With the concept of mental health becoming increasingly visible across the Western world during recent years, the question of where our understandings about mental illness come from is of paramount importance. The late nineteenth century in France was a significant period of development with regards to the categorisation, perception, and treatment of mental illness.

This presentation compares depictions of mental illness in the fictional literature of Emile Zola, a prolific late nineteenth-century French writer, with case studies from prominent French medical journals from this period. I argue that this comparison sheds light on how gender roles and concerns about the deterioration of the family unit were thought about within this context. This research demonstrates that the interaction of medical and literary portrayals of mental illness holds up a mirror to late nineteenth-century French society, putting many modern-day perceptions of mental illness into context.