The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Under McFarland’s direction, many wards at Jacksonville were structured intentionally so that women were contained categorically. Most wards were organized according to the severity of symptoms and, to a lesser extent, behaviorally and temperamentally, but women like Elizabeth were placed according to their social station. Doctors believed it would be injurious to feminine and decorous ladies to be in the company of women whose actions were counter to what was expected of women of their ilk. The rationale behind this decision was the idea that “baser,” “lower-class” women “beneath” them could be a corrupting influence and a shock to their system that could possibly interfere with their ability to recover. Victorian men and women of the middle class upheld a myth of inherent gentlemanliness and femininity in each sex, whether an individual personally adhered to or lived up to those ideals or not. The thought was that once a woman like Elizabeth was exposed to women whose life experiences were horrifying and frightening, the risk of piercing the veil existed. Elizabeth was learning things about women and the possible permutations that characterized their lives that she probably never even considered might be another person’s reality. There is nothing in her history to suggest that Elizabeth ever encountered someone with an extreme mental illness while she was in Worcester State Hospital, and her lifestyle as a middle-class minister’s wife likely did not include much exposure to the poverty, abuse, loss, and illness that would have been more common for women who found themselves on Eighth Ward in the mid-19th century. Though Moore does not speak to it directly, Elizabeth’s encounters with these women probably taught her a lot about men and what they were capable of doing to women that she may never have imagined one person would do to another. Elizabeth’s activism is ignited in Eighth Ward in a way it likely never would have been on Seventh Ward, and her immersion in this world of disadvantage and despair fueled her fire for justice.

There is vengefulness and abuse of power in McFarland’s decision in that Elizabeth is used to a certain kind of environment and a certain kind of treatment in her daily life, a kind of sheltered bell jar under which she had been kept. To relocate her among the women of Eighth Ward, McFarland would have imagined that she was not only going to be intimidated, flustered, frustrated, and frightened by the violence, cruelty, filth, and physical disgust she will experience but also that all of those factors will play a role in intimidating her into acquiescing to his expectations. He realizes that there could be this corrupting, traumatizing factor for her, and not only does he appear not to care, but he seems to delight in the possibility. By moving Elizabeth to Eighth Ward, McFarland further reveals that his goal is cowing Elizabeth into submission, another tacit recognition that she is not “insane,” just difficult and inconvenient to her husband and also to McFarland, whom she dared to expose through her writing.

Each time, however, McFarland and Theophilus conceive of some way to reduce, intimidate, correct, or humble Elizabeth into submission, she bests them with her ability to dig deep into herself and source her seemingly limitless gentility and kindness. She proves herself to be the person she professes to be, and her response reflects the theme of Tenacity, Perseverance, and Integrity as Weapons Against Injustice. She is committed to improving her surroundings, no matter where she is and what that might require of her. Recognizing that it is acceptable for her to be upset and frustrated by what is happening to her, she is also duty-bound by her faith to discover where opportunities had been presented for her to act according to God’s will. While Theophilus was willing to alter his religious beliefs on the promise of funding, not even the threat of abuse, violence, and isolation could cajole Elizabeth into compromising her idea of how she is supposed to behave as a Christian woman. Thus, she reaches out in Christian charity to her fellow inmates and attendants, and in doing so, she gains their trust. She gains a reputation as a kind person of integrity, which results in her learning the truth about McFarland and the hospital from those who work there. McFarland’s transfer aids her in her mission by opening her eyes to women who did not deserve to be confined to the “asylum” and women who were desperately ill were being treated inhumanely. Her fight, upon this revelation, becomes twofold. First, she fights for the rights of women committed to psychiatric facilities without just cause at the behest of others, believing that even the most well-meaning of family members with their loved ones’ best interests in mind may be wrong about those women, and with the knowledge that many family members had strategically orchestrated their commitment to a psychiatric facility for reasons that ranged from self-serving to nefarious. The stories of these women illuminate the theme of “Insanity” as a Prejudicial, Weaponized Label Difficult to Refute or Retract. Second, she fights for the rights of those who truly were experiencing significant mental illness. If eloquent, educated, astute women were so easily admitted to these facilities and habitually deprived of opportunities to advocate for their release, what hope did those in a deteriorated condition in desperate need of nurturing and custodial care have of advocating for fair, humane treatment? Many families simply did not have the resources to care for individuals whose illness constituted significant impairment, especially in cases in which their loved ones were violent, and Elizabeth believed that everyone was worthy and deserving of the right to be cared for in a setting that was appropriate for their needs and which would hold as chief among its objectives the maintenance of their comfort and the preservation of their dignity. In Eighth Ward, Elizabeth’s response to those around her foregrounds the thematic elements of Duty, Moral Obligation, Righteousness, and Advocacy for Others.