One of the things we discussed in our podcast, but were unable to touch on in the edited version of our file was what we thought Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House would have been rated in its time? Would this expose have been seen as PG or R rated?

Personally, I think that this piece would have been quite shocking to its readers—who I pictured to be upper-middle class women. I think that these women would have been horrified by not only obviously the physical torture, but the day to day horrors the inmates of the asylum experienced as well. For example, the lack of hygiene among women, the freezing temperatures, dearth of edible food…These are privileges the audience of this expose would have been used to. To read a piece where the perfectly sane women that Nellie focuses on are forced to endure life without these privileges would have been especially alarming. However, reading this piece now, it feels as though this piece is largely censored compared to any sort of expose we would read now—even in Nellie’s description of the actual physical abuse.

I found Vandover’s discussion of each event that “destroyed” his purity to be very interesting the beginning portion of the second half of the novel. Essentially Vandover lists each of the external influences (many of which are people) that have somehow contributed to the growing beastly influence inside of him. He blames his loss of innocence from losing his mother, he blames his father’s death for the loss of an influence in his life that “cultivated and fostered his better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.” Vandover blames the fact that Turner Ravis fell out of love with him as well as the fact that the public ceased to take interest in him anymore and his lack of religion for the further deterioration of his so-called “higher self”. I find it interesting that Vandover is quick to blame every external influence in his life, but never himself or his own actions for the growing force of the brute inside. He also seems to come to the conclusion that he is unable to save himself without any help. The external influences Vandover describes only served to contain the evil within Vandover all of his life. Is Vandover inherently evil? Does this evil only surface when all that was containing the brute ceases to exist? Or is Vandover unwilling to accept his wrongdoings and blames others for the consequences he now suffers because he is selfish and entitled? Perhaps this begs the larger question of how one must decide to cope with their loss of innocence. Vancouver never quite embraces his good sense of self and his independence until he succumbs to his vices later in the novel. Even then, he is a slave to both his addictions and the actions of the brute (which he becomes increasingly unable to control—to the point where he becomes this brute and crawls on all fours in public).

This discussion of Vandover’s loss of innocence and inherent goodness versus evil and the presence of outside influences may be interesting in light of Vandover’s interaction with the young boy in the last few pages of the novel. The young boy gets attention for his rude comment about Vandover and therefore repeats his action. However, he is scorned by his father and goes back to eating his bread and butter very innocently while watching Vandover work. By this point, Vandover is humbled and working for the first time in his life, trying to make purpose of something and this innocent child is just embarking on his own journey of life. The fact that the child gets attention for his cruelty towards Vandover and is scorned by his father may be some sort of a parallel to Vandover’s own story and how he wrestled with the attention he got from outside influences as well as the scorn and what happened when both of these things were lost from him.