please make me an image of a victorian woman sitting at desk, gazing into the middle distace.jpg
please make me an image of a victorian woman sitting at desk, gazing into the middle distace.jpg

Explore Literature: Rest Cure and Rebellion: Women's Minds in the Margins

$100.00

Join us, to develop your skills as an empathetic analyst and uncover how these powerful stories give voice to minds striving for independence. Together, we will journey into the hidden psychological lives of women in classic literature, exploring the quiet struggles and small acts of defiance found in Victorian and fin-de-siècle texts. We will investigate historical ideas of 'hysteria' and the 'Rest Cure' through characters like the narrators of The Yellow Wallpaper and Jane Eyre, learning how they sought freedom from societal and domestic limits. This eight-week course examines how classic literature captured the complexity of the human mind, focusing specifically on themes of mental illness, emotional distress, and the intense societal and medical pressures placed upon women.

Students will learn to identify subtle literary techniques (such as unreliable narration, symbolism, and psychological realism) that authors use to represent internal struggles. The goal is to develop critical analysis skills while fostering empathy and informed understanding toward mental health experiences and the historical intersection of gender and sanity.

Join us, to develop your skills as an empathetic analyst and uncover how these powerful stories give voice to minds striving for independence. Together, we will journey into the hidden psychological lives of women in classic literature, exploring the quiet struggles and small acts of defiance found in Victorian and fin-de-siècle texts. We will investigate historical ideas of 'hysteria' and the 'Rest Cure' through characters like the narrators of The Yellow Wallpaper and Jane Eyre, learning how they sought freedom from societal and domestic limits. This eight-week course examines how classic literature captured the complexity of the human mind, focusing specifically on themes of mental illness, emotional distress, and the intense societal and medical pressures placed upon women.

Students will learn to identify subtle literary techniques (such as unreliable narration, symbolism, and psychological realism) that authors use to represent internal struggles. The goal is to develop critical analysis skills while fostering empathy and informed understanding toward mental health experiences and the historical intersection of gender and sanity.

Academic Fine-Print for Grownups:

The course specifically challenges students to become literary detectives, decoding the historical cruelty masked by 19th-century medical language. By examining the infamous "Rest Cure"; a treatment often prescribed to women suffering from post-partum depression or anxiety, characterized by isolation and enforced idleness; we uncover how doctors and society weaponized health to suppress female intellectual and emotional independence. Through Charlotte Perkins Gilman's chilling critique in The Yellow Wallpaper and Charlotte Brontë's dramatic exploration of institutional confinement and suppressed rage in the figure of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, students will analyze the literature that dared to expose these practices, demonstrating that the search for psychological freedom often required the destruction of domestic or societal expectations.

Learning Goals:

  • Analyze Literary Representation: Identify and analyze the literary devices (e.g., symbolism, imagery, narrative tone) used by authors to depict internal psychological states and emotional repression.

  • Contextualize Mental Health: Compare and contrast the 19th-century medical and societal views of conditions like "hysteria" and the "Rest Cure" with modern mental health understanding and terminology.

  • Evaluate Narrative Reliability: Differentiate between subjective and objective reality in the texts, particularly focusing on the struggles of characters who are confined or deemed "mad."

  • Develop Critical Empathy: Discuss complex themes of trauma, anxiety, and repression with sensitive, respectful, and informed vocabulary.

  • Synthesize Themes: Compare the structural and thematic parallels between characters struggling with institutional abuse (Jane Eyre) and those struggling with domestic confinement (Gilman and Chopin).

Required Text:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) (any unabridged edition)

For your Curriculum Records, we will cover:

  • Historical Context

  • Critical Thinking

  • Classic Literature

  • Philosophy

  • Ethics

  • Creative Writing

Dates and Location:

Section A: Ages 12+ will meet Mondays from 10-11am Eastern, and will run from Monday, January 12, 2026 through Monday, March 2, 2026. All 8 classes will be held over Zoom.

Class Etiquette: I expect and require gentle, respectful language in my classes, and ask that all students come to class prepared to treat each other with kindness. These classes are a great opportunity for your kiddos to practice social/soft skills, with the underlying perspective that we’re all in this together.