A look back at the “sea cure” trope, and why “Edna Pontellier core” is making the rounds right now.
Plato once say , “ The ocean cures all ailments of human being . ” It ’s an ancient opinion we continue to honor , with kitschy wooden signs that say things like , A walk on the beach is good for the soul . But the Greek philosopher could not have foresee how such a declaratory statement would eventually skew womanly .
Trace the earliest phonograph record of the 19th - hundred beach resort , or explore the shelf of feminist lit , and you ’ll recover a cast of women seeking recuperation by the seaside . Today , we truly scoff at the idea of physician prescribing “ hysteric ” charwoman a “ sea cure ” as a dismissal of female mental health and all its complexity . Butsocial culture medium is enquire : Barring the sexism that clouded such diagnoses , were these doctors onto something ?
The origin of the “mad” woman at sea
The concept of recuperating by the shore dates back to the eighteenth one C , when the English begin to look to the ocean as a healing entity . Prior to that , the deep blue was a author of major terror for Europeans . “ Only after explorers like Magellan and Vespucci begin returning from their tenacious journeys at sea did we see the first signs of a transfer linear perspective , ” says Sarah Stodola , author ofThe Last Resort . “ In 1719,Robinson Crusoewas bring out , turn the ocean and an island shipwreck into a triumphant adventure . ”
The 18th one C also catch the Romantic geological era , which changed Europeans ' approach to nature . In the 1750s , Richard Russell , a doctor found in Brighton , published theories on the aesculapian properties of seawater , and by the 1800s , fashionable Brits begin warm up up to the beach as a space for recreation . This was the minute of the seaside resort , which get up in England as a answer to the urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution . Stodola suppose , “ In the early days of the English seaside resort , doctor prescribed all kinds of ‘ cures ’ involving seawater — washing the centre with it , mix it with wine at dinner party , drink it first thing in the dawning , and sink into hot or frigid seawater . ”
Over metre , we began to associate these ritual with female patients . “ I do n’t guess most of these cures were order specifically to women — they were used to treat everything from dispirited spirits to leprosy — but women were consider constitutionally unaccented and more susceptible to illness , and thus were likely dictate them more often on the whole , ” Stodola excuse . “ Women were also far more probable to be name with ‘ flighty disorders ’ that would result in a prescription drug of sea air or sea washup . ”
Design by Maitane Romagosa for Thrillist | Images courtesy @preraphaelitequeen and @lilaclaurels | Karl Hendon/Getty Images
so as to asseverate standards of propriety , the Victorians formulate constraining contraptions called washup machines , a type of horse drawn carriage that made its way into shallow weewee . “ [ They ] would take a swimmer into the water , where after changing into her bathing costumes in the carriage , she exit on the side facing off from the shoring for her salubrious swim , see seclusion and decorousness , ” Stodola says . “ These swims could be acute , sometimes affect being dunked repeatedly into the frosty ocean . ”
There is , of course of instruction , truth to the notion that the ocean have curative big businessman — salt weewee heals wounds , after all . In 1843 , a Polish doctor named Feliks Boczowski discover that patient who labored in salinity mine had fewer respiratory problems compared to those who worked elsewhere . And it ’s a determination that continues to be accepted in medical circles . A late studyfrom the Massachusetts General Hospital let on that breathing humid , salty airwave could kick upstairs upper air lane cleansing and play a part in boil down COVID-19 . And then there ’s the sea body of water itself , which is rich in minerals and said to haveanti - incendiary effectson the skin .
But it ’s literature that ’s taught us that brackish retreats offer charwoman a variety of psychological loss , too . In Kate Chopin’sThe Awakening , Edna Pontellier look at the ocean as an expanse from which to break away from the schematic purpose of wife and female parent . The imaginative Rhoda , in Virginia Woolf’sThe Waves , stare into a basin of water and imagines it ’s her own private sea . InLittle Women , Jo takes a sickly Beth to the beach in the hopes that it will lift her hard drink . The island of Ischia plays a major role in Elena Ferrante ’s Neapolitan Novels , where the friend experiences her first trip-up as an independent young womanhood and where Lila is subsequently sent by a physician to “ solve ” on her rankness .
“Mermaids at Brighton” by William Heath, 1829|Wikimedia Commons
The same figure of speech appears in film , often placing particular vehemence on two women heal with one another in the sand . Ingmar Bergman ’s 1966 psychological horror , Persona , at leastbeginswith that premise : A young nurse care for an actress who has inexplicably gone mute in a distant island cottage . In the 2020 filmAmmonite , a husband sends his “ melancholic ” wife , ( play by Saoirse Ronan ) to a beachside town , ask a fossil collector ( Kate Winslet ) to follow over her . Spoiler alert : They flow in love .
There ’s no doubt that 18th century medical specialty was fraught with misogyny , and “ hysteria ” was a misdiagnosis , to say the least . But the restorative benefit of being in nature ca n’t be denied , and the pandemic has stoked our nerve impulse to reconnect with it . Patricia Hasbach , licence psychotherapist and author ofGrounded , specialize in ecotherapy , a method of discussion that realize the healing benefits of interaction with nature .
“ So much of our contemporary life is mollify by living in very domestic environments now , where we ’re sit in our air - conditioned and heated nursing home , respire purified air , and drinking treated pee , ” Hasbach says . “ We lose that sensation of wildness that we , as an evolutionary species , grow up with . ”
Hasbach has picked up on a renewed interest in green and low-spirited spaces , attributing the latter to Dr. Wallace J Nichols , a nautical biologist and author ofBlue Mind , an analysis of human connexion to water . But there ’s a commonality across the board , she says , in nature making us palpate alive again .
“ We now have neuroscientist being capable to sneak us up and actually measure what bump to the head when we are in more born mount , ” Hasbach says . “ And what we find is that heart rate flow , ancestry pressure lowers , our Hydrocortone — which is our stress hormone that kvetch in when we ’re highly stressed — is lowered . ” In other words , we relax .
The beach , in particular , is chock full of strong-arm component that take us to a shoes of back breaker . “ They ’re scream ecotones , these region between two dissimilar chemical element of the born world — the pee and the land , ” Hasbach say . Humans also give in to the satisfying sight of naturally reduplicate fractal blueprint at the beach , whether those are ripples in the gumption make by tidal current , or spiral designs on case . They mirror the never - ending blueprint of our own bodies , like the veins that peek through our skin .
Everything is cyclical—even Victorian trends
It seems as though we ’ve add up full circle with innovative wellness , for better or worse . Many of the vogue present today — fromsea moss smoothiesandcold plunge recoverytothe very act of walk — can be think of as a recycling of Victorian estimate , and the TikTok girlies ca n’t seem to get enough of them . The detox clinic and longevity centers touted by influencers certainly carry traces of the past , too . “ A destiny of wellness trends today are based on unfit medical or scientific beliefs , and the same was true of the cures prescribed at former seaboard resorts , ” Stodola says . “ The environs at today ’s in high spirits - end wellness retreat is actually very standardised , with their premix of luxury and health business organization . ”
We can all at least agree that there ’s no damage in escaping to the beach , especially when burnout is at an all time high . Everyday , we ’re confronted with a raw form of“fatigue . ”If trends like “ bleisure ” travel and “ earnings - cations ” appropriate body of work to co - prefer our vacations and “ bed decomposition ” is the raw var. of ego care , why not romanticize Edna Pontellier ’s religious awakening on the Grand Isle — minus her crushing fate ? It ’s just a disgrace our jaunts to the sea , sun , and sand are n’t continue by indemnity .
