The Watcher by the Threshold is a frightening tale about mental disease, friendship, and a wife’s desire to love and protect her husband at all costs. The story is set in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. A time when the origins of mental illness were difficult to understand, and there was a fear of the unknown surrounding the disease. Mental illness came with a stigma and those suffering often faced harsh treatments. Ladlaw is portrayed as a troubled man who believes he is possessed by the devil; however, his symptoms are signs of mental illness not demonic possession.
In those days, rather than face the stigma and harsh treatments associated with mental illness, it was easier to believe the ill person was possessed by the …show more content…
In her essay, Bonzol also discusses how doctors from earlier centuries had mistakenly associated “many illnesses with strange and bizarre symptoms” with demonic possession (Bonzol 122). Henry describes the conversation he had with Ladlaw on their way home from their road trip as the turning point for him. It is the point when he truly began to believe Ladlaw was not himself. From this conversation Henry began to believe that Ladlaw was possessed, and it was not Ladlaw speaking, but rather, some other entity speaking through Ladlaw. This was because Henry felt that Ladlaw’s conversational topics were related to occurrences from the past and that Ladlaw should not have been so knowledgeable of these topics as they were from before his time. However, Ladlaw’s knowledge of such things from the past can easily be explained through Ladlaw’s new interest, or obsession, with reading books from that era – the Byzantine Era. Before this road trip, Henry had mentioned that Ladlaw’s library was no longer full of his normal readings, but was now filled with Byzantine books, including a reprint of Justinian, a book about a Byzantine emperor. At one-point Ladlaw even mentions he was going through a period where he worshipped the Emperor Justinian and read “every scrap he could find on him” (Buchan 518). These new books from the Byzantine era, together with Ladlaw’s admission that he had been reading up on Emperor Justinian would help explain his new-found knowledge surrounding topics which Henry perceived as being before his time; they were subjects he had recently read about. Proving that sometimes the fear of the unknown can cause one to miss the subtle clues surrounding the
In those days, rather than face the stigma and harsh treatments associated with mental illness, it was easier to believe the ill person was possessed by the …show more content…
In her essay, Bonzol also discusses how doctors from earlier centuries had mistakenly associated “many illnesses with strange and bizarre symptoms” with demonic possession (Bonzol 122). Henry describes the conversation he had with Ladlaw on their way home from their road trip as the turning point for him. It is the point when he truly began to believe Ladlaw was not himself. From this conversation Henry began to believe that Ladlaw was possessed, and it was not Ladlaw speaking, but rather, some other entity speaking through Ladlaw. This was because Henry felt that Ladlaw’s conversational topics were related to occurrences from the past and that Ladlaw should not have been so knowledgeable of these topics as they were from before his time. However, Ladlaw’s knowledge of such things from the past can easily be explained through Ladlaw’s new interest, or obsession, with reading books from that era – the Byzantine Era. Before this road trip, Henry had mentioned that Ladlaw’s library was no longer full of his normal readings, but was now filled with Byzantine books, including a reprint of Justinian, a book about a Byzantine emperor. At one-point Ladlaw even mentions he was going through a period where he worshipped the Emperor Justinian and read “every scrap he could find on him” (Buchan 518). These new books from the Byzantine era, together with Ladlaw’s admission that he had been reading up on Emperor Justinian would help explain his new-found knowledge surrounding topics which Henry perceived as being before his time; they were subjects he had recently read about. Proving that sometimes the fear of the unknown can cause one to miss the subtle clues surrounding the