%0 Journal Article
%T A Patient¡¯s Tale of Incarceration in a Victorian Lunatic Asylum
%A Carol Berkencotter
%J International Journal of English Studies (IJES)
%D 2011
%I Universidad de Murcia
%R 10.6018/ijes.11.1.137071
%X Using the archival admissions records and the case history of a patient at a British asylum in the 1870s, the author compares two genres. The first of these is two medical certificates written and signed by two physicians attesting that the patient was of unsound mind and needed to be confined and treated. The second genre is the patient¡¯s oral testimony to Parliament¡¯s Select Committee on Lunacy Laws (1877), a narrative he delivered the year following his release from the asylum. Both genres are legal texts; however, it is the patient¡¯s narrative of personal experience, as transcribed in the committee report, that allows the reader a glimpse of the misery imposed by confinement in a ¡°lunatic¡± asylum. The two medical certificates have considerably more illocutionary force, however; as speech acts they most often resulted in confinement until the patient was determined to have recovered, was transferred to another asylum, or died. Utilizando el archivo de registros de admisi¨®n y la historia cl¨ªnica de un paciente en un psiqui¨¢trico brit¨¢nico de los a os 1870, se comparan dos g¨¦neros. El primero consiste en dos certificados m¨¦dicos escritos y firmados por dos psiquiatras certificando que el paciente estaba mentalmente incapacitado y necesitaba confinaci¨®n y tratamiento. El segundo g¨¦nero se trata del testimonio oral del paciente ante el Parliament¡¯s Select Committee on Lunacy Laws (1877), pronunciado al a o siguiente de su alta. Ambos g¨¦neros son textos legales, sin embargo, es la narraci¨®n de la experiencia personal del paciente, transcrita en el informe del comit¨¦, lo que permite obtener una visi¨®n de las miserias impuestas por el encierro en un sanatorio de lun¨¢ticos. Los certificados m¨¦dicos tienen una fuerza ilocutiva considerablemente mayor, pero como actos del habla resultaban en la reclusi¨®n del paciente hasta que se determinaba su recuperaci¨®n, su traslado a otro sanatorio o fallec¨ªa.
%K genre
%K narratives of personal experience
%K case history
%K medical certificates
%K Ticehurst House Asylum
%K mental patient
%K insanity
%U http://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/view/137071