Insanity in the 19th Century

The introduction of insanity in the text adds a darkness that hasn't been introduced yet. In class it was briefly mentioned that back then, it was acceptable the lock up a woman in an asylum if she was viewed as crazy...not really taking into account if she REALLY was! It also plays into this "things are not as they seem" idea because it makes us read into her reasons for being there: is she REALLY legitimately crazy,which would call into question how much we can really trust her OR is she being put there for unjust reasons? I feel like Dr. Karnac played up to this: "He never answered my questions or entreaties regarded me as being without sense of will, insisted on my trying various mixtures and experiments in diet, gave me strange books to read and weekly received Hannah's report of all that passed" (234). He made her FEEL crazy, I know at least I would! Changing my diet, knowing I was being watched, and giving me strange books to read and ignoring me would be enough to drive me insane!!

The mother daughter relationship seen is very unique. "I believed her dead, yet I had seen her, knew where her solitary grave was made, and still carried in my bosom the warning she had sent me, prompted by unerring instinct of a mother's heart" (240). In the "Wide Wide World", Ellen and Mrs. Montegomery were very very close. Ellen adhered to her mother's teachings and advice because she wanted to make her mother happy. In the same way, Sybil stuck close to the warning her mother had sent her and in that adhering to what had been told of her. However, this is very different because it is almost like Sybil very much feels an intimate connection with her dead mother. That is something not seen in any other book that we have read! It brings up an interesting point of view of a relationship with the deceased. It changes my previous idea of mother/daughter relationships because the relationship wasn't one where both people were necessarily present. Sybil was present but the warnings of her mother and whispers were merely something Sybil FELT, there was no relationship is the physical sense which I believe makes it special and very intimate in it's own way!