Three Writers Who Had a Mental Illness

The moods of people with bi polar disorder swing between depression and mania. Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner are just three examples of the many professional writers who had bi polar disorder. Despite their mental illnesses each one had a successful career. It also affected the way each of these writers interacted with family, friends and strangers. In addition Woolf, Hemingway and Faulkner were all hospitalized due to the bi polar.

Cytowic reflects on how Virginia Woolf’s mood swings up to mania influenced how much she wrote. When she would get into mania moods she would write nonstop as if possessed by some unknown force. When she was depressed she would lay in bed and not write at all. Her mania mood also affected her social life. He writes about how she struggled with finding stability for herself and her novels’ characters. She wrote in her autobiography of the feeling that some other consciousness using her hands to write her novels. This was the case when she wrote Lighthouse. She worked through to address the problems it created stating “some kind of whole made of shimmering fragments” (1).

Ernest Hemingway is known for such works as For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises. He used his experiences in World War I, Spanish Civil War and also World War II in his writing. Over the course of his life he married four times. In 1961 he died from suicide. Though several of his family members had mental illness it did not stop Hemingway from writing thought provoking literature.

William Faulkner is considered one of the greatest Southern writers of all time. It is shocking to many that he suffered from mental illness. His stories were based around the town of Oxford, Mississippi. He was not allowed to join the United States Army so he joined the British army. He died of a heart attack.

Though these professional writers experience mental illness they strived to fulfill successful writing careers. They were influenced by events in their lives to include aspects of their lives. Woolf used her writing as therapy. Hemingway weaved his adventures into his works. And Faulkner used his illness to impart understand to others. Each of these writers made a lasting impact on generations of people all over the world.

Reference List http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/many_minds_one_story/


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