I couldn’t get ChatGPT to link normally, so I pasted in what it said. It got a lot right about the article, and what people had to say about it,  but that highlights my disapproval of the engine as a whole. ChatGPT and other AI’s cannot come up with this on their own, so they steal the work of other authors. I think AI has no place in an academic’s toolbox, and I think it’s the same as plagiarism.

Here is a clear summary of Louise Benson James’ article “Menopause and Hysteria in Victorian Medical Texts and Rhoda Broughton’s ‘Mrs. Smith of Longmains’”. I’ve separated the key ideas into the medical context, analysis of Broughton’s story, and the article’s overall argument.

---

Summary of Louise Benson James’ Article

1. Victorian Medical Views of Hysteria and Menopause

James begins by examining Victorian medical discourse about hysteria and how it was tied to women’s reproductive bodies.

• By the 19th century, doctors no longer believed hysteria was caused by a “wandering uterus,” but they still strongly associated it with the female reproductive system. (biblio.ugent.be)
• Physicians such as Robert Barnes and Henry Maudsley argued that puberty and menopause were “bodily crises”that made women psychologically unstable and prone to hysteria. (Biblio)
• Menopause was particularly feared because it represented:
  • The loss of reproductive ability
  • Mental instability or nervous illness
  • A transition into social uselessness

Victorian medicine therefore linked women’s biological changes to social value, implying that women were most stable and valuable when they were reproductively active. (Biblio)

---

2. Medicalization of Women’s Behavior

James argues that Victorian medicine pathologized female emotions and behaviors.

Key ideas:

• Ordinary emotional reactions, intuition, or dissatisfaction could be labeled hysteria.
• Medical texts framed women as biologically determined by their reproductive organs.
• Menopause became a moment when women were thought to become irrational, unstable, or socially redundant.

This discourse reinforced patriarchal control, since medical authority defined what counted as normal female behavior.

---

Rhoda Broughton’s “Mrs. Smith of Longmains”

Plot and Premise

James analyzes Rhoda Broughton’s short story as a literary response to these medical ideas.

The story follows a middle-aged woman narrator who believes she is experiencing supernatural phenomena.

Key elements:

• The narrator shows symptoms that resemble hysteria or menopause.
• Other characters doubt her and treat her as unstable.
• She fears becoming socially irrelevant and dismissed because of her age.

---

How the Story Engages with Medical Ideas

James argues that Broughton’s story both reflects and critiques Victorian medical beliefs.

1. Internalization of Patriarchal Views

At first, the narrator seems to accept medical assumptions that older women are irrational or hysterical.

This reflects how women often internalized medical narratives about their bodies.

---

2. Questioning Medical Authority

However, the story complicates these assumptions.

• The narrator’s strange perceptions are ultimately connected to real supernatural insight.
• What appears to be hysteria becomes a form of knowledge or sensitivity.

This challenges the idea that female intuition is simply pathological.

---

3. Satire of Menopause Myths

Broughton subtly satirizes the medical idea that menopause leads to madness or uselessness.

The story exposes how easily women’s experiences are:

• dismissed,
• misunderstood,
• and labeled as illness.

---

Overall Argument of the Article

Louise Benson James argues that:

1. Victorian medical texts framed menopause as a dangerous biological and psychological crisis.
2. These ideas reinforced the belief that a woman’s value depended on reproductive capacity.
3. Rhoda Broughton’s “Mrs. Smith of Longmains” responds to this discourse by:
   • showing how women internalize medical judgments,
   • but also undermining and satirizing them through fiction.

Ultimately, the story reveals how medical authority could misinterpret women’s bodies, emotions, and perceptions. (Biblio)

---

✅ In short:
James demonstrates that Victorian medicine pathologized menopause and female behavior, while Broughton’s story exposes and critiques those assumptions by showing that what appears to be hysteria may actually be misunderstood female experience.

---

If you want, I can also give you a very short paragraph version (like 4–5 sentences) that works well for essays or discussion posts.

For my reading of “Written on the body” by Jeanette Winterson, I wanted to focus on the idea of mourning a relationship in the same way you mourn a person. When the narrator reads about mourning as a way to grieve what could have been between them and Louise, I was reminded of a piece of advice I was given in middle school. I was told to mourn every ending relationship like a death to give yourself the closure when the rest of the world doesn’t want to give it to you. I was never really sure what that meant until my mom passed of appendix cancer, and I was left with a million questions I’d never get the answer to.

I was really connected with the part where the narrator finds one of Louise’s hairs on a coat and mentions that nobody really tells you how to deal with finding a small piece of a lost loved one. I remembered my first time finding my mom’s hair on a sweater of hers I was wearing, and how that affected me very similarly to the narrator, so it was really nice to see that represented. A lot of stories about cancer don’t really follow the bereaved, so it was really nice to see these parts being represented in media this way.

This week’s readings were really meaningful to me as someone who does, eventually, want kids, but knows that I do not want to have them until I’m 30. I have had the conversation with my boyfriend since we started dating that, god forbid, I ever get pregnant, we wouldn’t be keeping it. This is a little personal, but recently, we had a scare where we thought I could have been pregnant, but I got an IUD 4 months ago so I knew it was unlikely, but it didn’t make me less scared. I was sobbing on his shoulder waiting for the results because I knew that it held the possibility of changing my life for the worse, and I couldn’t bear it. Thankfully, it was negative, and it was just my IUD messing with my hormones, but I’ve never been more scared in my life. These poems encapsulated exactly what was running through my mind as it was happening.

In today’s reading of The Awakening, I found Léonce’s scolding Edna for not caring for her children and painting instead to be what stood out to me most. I was really upset reading that because women at the time didn’t have any other choice but to be a housewife, despite whatever interests they may have had outside of the home. It reminded me a lot of the story of Ballerina Farms that was getting a lot of attention around this time last year. Hannah, the main front of the social media pages, was a stay at home mother and social media influencer, and gained a lot of attention when her husband bought her an egg apron for her birthday instead of the trip to Rome she had asked for. Around this time, she had done an interview with a journalist, and the journalist noted the creepy story of how Hannah and her husband started dating. Hannah was a ballerina at Juilliard, and was taking a trip when Daniel, whose father founded five airlines, convinced his father to get him the plane ticket next to hers. He pressured her into going out with him, and eventually, she fell pregnant. Being a ballerina, getting pregnant was the end of her career. Being pushed to keep the baby, she dropped out of Juilliard and got married. The pair are Mormon, which contributed heavily to their entire story. Hannah became a stay at home mom, helping her husband out around the farm they run, and caring for their eight children. The only part of her old life she keeps around is a framed photo of her doing ballet in the kitchen, next to where she folds her picture perfect sourdough loafs, and a barre for her to maintain her skills. The building that was meant to be her ballet studio got turned into the children’s schooling building. Experiences like Edna’s and Hannah’s are part of my big fears around pregnancy at a young age. I get scared that the rest of my life will get thrown off if I get pregnant before I’m ready, which is hopefully a decade away.

In this reading of The Awakening, what caught my eye most was the mentions of chastity. Some characters are mentioned to have an utter lack of chastity, while others are described as having it innately born into them. I think that thought process still shows up a lot today as people still place such a strong emphasis on chastity and body count as a way to put women down. 

The mentions of books that were almost too scandalous to read in public and shameful to be seen with also reminded me a lot of the current climate around “booktok” and the takeover of “spicy” books being the only ones sought after in the romance genre as of late. I must admit, on this topic I find myself siding more with Edna Pontillier, as I will partake in reading some of these more criticized modern romance books but in the privacy of my own home. I still critique these books as much as necessary, I detest the “dark romance” genre as much as the others critiquing it online since I find that genre mostly glorifies abuse and violence, and shouldn’t be treated as romance but more horror. 

The reading of Tomboy by Liz Prince was something that I related to a lot. I wore dresses and skirts, but if I had an option when I was younger, it was always jeans or pants of some sort. I was mostly tomboy-esque when I was a middle schooler and thought that being a girly girl was the most embarrassing thing a girl could do ever. I idolized the girls in media who weren’t girly, like Hermione and Katniss and Maddie from Liv and Maddie. Like Liz, I never wanted to be a weak princess. Even now, as an adult, and no longer a tomboy, I still get interpreted as not girly due to my style. I disagree with that, but I can’t control how people interpret me I suppose.

For the Hidden Hand reading, I was really confused. I’m wasn’t sure what was going on in the beginning, and that followed me throughout. I was really intrigued by the absolute astonishment at the revelation that the newsboy was, in fact, a girl. It made me laugh a little bit just because it was quite dramatic.

During the last section of reading for Girl, Woman, other, I had a fair few thoughts on a lot of the interactions. Reading Carole and Shirley’s interaction was really awkward, but I’m sure it was meant to be. Shirley being judgmental to the lesbians was very expected but still a little sad. The whole “I’m not transphobic I have trans friends” made me giggle honestly, and the prompt “you need to get more woke” from Amma just reminded me of interactions I’ve had with older people. I also genuinely despised the comment about not being able to read books by women by Penelope’s boyfriend. I think that people who do or don’t read things based on gender are really lame and closed minded. I also wasn’t a big fan of the 23&me segment for a bit, as someone who found out a lot about themselves from doing a 23&me test, but the fact that Penelope met Hattie because of it definitely redeemed it for me. It was a very sweet ending to a book I enjoyed a lot!

For the Goblin Market, I had read it before for Brit Lit, so I had a decent knowledge of the content going into it. I think I speak for most women when I say that the things described in this story are representative of some of our worst fears. I grew up in the city, so I was always trained with the stranger danger things, but I know that that doesn’t always work. I was looking into some of the meanings of the fruit, like crab-apples also meaning a person one doesn’t want to be around, representing the goblins, and the pomegranates representing the duality of life and death, like how the girls are alive, but their innocence was killed.

I’m Mia, I’m an English Education major! I’ve been working as a camp counselor since I was sixteen, so I wanted to bring my love of that job and my love of books into the rest of my career! I’m a very big fan of gothic literature, my favorite author is Edgar Allen Poe (followed very closely by Mary Shelley.) I want to teach English (not sure which grade level yet) and eventually, I’d like to get my masters with a focus in Shakespeare and teach that at a collegiate level.

I wanted this class to help me get more confident talking about literature in front of people. I have a tendency to second guess myself when discussing literature because there are people who understand it better, but I just keep trying to remind myself that there will always be people who understand things better than me. I’m also very excited for the books we’re reading!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!