Line #17 Literature/TheAsylumForWaywardVictorianGirls


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4	''The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls'' contains two intertwining stories. One is the autobiography of Music/EmilieAutumn and her time spent in a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles as well as three very detailed diaries: Cutting, drug and suicide. The other is the story of Emily with a 'y' in the eponymous Asylum, sent to Emilie in letters originally written on wallpaper and re-typed by Sir Edward.
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6	The book is both historical fiction and non-fiction, and one of the most complete accounts of bipolar disorder to be published, as well as a social criticism on the mental health system of the 21st century.
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9	!!Contains examples of:
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11	%% * AbusiveParents: [[spoiler:The Count de Rothsberg was this to his daughters, Jolie Rouge and her deceased twin sister.]]
12	%% * AndThisIsFor: Emily with a 'y' says this when she [[spoiler:stabs Doctor Stockill for the girls who couldn't be there followed immediately by Sir Edward for the rats]].
13	* AnimalMotifs: The vultures represent the Asylum doctors, while the [[DarkIsNotEvil leeches and rats]] represent the inmates.
14	* BedlamHouse: The eponymous Asylum, where leechings are a common practice for almost every ailment. Bathing is done outside with a cold blast of water regardless of the time of year. After the bi-monthly bathing, death by pneumonia is a common thing. Ward B's inmates are often kept in chains. Pregnancy is often caused by the chasers and later [[spoiler:the men who make use of the prostitution ring set up by Doctor Stockill]]. The modern psychiatric ward is better but it's still an uncomfortable, frightening, and joyless place that's understaffed, overcrowded and underfunded.
15	%% * BitterAlmonds: [[spoiler:The only thing Madame Mournington can smell, recognizing it from the death of her daughter, Violet, on the breath of Christelle.]]
16	%% * BittersweetEnding
17	%% * BrokenBird: Emilie and Emily, as well as many of the girls in the Asylum.
18	* BrotherSisterIncest: One of the girls in the Asylum was abused by her brother. He had her committed to keep her from talking about it.
19	* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler: In the audiobook, Veronica and Emily start a relationship, but Veronica is killed before the Tea Party Massacre.]]
20	* ChekhovsGun: The key Emily stole from the Count de Rothsberg, [[spoiler:which is later used to open the gates to the Asylum]].
21	%% * CircusOfFear: The Ophelia Gallery. These kinds of shows were actually fairly common in the 19th century; many psychiatric asylums, including the original BedlamHouse, had people paying to watch the antics of the patients.
22	%% * ComeToGawk: Again, the Ophelia Gallery.
23	%% * DeusExMachina: [[spoiler:Anne's key turning into the Asylum Key.]]
24	%% * DrivenToSuicide: Emilie ''and'' Emily, though their attempts both fail. Later, [[spoiler:Madame Mournington and Doctor Stockill succeed]].
25	%% * EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Jolie Rouge.
26	%% * EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Doctor Stockill, in a really creepy way.
27	%% * EvilBrit: All the asylum doctors in Emily's story.
28	%% * FemmeFatale: Veronica.
29	%% * FoodPorn
30	%% * ForTheEvulz: Doctors Lymer and Greavesly.
31	* FourGirlEnsemble: Jolie Rouge is [[CloudCuckoolander the girl so broken she chooses to live in her own fantasy]], Emily is the "mannish," clever, artistic one, Veronica is the sexy, glamorous one (though this is deconstructed,) and Anne is sort of a mother figure.
32	%% * HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Madame Mournington]].
33	* HopeSpot: With the arrival of Thomson the photographer, it appears that Emily may have finally found a sympathetic outsider... [[spoiler:until it turns out that the photographs he's taking are meant to be used (against his will) to advertise the Asylum girls as prostitutes]].
34	%% * MadDoctor. Stockill, so much. And he's convinced that he's the OnlySaneMan, only keeping the insane in their rightful place.
35	* MadScientist: Doctor Stockill [[spoiler:who is attempting to create a new strain of the bubonic plague that only he can cure.]]
36	%% * MagicRealism
37	%% * MeaningfulName: Madame Mournington, Jolie Rouge...
38	%% * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Madame Mournington, post HeelFaceTurn, says these exact words. Also, Thomson when he realizes what his photographs of the Asylum girls are being used for.]]
39	%% * NiceGuy: Thomson.
40	* OnlyOneName: Emily, Sachiko, Anne... Most of the Asylum girls are only referred to by their first name.
41	%% * TheOphelia: Played straight, discussed and to an extent, deconstructed.
42	%% * ParentalIncest: Implied between [[spoiler:The Count de Rothsberg and Jolie Rouge, his daughter]].
43	%% * RapeAsDrama
44	* ShaggyDogStory: Used to highlight the pointlessness and chaos of [[UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain Victorian]] women's lives, particularly the "mad" ones. [[spoiler:Emily's story is spent building up to the moment when they will eliminate the doctors and run the Asylum. They succeed. Then they all commit mass suicide as the Asylum which they turned into their home collapses around them]].
45	%% * SignificantGreenEyedRedhead: Emily and Anne.
46	%% * SpellMyNameWithABlank
47	%% * TalkingAnimal: The rats and leeches.
48	%% * TokenMinority: Sachiko.
49	%% * TraumaticHaircut: Jolie Rouge gets one of these.
50	%% * VictorianLondon: This is the setting of the story of Emily with a 'y'.
51	%% * WideEyedIdealist: Thomson, at first.
52	%% * {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler:Doctor Stockill, toward his mother]].

Context Literature / TheAsylumForWaywardVictorianGirls