In this essay we explore how culturally and historically contingent norms and values related to tiredness and exhaustion are expressed in creative and artistic forms in three literary texts: Emma Bovary, The Yellow Wallpaper and The woman who went to bed for a year. By situating these texts in their sociocultural context and systematically comparing them, we explore patterns of convergence and divergence between them. Important concepts in our discussion are psyche versus soma, illness versus character trait and femininity versus masculinity. Towards the end we discuss the relevance of our analysis for current debates about long-term medically unexplained fatigue.