet in the kitchen area. During their first couple encounters, he would nod to her with a crooked, close-mouthed grin. Then, he started to wink at her. And at last, he spoke in a raspy voice, “Have you ever thought that maybe we are just plants and that the trees are the true animals?”
She shook her head slowly, trying to grasp the words. They didn’t make any sense, but she told herself that she must not be smart enough to understand his intellect. And so they began to talk by the faint blue moonlight that danced on Grungy’s olive skin, which was covered in strange markings, markings that Pasty loved to assign some deep, mysterious meaning to. He did most of the talking, for he never held onto one train of thought long enough for her to keep up. Besides, she was happy to drown herself in those eyes that were like a rich, spiced rum.
He quoted broken lines of poetry in praise of her, and she was all too willing to express her gratitude. Grungy was the perfect combination of passionate and gentle, and he made her heart swell to the point where she thought it might burst. After seven nights of bliss, the night came where he didn’t meet her in the kitchen, so she crept into his room instead. She caught a flash of untamed red hair, a whiff of a citrusy perfume and a medley of high-pitched sighs and moans before snapping the door shut. And then her heart did burst, leaving it deflated and tattered.
Pasty fled back to the forest, her eyes burning with swollen tears. She saw nothing but a glistening, green and brown blur until she rammed right into a hulking wall of muscle that let out a grunt. Her eyes scanned up past the defined Adam’s apple and firm jawline to the eyes that were like caves, to the prickly hair that looked like it may draw blood upon a single touch. And then back to the black voids that were his eyes. She let herself fall into them because she now lacked the strength to do anything but fall.
His name was Hateful, and he clomped about the forest, snapping twigs and shoving branches out of his way, similar to his approach with people. He took one look at Pasty and claimed her like he’d claimed his patch of land in the clearing. She told herself that she wanted to belong to someone, that his possessiveness meant that he was committed to her. She just had to remind herself of that when he blamed her for his failure to perform. It became a mantra that she repeated throughout her weeks with him, the weeks that slurred together into a blurry month, from the time that he shouted and banged his fists on the table, to the time that he yelled and smashed his fist across the side of her face.
By the time Hateful took her to the tavern, the swelling on her left eye had gone down enough for her to see out of it, and the discoloration on her cheekbone had faded to a stale yellow. He kept a firm hand around her waist as he guided her through the feebly lit, smoky room, sliding it down further whenever one of the men from the rowdy clusters turned to look at her. The only time he drifted from her side was to order them beers.
But that was enough time for the young man sitting at the bar to turn around and offer his hand to her. “I’m Dick. And don’t take this the wrong way, but your boyfriend over there is one lucky son of a bitch. That is your boyfriend, isn’t it?” He lowered his voice, but only slightly, “Because frankly, you could do better.” Not that Dick was anything special. He was perfectly average: average build, average features and average brown hair. But Pasty shook his hand and flashed him a strained smile.
Hateful turned back, a mug of beer in each hand. The mugs fell to the ground with a dull clang, beer foaming out onto the cheap, wooden panels. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He gripped Pasty’s wrist, yanking it away from Dick and twisting it until she whimpered. “You ugly slut, you fucking whore!” he barked. Hateful raised his hand, but two of the larger men pulled his arms behind his back, restraining him. They dragged the struggling, raving man out of the tavern, and his incoherent rant about all women being sluts died behind the doors.
Pasty went to thank the men who had saved her, but Dick’s hand caught her arm. “Forget him. Here, have some cider.” He offered her a mug, and she downed the crisp liquid so quickly that it scalded her throat. He smirked. “Let me get you out of here.”
On the walk to his cottage, the forest began to spin, and she staggered about in zigzags with Dick’s hands on her shoulders, guiding her forwards. Her head felt like it might fall to the ground and float towards the stars, all at once. She didn’t notice that they’d entered his cottage until she crumpled onto a mattress and found herself staring at the solid, white ceiling, so different from the one she’d known for most of her life. A figure climbed on top of her, eclipsing the ceiling and pinning her to the mattress.
Her thoughts were coated in molasses; they stuck to one another in one muddled mess and couldn’t seem to move from one point to the next. That’s why it took so long for her to realize what Dick was doing. But then he threw up her skirts and spread her legs. And she grit her teeth. She was done. She didn’t want this. She tried to force her legs closed, but her jellylike muscles were no match for his strength. No. She tried to speak, but it was like completing an action in a dream and waking up to realize it hadn’t actually happened. “No.” The word bubbled to her lips, nothing more than a mumble. Pasty pushed and shoved the sound until it burst through so sharply that it scraped her dry throat.
“NO!”
Dick didn’t listen. He forced himself inside her. As he moved back and forth, she felt like he was drilling into her. He was a miner chipping away at her and scooping out whatever he could find. When he was done, he left her lying there, some parts of her full of holes and other parts of her shattered altogether.
The next morning, her memory came back to her in horrific shots. Her body was nearly as wrecked as her spirit, but she dragged herself back into the forest anyway. She walked for as long as she could, then fainted against a tree and woke herself up with raw, choking sobs that caused her entire chest to heave. How could she have let this happen to her? How could she have been so weak, so stupid, so naïve? Mirrors, mirrors on the walls, who is the most worthless of them all? Pasty White.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” The sound of a male voice sent a wave of nausea through her. She pressed her lips together as the man knelt before her. There was something familiar about him, and not a bad familiar either. She let her gaze travel to his hazel eyes. It was the young man she’d met on her first day in the forest, the one who’d offered to help her, the one she’d run away from. “Do you need someone to talk to?” he asked.
It had been a long time since she’d talked, really talked. The Queen had always told her that she was stupid and silly and that her thoughts didn’t matter. And she didn’t have any intention of speaking, but another sob came over her, filled with words that spilled from her throat.
“TheQueensentmeintotheforestandIwassolostandoverwhelmedandImetthesemenandtheycalledmeprettyandmademefeelwantedandneededandsometimesevenallbubblyinsidebuttheyneverstayedthenightandtheyliedandcheatedandhurtmeandoneofthemevenforcedmeto… to…” her breath gave out, her voice broke off, and she dissolved into tears.
He moved to put his arm around her, and she flinched, shrinking from his touch. Startled, he withdrew. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“No, don’t apologize.” He locked eyes with her. Though it was difficult for her to hold his gaze—that gaze as sweet and comforting as melted caramel—she did. “None of this is your fault. You know that, right?”
She swallowed, trying to wash away the rough patches that coated her throat. “It is though. I never should’ve given myself so willingly. Because deep down, I knew that they were…” She paused to cough and clear her throat. “Scum. But they thought I was pretty. They desired me. And I knew that no decent man ever would. I mean… I’m nothing special… not like the Queen.” Pasty broke away, looking down at her stubby fingers and picking at the dirt under her nails.
He furrowed his brows. “The Queen? Have you ever seen her in person?”
She was about to argue that of course she had, that she’d lived with her for seven years. But she stopped herself. Had she ever looked at the Queen straight on, without the aid of a mirror? Had she ever seen her any more directly than she’d seen herself? Now that she thought of it, the Queen had always positioned herself so particularly that Pasty could only see her reflection. It had become natural for her to rely on the mirrors over her direct plane of vision.
“I don’t mean to be rude—and I only say this because I think she’s a wretched person—but she’s a bit of a hag. And you—ˮ She looked up, and it was his turn to stare at his hands. “Well you’re absolutely beautiful… if you don’t mind me saying so.”
There was a long pause as she caught her breath, struggling to put words to this fuzzy, tingly feeling. He extended his hand to her. “I’m Princeton, by the way. And you are?”
She tentatively placed her hand in his, and put at ease by the gentle warmth of his fingertips, interlocked their fingers. It was the most physical contact that she was comfortable with for now, but he seemed to be more than satisfied with it. “I’m Pasty. Pasty White.” Ironically, her fair skin grew rosy at the mention of her name.
Princeton grimaced, sucking in air through his teeth. “That’s really awful. But you can change it if you want to. Plenty of people outgrow their names around here. Not everyone, and some take longer than others, but most do. And I don’t think this one suits you.”
Pasty chewed her lip, considering that for a moment. She had always despised that name but assumed that she deserved it. Now she didn’t necessarily think she deserved it, but she no longer despised it either. It had an endearingly quirky ring to it. “No, that’s okay. I think I’m going to keep it.”
He said that he was collecting herbs and wild berries and invited her to join him. Though she trusted him, she declined. There was something she had to do first. With only the sun as her guide, she journeyed back through the forest and into the wasteland. When she arrived, a bloody sun smeared the horizon behind the fortress, giving it a crimson aura.
The tower was solid stone all the way around. But the trivial lack of windows or doors wasn’t about to stop her. Pasty marched up to her former home and banged her fists on those coarse, cavity-filled walls until the sheer force of will caused an entire section to crumble at her feet, sending up a cloud of ash. Once it cleared, she stepped inside.
Before the mirror stood a cute, skinny girl of about eleven. She was so busy scrutinizing each of her freckles that she didn’t acknowledge Pasty’s entrance. And now Pasty understood why the Queen had let her go. It had been time for her to take in and indoctrinate another young girl. Who knew how many girls had been in this tower? And who knew how many other towers were scattered about this wasteland?
A heroic surge came over Pasty, and she swept in front of her, blocking her view of the mirror as though it were the blade of sword. She took a deep breath and faced herself. The distorted mirror no longer affected her; she could see now that she was beautiful. Her skin was not pasty but porcelain, her body not lumpy but curvy and her eyes not rocks but precious gems that absorbed the light and reflected back spectacular colors. At first, she relished in the sight. But then she remembered the little girl behind her, so young and so tortured by her own appearance. And she knew what she had to do. She removed the heeled boots that had been pinching her poor feet throughout the entire journey and drove the heels straight into the mirror.
“What are you doing?” the girl shrieked as shards of glass sprayed out at them.
Pasty tore her eyes from the shattered mirror and faced the girl. She didn’t know what she was going to say until the words erupted from her lips. “These mirrors, they tell lies. You can’t believe them. And even if they told the truth, what they said wouldn’t matter. Your voice is far more important. Do you understand?” The girl’s forehead creased, but she nodded. Pasty offered her a boot. “Do you want to help me destroy them?”
The girl bit her lip, tucked a strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, then clutched the boot in her tiny hands and smashed its heel into the mirror. The glass cascaded to the floor. The girl failed to fight back a grin, and Pasty smiled her first genuine smile in years.

Gemitus: The Link Between Turnus and Troy
Lydia Herndon

My interest in gemitus, an inarticulate groan or sigh of mourning, arose out of a curiosity about Vergil’s characterization of Aeneas. To my modern sensibilities it seemed strange to associate the protagonist of the poem and founding father of Troy with sighing, moaning, lamenting, and weeping. However, as I explored the context of gemitus, I discovered Vergil’s association of the word with non-Trojans to be more remarkable than its use to describe Aeneas. Vergil closely relates gemitus to descriptions of the fall of Troy in the first two books of the Aeneid in order to evoke sympathy for Aeneas and the Trojan remnant. However, after carefully linking gemitus with Trojan grief, Vergil uses the word to refer to the dying breath of Turnus, king of the Rutulians, in the final line of the epic. Vergil’s use of gemitus at the end of Book 12 connects Turnus with the Trojans, which implies that Vergil writes to create an Italian, not narrowly Roman, national identity.

Although Aeneas’ explicit retelling of the fall of Troy does not begin until Book 2, gemitus is used three times in Book 1 to describe his response to the memory of his fallen city and comrades. Vergil first uses gemitus when he describes the Trojan’s feast celebrating their arrival at Carthage. “Nunc Amyci casum gemit et crudelia secum fata Lyci, fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum" (Verg. Aen. 1.221-222). This translates as “Now [Aeneas] groans for fallen Amycus and with him the cruel fates of Lycus and brave Gyas and brave Cloanthus.” The memory of his lost Trojans provokes a gemitus from Aeneas. Vergil describes Aeneas as pius in the previous line, 1.220, which lends a positive moral connotation to his expression of grief through a gemitus.

The other two uses of gemitus in Book 1 occur when Aeneas discovers pictures of the fall of Troy on the walls of Juno’s temple at Carthage. First, "Sic ait, atque animum pictura pascit inani, multa gemens, largoque umectat flumine voltum" (Verg. Aen. 1.464-465), or “Thus he speaks, and feeds his spirit with empty pictures, with much groaning, and wets his face with a plentiful river.” Even pictura inani, or empty pictures, of Troy trigger a hugely emotional response from Aeneas, complete with multa gemens. Aeneas groans because of the memory of Troy, which demonstrates the depth of his grief about the fall of his home and comrades.

Aeneas’ groaning in Book 1 culminates when he sees the image of Priam’s ransom of Hector’s body. "Tum vero ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo, ut spolia, ut currus, utque ipsum corpus amici, tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis” (Verg. Aen. 1.485-487). “Then truly he gives a huge groan from the depths of his heart, as he sees the spoils, the chariot, and the body of his own friend, and Priam holding out unarmed hands.” Aeneas’ sighing is modified twice in this description—the gemitum is not simply ingentem, but vero ingentem, or “truly huge.” The intensity of Aeneas’ lament at this particular point in the passage seems to stem from the fact that he sees the ipsum corpus amici, or “body of his own friend.” This indicates that Aeneas’ grief for Troy is increased when he considers the memories of specific fallen comrades. Every time Vergil uses gemitus in Book 1, he connects it to Aeneas’ grief in memory of the destruction of Troy and its people.

In Book 2 Vergil uses gemitus to describe poignant moments of grief during the fall of Troy and as a means of foreshadowing grief to come. In lines 52-3 Vergil describes, “Stetit illa tremens, uteroque recusso insonuere cavae gemitumque dedere cavernae,” or “It stood trembling, and, the womb having been struck, the empty cavern resonated and gave a groan.” The womb in question is that of the Trojan Horse, and Vergil’s use of gemitus to describe an inanimate object foreshadows the human gemitūs that the horse will cause. The next usage of gemitus likewise describes something of Greek origin that leads to the destruction of Troy. The Greek Sinon has approached the Trojans and tells his falsely tragic story. "Quo gemitu conversi animi, compressus et omnis impetus” (Virg. Aen. 2.73-74), or “By groaning our spirits were turned, and every attack ceased.” Sinon manipulates the sincerity of true expressions of grief in order to deceive the Trojans with his false gemitus. Additionally, in line 413 Vergil describes the Greeks as “gemitu […] invadunt,” or “invading with a howl.” Although these groans do not directly reflect grief over the loss of Troy, they are applied to the Greeks who cause Trojan suffering and lament.

After Vergil thrice uses gemitus to anticipate the sorrow that would be caused by the Greeks, he uses it to describe the grief itself in its remaining four instances. Line 288 describes Hector’s mourning as he appears to Aeneas in a dream: “sed graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens” (Verg. Aen. 2.288), or “gravely leading a groan from his deep chest.” This gemitus from Hector precedes his warning for Aeneas to flee Troy. Lines 323-327 provide Panthus’ description of the fall of Troy:

Vix ea fatus eram, gemitu cum talia reddit:

‘Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus

Dardaniae: fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens

gloria Teucrorum; ferus omnia Iuppiter Argos

transtulit; incensa Danai dominantur in urbe’ (Verg. Aen. 2.323-327).


When I had scarcely said this, he replied with such a groan: ‘The last day and inescapable time of the Trojans has come: we were Trojans, there was Ilium and the huge glory of the Trojans; wild Jupiter has given all to Argos; the Greeks are ruling in the burning city.
Panthus’ gemitus signals his following lament for the incensa urbe, or burning city of Troy. Panthus’ sorrow in these lines centers on the former glory of Troy and how far his homeland has fallen. Line 486 describes the mourning of Trojan women: “At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor” (Verg. Aen. 2.486-487). This translates to “But the inner home was mixed with a groan and a miserable uproar, and the innermost sanctuaries of the rooms howled with female beatings; the shout hit the golden stars.” The gemitūs of the Trojan women grew to astronomical proportions. Finally, line 679 tells of Creusa’s grief as she is separated from her son Iulus: “Talia vociferans gemitu tectum omne replebat” (Verg. Aen. 2.679), or “Crying out in this way, she filled the building with all her groans.” Vergil describes gemitus as having the ability to fill and overwhelm even physical space. Each instance of gemitus in Book 2 either directly responds to the horrific destruction of Troy or predicts its fall.

Gemitus appears more in Book 2 than in any other portion of the Aeneid until Book 11 because Vergil is building a connection between the word and the concept of sympathy for Troy. Vergil uses gemitus more frequently than any previous Roman author (Crane). This means that he had the ability to influence his Roman readership’s associations with the word. Only Statius’ Thebaid and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, both of which were written after the Aeneid, use gemitus more frequently. This increase in the use of gemitus indicates that Vergil’s frequent usage of the word influenced later epic poets. By using gemitus in Books 1 and 2 exclusively to reference grief about the fall of Troy, Vergil lends gemitus a particularly sympathetic valence. Donald Lateiner argues that “Vergil develops his tableau of suffering by mentioning the horrible screams of the dying” (Lateiner, 259). This “tableau” of words includes gemitus, and Lateiner suggests that Vergil uses these words to better evoke the sympathies of his audience on behalf of the Trojans. Vergil carefully uses gemitus in the first books of the Aeneid to refer to grief about the demise of Troy and the Trojans. Although Vergil begins to expand his usage of gemitus in the following books, his frequent and targeted use of it in the beginning of the poem solidifies the connection between gemitus and the fall of Troy.

Given Vergil’s carefully structured tie between gemitus and Troy, his use of the word to describe Turnus, Aeneas’ enemy, in the final line of the epic is worthy of note. The last sentence of the poem is “Ast illi solvuntur frigore membra vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras” (Verg. Aen. 12.951-952), or “But the limbs of that man were loosened by cold and the indignant life fled below the shades with a groan.” Vergil uses the same phrase, “vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras,” in 11.831 to describe the death of Camilla, one of Turnus’ allies. Why would Vergil emphasize the dying groans of two enemies of Aeneas and the Trojans? By devoting the final lines of the Aeneid to Turnus and placing a gemitus in his mouth, Vergil primes his reader to feel sympathy for the Rutulian king. This is surprising because Vergil uses a word reserved for Trojans in Books 1 and 2 to define the dying moments of an enemy of the Trojans. The use of gemitus in 12.952 suggests that Vergil is presenting a more complex perspective of the Trojan and Italian conflict than can be seen at first glance. By describing Turnus’ death as cum gemitu, Vergil asks his audience to consider whether the Rutulian’s grief over his death and his conquered people is comparable to the Trojan’s grief over the death and destruction of his people and home. Vergil’s portrayal of Turnus’ death as cum gemitu signals that even the enemies of Troy deserve sympathy from his Roman readership.

Carl P. E. Springer notes that the connection between Turnus and the Trojans goes beyond the use of gemitus in 12.952. Although the ending of the Aeneid is often discussed as startling and abrupt, its format is Homeric. “The conclusion of the Aeneid, and in particular the last line, owes its inspiration to the ending of the Iliad. The last line of Homer’s epic concentrates on the antagonist, not the protagonist, and represents him in a somewhat favorable light” (Springer, 312). Vergil’s choice to mirror the ending of the Iliad in the ending of the Aeneid strengthens the link between Turnus and the Trojans and creates a more specific parallel between Hector and Turnus. Both men symbolize the nations they fight for, and each is the subject of the ending of a poem about his enemy. Perhaps more importantly, both Hector and Turnus die defending their homelands against invading foreigners. In the Iliad Troy is being attacked, but in the Aeneid Troy does the attacking. This shift in attacker complicates the connection between Turnus and Troy because it identifies him with his present Trojan aggressor through Troy’s past defeat. Why does Vergil make such a complicated literary connection that blurs the boundaries between both sides of the Trojan-Italian War?

This strong link between Hector and Turnus is difficult to understand when reading the Aeneid as a story about Roman supremacy, but Katharine Toll argues that Vergil is telling a different narrative. Vergil was a Gaul, and therefore not a Roman citizen until 42 BCE, only 13 years before he began writing the Aeneid. Italians from outside of Rome gained Roman citizenship in 70 BCE. Vergil wrote the Aeneid during a time when Rome absorbed enormous numbers of citizens from many distinct Italian people groups, which weakened the sense of a united Roman identity. Toll argues that Vergil wrote the Aeneid in order to provide a new identity that would encompass both Rome and Italy (Toll, 41). This shifts the focus of the poem from a sense of Trojan, and by extension narrowly Roman, greatness to a conception of a combined Trojan and Italian heritage.

If Vergil writes to foster a dual Roman and Italian national identity, his link between Italian Turnus and the Trojans through gemitus achieves his purpose rather than hinders it. Because Turnus represents the native Italian people, he must contribute to some part of the Roman-Italian national identity. James O’Hara argues that Vergil achieves this contribution through his description of Turnus’ ethical code: “A superficial reading of the poem suggests that only Aeneas represents Rome, but Turnus too is driven by the gods' commands; he fights and dies for what in reality are Roman values” (O’Hara, 84). By linking Turnus and the Trojans, Vergil suggests that the culture of the Romans has its root both in Aeneas’ and Turnus’ pietas, or sense of unending duty to family, comrades, country, and the gods. By tracing back “Roman” values to both Trojans and Italians, Vergil closes the cultural gap between his contemporary Romans and Italians. Turnus becomes another hero who deserves sympathy upon his death in the same way that the fallen Trojans deserve sympathy.

By connecting Turnus to Hector and the Trojans through gemitus in the last line, Vergil emphasizes “Italian-ness” and makes the distinction between the “good” Trojans and the “bad” Latins more ambivalent. In Books 1 and 2 of the Aeneid Vergil uses gemitus exclusively to express grief about the fall of Troy and the death of Trojans. However, the final line of the poem describes Turnus’ death at the hands of Aeneas as cum gemitu. By using gemitus in this line, Vergil asks his audience to feel the same sympathy previously reserved for Aeneas’ homeland for Aeneas’ enemy. This shift in sympathy is difficult to reconcile with a Roman supremacist reading of the Aeneid—why would Vergil portray an enemy of Aeneas, the great Roman pater, in such a sympathetic way? However, as Katharine Toll suggests, when the Aeneid is read as a poem constructing a dual Roman-Italian national identity, Vergil’s link between Turnus’s grief and that of the Trojans seems logical. By seeking sympathy for Aeneas’ enemy, Vergil suggests that the Rutulian king is not so different from the Trojan leader. This link between mythological leaders demonstrates that contemporary Romans and Italians could also find common ground. Vergil’s connection between Turnus and Troy through gemitus serves to reinforce the common “Roman-ness” of both Italians and Romans.

Works Cited

Crane, Gregory R. “Word Frequency Information for Gemo.” Perseus Digital Library 4.0. Tufts University, 2007. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.

Lateiner, Donald. “Affect Displays in the Epic Poetry of Homer, Vergil, and Ovid.” Advances in Nonverbal Communication: Sociocultural, Clinical, Esthetic and Literary Perspectives. Ed. Fernando Poyatos. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1992. 255-269. Print.

O’Hara, James. Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s Aeneid. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Print.

Springer, Carl P.E. “The Last Line of the ‘Aeneid.’” The Classical Journal 82.4 (1987): 310-313. JSTOR. Web. 12 Dec. 2015

Toll, Katharine. “Making Roman-ness and the Aeneid.” Classical Antiquity 16.1 (1997): 34-56. JSTOR. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.

Vergil. Aeneid Books 1-6. Ed. Randall T. Ganiban, et al. Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2012. Print.

HERsteria and NeurastHEnia: Hysteria and Neurasthenia as Socially Constructed Diseases in Nineteenth Century America


Madeline Burns

The word “hysteria” is mentioned frequently in American history, as it is used to describe occurrences in which mob mentality created a sentiment of mass panic across the nation, such as lynching in the South post Civil War, the Red Scare generated by a fear of Communism, and the xenophobia generated after Pearl Harbor resulting in the formation of Japanese internment camps. When “hysteria” is used as a medical terminology, however, the history becomes distinctly female. Just as in the instances of mass panic, the term hysteria illuminates the fears of the American public, and the way that those fears manifest themselves in discrimination against minority groups. These histories are often misrepresented in American history books, as the voices of minorities affected by hysteria go unheard. In her essay, “Hysteria, Feminism, and Gender,” Elaine Showalter explains that it hasn’t been until recently that stories about hysteria have begun to be told by women in addition to men. She maintains that it is important that feminist scholars begin to study the history of hysteria in America, as these perspectives move away from the idea of hysteria as a legitimate medical condition, and instead towards the idea that “hysteria is caused by women’s oppressive social roles rather than by their bodies or psyches” and that its sources lie “in cultural myths of femininity and in male domination.”70 Showalter calls this shift in the way scholars talk about the foundations of this disease as the “‘herstory’ of hysteria.” This paper serves as a contribution to this “herstory,” as it seeks to prove that hysteria and neurasthenia in the nineteenth century were socially constructed diseases meant to marginalize women.

One of the main differences in talking about the history of hysteria as opposed to the history of other medical conditions is that the disease has never been explicitly defined, and the symptoms have shifted according to changes in cultural norms. In his essay, “‘A Strange Pathology’: Hysteria in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800,” G. S. Rousseau asserts, “the history of hysteria is essentially a social history.”71 In order to track the changes in the disease across history, one must look to gendered social norms at the time as an explanation for the process of diagnosis, treatment, and list of symptoms associated with the disease. Because hysteria has never had a set list of symptoms, the symptoms of the disease are defined according to societal perceptions of women, and are often the symptoms of other common diseases. In her essay, “Once upon a Text: Hysteria from Hippocrates,” Helen King suggests that there are two impediments that prevent medical scholars from discussing hysteria as a historically consistent disease:

The first is that, unlike tuberculosis, epilepsy, and gonorrhea, hysteria is in no way a clearly defined disease entity for which most medical practitioners in our society would draw up the same list of symptoms; the second, that an integral part of the definition of hysteria often consists in its supposed ability to mimic symptoms of other diseases.72


Throughout its history, hysteria has remained a medical inconsistency, changing its definitions, symptoms, and forms of treatment according to societal norms about women.

Despite its medical inconsistencies, hysteria has an ancient history in the medical world. In their article, “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health,” Cecilia Tasca, Mariangela Rapetti, Mauro Giovanni Carta, and Bianca Fadda state that hysteria is undoubtedly, “The first mental disorder attributable to women.”73 They maintain that the first depiction of hysteria dates back to 1900 BC, when ancient Egyptians identified “the cause of hysterical disorders in spontaneous uterus movement within the female body.”74 Hysteria continues to be referenced throughout history from the ancient medical texts of Hippocrates to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud.

One of the principal examples of the manifestation of hysteria in American culture is in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The symptoms that were used to describe hysteria during this time were, “starting and barred eyes, raucous noises and muffled, uncontrolled jumps, sudden movements, etc.”75 These symptoms equate with the Puritanical values of America at this time; the symptoms present as those that Puritans typically associate with possession. Therefore, hysteria is linked to the idea of heresy, and women are therefore linked with the devil through a diagnosis of hysteria. Often, the young women in whom the disease presented were women who were seen as rebelling against the ideals of the Church. As the “treatment” for hysteria at this time was hanging, as hysteria was associated with witchcraft, the disease effectively eradicated all women who were seen as a threat to social and religious norms. In this instance, hysteria was linked directly to female reproductive organs, as witches could only be female. It isn’t until the eighteenth century that hysteria “starts being gradually associated with the brain rather than the uterus, a trend which opens the way to neurological etiology.”76 This move towards analyzing the brain can be seen in nineteenth century depictions of hysteria.

Starting in the nineteenth century, hysteria is used as a means of men controlling women’s bodies by pulling from outdated medical histories. The concept of hysteria was a centuries old tradition that hadn’t been accepted as medically sound for many years; however, despite the medical inaccuracy of the disease, it became inserted into medical practices. Helen King describes this shift as a reemergence of the cultural practice of men controlling women’s bodies:

The language may shift – the womb travels, vapors rise, sympathy transmits symptoms through the body – but the message remains the same: women are sick, and men write their bodies. Nineteenth-century hysteria, a parasite in search of a history, grafts itself by name and lineage onto the centuries-old tradition of suffocation of the womb, thus making Hippocrates its adopted father. It is time that father disowned his hybrid child.77
This phrase “a parasite in search of a history” accurately reflects the trajectory of hysteria in relation to nineteenth century America. In the nineteenth century, women’s roles were beginning to shift as they became more integrated in professional and public spheres. The rise of hysteria served as a direct response to some of the freedoms that women were gaining in American culture. Hysteria was essentially a pushback against the idea of women rebelling and becoming more involved in educational, professional, and other major institutions. Elaine Showalter suggests that the rise of hysteria coincides, not coincidentally, with a rise in women’s sovereignty:

That hysteria became a hot topic in medical circles at the same time that feminism, the New Woman, and a crisis in gender were also hot topics in the United States and Europe does not seem coincidental. During an era when patriarchal culture felt itself to be under attack by its rebellious daughters, one obvious defense was to label women campaigning for access to the universities, the professions, and the vote as mentally disturbed.78


Showalter also suggests that concerns about the overall wellbeing of the nation were addressed by confining women to these treatments where they were rendered sedentary and essentially incompetent.

Along with these concerns about women becoming more involved in society, there was a concern that women would not produce as many children, or be as active in the household. Because of this, any possibility that women would leave the domestic sphere was stifled, as they were forced for their health (but really for the health of the nation) to remain at home. In his essay, “The Body and the Mind, the Doctor and the Patient: Negotiating Hysteria,” Roy Porter argues that it was not only women’s role in the domestic sphere that was men were trying to preserve through diagnoses of hysteria, but also women’s role as a sexual object: “Gynecology and psychophysiology thus joined forces to make female sexuality problematic, highlighting the role of the sexual organs in provoking hysterical conditions widely believed to precipitate moral insanity.”79 Making female sexuality problematic shows that not only are women kept from abandoning their role as domestic servants and caretakers, but that their sexuality is also seen as a threat. Repressing their sexuality was suggested to be healthier for women, when really this enable men to prevent women from expressing themselves sexually, thus maintaining their status as sexual objects for men rather than sexual beings for themselves.

In the nineteenth century, practices for the treatment of hysteria varied according to which doctor or psychologist’s method was being followed. Most physicians followed Freud’s model for the treatment of hysteria, which essentially suggested that something dark from these women’s pasts had been dislodged and resurfaced, causing her to undergo fits of hysteria. The influence that hysteria wielded started to be seen in larger institutions such as hospitals and sanatoriums: “Establishments—hydros, spas, retreats, sanatoria, nursing homes—started catering to private patients suffering from hysteriform conditions.”80 In his 1906 article, “Recent experiences in the study and treatment of hysteria at the Massachusetts General Hospital; with remarks on Freud’s method of treatment by ‘Psycho-analysis,’” James Jackson Putnam, of Harvard Medical School, details his experiences treating female hysteria patients under Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis. In each case, he attempted to find something from that woman’s past that he could name as the cause of her hysteria. In an explanation of a specific case of a twenty-year-old woman that he treated for hysteria, he cites an accident she had as a child as the cause of her hysteria:

The only discoverable (or discovered) cause for these attacks, even through careful searching with the aid of the method of Freud, … consisted in two accidents, one being a fall down the cellar stairs when she was a girl of ten, the other a still more serious fall into a hole near a railroad embankment.81


After he identified the cause of the hysteric symptoms, he would then submit the patient to a set of treatments that were also designed according to Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. He stated that they established a cheerful atmosphere at the hospital with the institution of “occupations of pleasant and artistic sorts” and the “presence of a number of children … to encourage a homelike atmosphere.”82 Within this “homelike” setting, he then conducted a number of treatments, including “invigorating baths, high-frequency electricity, and Zander exercises.”83 During their stay at this hospital, women were also subjected to forced periods of immobility and rest, as was true in almost every treatment of hysteria at this time. Women remained at this hospital until their symptoms were “cured” or began to subside, which could take weeks or even months. During this time they were away from their family members, and therefore away from their role as caretakers and domestic servants.

This particular set of treatments in which women were essentially rendered incompetent was directly correlated to the ideals of the nineteenth century. In her article, “The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in 19th-Century America,” Carroll Smith-Rosenberg discusses the connection between the role of the ideal American woman in the nineteenth century and the treatment of hysteria. She purports,

The ideal female in nineteenth-century America was expected to be gentle and refined, sensitive and loving. She was the guardian of religion and spokeswoman for morality. Hers was the task of guiding the more worldly and more frequently tempted male past the maelstroms of atheism and uncontrolled sexuality.84
These principles that she refers to belong to the value system of The Cult of True Womanhood – a term that Barbara Welter coined in her 1966 article, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” where she outlines the attributes that a woman must subscribe to according to this structure as “piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity.”85 These values, Smith-Rosenberg argues, are what women were escaping by a diagnosis of hysteria. Hysteria essentially disrupted familial and marital structures, making it so that women were the ones being tended to while their families performed the everyday household chores. In this way, Smith-Rosenberg suggests, “Through her illness, the bedridden woman came to dominate her family to an extent that would have been considered inappropriate – indeed shrewish – in a healthy woman.”86 This serves as an example of women in American history taking something that was meant to marginalize them and instead using it to their advantage. While women were, undoubtedly, restricted by the diagnosis and treatment for hysteria, they used this diagnosis to reverse gender roles within their family structure, if only temporarily. During this time of rest and recuperation, women were rendered effectively incompetent, and their families were forced to take on their workload. This allowed the men in the family to realize the full extent of a woman’s work, and possibly value her role in the household more than they had previously.

As hysteria has, since its origins, been identified as a feminine disease, seeing symptoms of hysteria presented in male cases was considered ignominious and was often suggestive of homosexual or feminine tendencies in that man. There were still cases, however, where men exhibited these same symptoms, and so,

In the eighteenth century, there was a gender split in the representation of the body, with the nervous system seen as feminine, and the musculature as masculine. Doctors made a firm gender distinction between forms of nervous disorder, assigning hysteria to women and hypochondria to men.87
While hypochondriasis started out as a socially acceptable illness that men were not embarrassed to admit to having, it soon too became associated with this stigma of femininity, and therefore, a new “masculine” version of hysteria needed to be established: “In 1873, this gap in the medical lexicon was filled by the term neurasthenia. … neurasthenia was first identified in the United States and was linked with the nation’s nervous modernity.”88 Neurasthenia, like hysteria, was comprised of an extensive list of symptoms, including “blushing, neuralgia, vertigo, headache, and tooth decay to insomnia, depression, chronic fatigue, fainting, and uterine irritability.”89 But unlike hysteria, this disease, which was known to affect both men and women, was said to be caused by overexerting oneself in one’s occupation, and high levels of stress. For working men, this meant that this disease had shifted from a diagnosis associated with ideals of femininity to one associated with an elite lifestyle and good work ethic.

In an article published in a 1915 issue of The American Journal of Nursing, neurologist Edward B. Angell discusses the symptoms and diagnoses of neurasthenia, and the discerning characteristics of the disease. He refers to neurasthenia s the half-sister of hysteria, and talks about the difference between the two disorders:

It is not a mental disorder, the nature of the disturbance being rather one of weakness and lack of vigor than a clouded and perverted tone of the mind. In this respect, it differs definitely from hysteria, its half-sister, insasmuch as the mental tone of the hysteric is not necessarily one of weakness but of perversion, while that of the neurasthenic is indicative of simple loss of power.90
While Angell does not explicitly discuss the gendered separation of these two terms, the gendered ideologies are implicit in the explanation of the difference between the two. Hysteria, which is only diagnosable for women, is considered to be representative of a “perversion” of a patient. Neurasthenia, however, which men can be diagnosed with, is associated with a “simple loss of power,” implying that their minds are still stable, and they will return to their former selves after a period of time.

Although neurasthenia came out of a need to form a new masculine nervous identity, this disease is often associated today with femininity. This is largely due to the cultural products we reference today when we talk about neurasthenia. The most obvious example is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In fact, there were just as many cases of men diagnosed with neurasthenia as women: “In the United States, equal numbers of male and female patients were reported in the medical journals.”91 Because neurasthenia is often viewed under the umbrella term of hysteria, modern day scholars often assume that it held the same gendered diagnosis. The diagnosis itself was not gendered; however, the way in which patients diagnoses with neurasthenia were treated differed according to both gender and class.

The prevailing treatment for neurasthenia, an extended period of rest in which the patient was immobile and prevented from leaving bed, was invented by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. This treatment, known as the “rest cure” involved,

seclusion, massage, immobility, and "excessive feeding." For six weeks the patient was isolated from her friends and family, confined to bed, and forbidden to sit up, sew, read, write, or do any intellectual work. She was expected to gain as much as fifty pounds on a rich diet that began with milk and built up to several substantial daily meals.92


This treatment, however, was not used for all neurasthenia patients, but only for middle to upper class women, as these were the only patients who could afford to give up six to eight weeks of their lives to rest. This emphasizes the fact that this “treatment” was not really a treatment, but rather a means to keep women inactive and restricted to the domestic sphere.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the most well known cultural references to neurasthenia and the process of treating neurasthenia in the nineteenth century. The short story is based off of Gilman’s personal experience being diagnosed with neurasthenia (by her own husband), and the restrictive nature of the treatment that she is forced to endure. Not only is she physically and socially isolated from the world around her, but she is also forbidden from writing and expressing her thoughts: “I am … absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again. … I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.”93 In this way, she is forced to reinvent herself as a woman who is entirely obedient to men, and has no mind of her own. In her article, “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’” Paula Treichler asserts that this is a forced development of “an artificial feminine self who reinforces the terms of her husband’s expert diagnosis: this self attempts to speak reasonably and in a ‘very quiet voice,’ refrains from crying in his presence, and hides the fact that she is keeping a journal.”94 All of this isolation and repression is framed under the idea that this was what was best for these women; however, it is the men that benefit from this treatment, as women are confined to a submissive state in which they are completely subservient to and dependent on the men in their lives.

Although this “rest cure” is the better known of Mitchell’s methods (again, most likely due to its popularity in cultural texts about neurasthenia such as Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”), he also treated men diagnosed with neurasthenia. Where his treatment of women diagnosed with neurasthenia was known as the “rest cure,” his treatment of men was known as the “west cure.” In response to diagnoses of neurasthenia in men, Mitchell would send them “out West to engage in prolonged periods of cattle roping, hunting, roughriding and male bonding.”95 Showalter explains that this gendered difference in his treatment of the same nervous disorder can be attributed to his philosophies about the physiognomy of men and women. Mitchell was openly opposed to the idea of higher education of women, as he thought that, “the female reproductive system and the brain derived their nourishment from the same source.”96 Essentially, he believed that if a woman were to strain her brain, she would also strain her reproductive system. These misogynistic ideologies were clearly implemented in his treatment plans for neurasthenia, and are only further emphasized by the differing treatment plans for men and women diagnosed with the same disease.

Hysteria and neurasthenia became officially removed from the DSM in 1980, long after they were used in commonplace medical practice: “We know that the concept of hysterical neurosis is deleted with the 1980 DSM-III: hysterical symptoms are in fact now considered as manifestation of dissociative disorders.”97 This removal of the disease from the DSM, however, did not mean that all socially constructed feminine nervous disorders were disempowered. There are still many examples of contemporary nervous disorders that bear some sort of social stigma related to gender. In Jenifer Dodd’s article, "'The name game': Feminist protests of the DSM and diagnostic labels in the 1980s," she provides examples of ways in which socially constructed psychological disorders and the stakes of labeling something as a feminine disease can impact the status of women. Specifically, Dodd examines feminists within the mental health field through their response to the proposed addition of three allegedly sexist psychiatric disorders in the 1980s. Dodd suggests that it is not only contemporary feminine nervous diseases that feminists should question for the way that they disadvantage women, but also male psychiatric disorders:

For the most part, women’



Download 0.52 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page