ENG 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Bed Rest, The Yellow Wallpaper, Sexual Repression

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: English
• Course: ENG 1120
• Professor: Natalie Taylor

Document Summary

Hysteria: a psychological disorder involving extreme expressions of emotion and sometimes physical symptoms for which there is no obvious biological cause. The term in the past used to describe the manifestation of two oppposite emotions at the same time, ie, by laughing and crying. This signified a loss of control and a state of confusion and weakness. Aestheitcs: a set of principles and also a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty, especially in art and artistic taste (based on the oed definition) . In that time, hysteria was seen to be caused by sexual repression. Freud labeled artistic, sensitive are always hysterical, out of balance. Which is not always true, it can be to some extent, but it"s dangerous to label everyone like that. Hysteria comes from the word uterus (womb) what? the womb was. Wandering around, causing symptoms. (ie. if you had a headache, your womb wandered to your head and go stuck there)