Analysis Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's Life

The rest cure was one of the treatments given to women with hysteria. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, experienced the treatment and the outcome of the treatment. In my belief, the rest cure was somewhat a form of punishment toward the narrator and other women in the Victorian Era, in the 1900s. From the beginning of the short story, the narrator stated that her husband John was a physician of high standing and that he prescribed her rest, the rest cure. (Gilman 553) Her condition was hysteria a very common diagnosis in women in the 1900s. The rest cure was the one of the preferred treatments in that era. The rest cure meant that she had to stay isolated from family and friends for three months, placed on a fatty, milk-based diet, and forbidden to work. (Gilman 553) I believe all of these things led her to go insane. “The Yellow Wallpaper” took place in the late 1900s. In the Victorian Era, a woman’s sole purpose in life was to bear children and make their husbands happy. Also, women dressed in very tight corsets which would sometimes cut oxygen and women were fainting. Women also, could not show their ankles, and if they did, they were considered a prostitute.

The “rest cure” was a common treatment for depression in women in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Women were locked in a room involuntarily and forced to “rest.” The patient was locked in a room and not allowed to leave or function in any type of way. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper is subjected to this cure. The story is written to expose the cruelty of the “resting cure”. Gilman uses the wall paper to represent the narrators sense of entrapment, the notion of creativity gone astray, and a distraction that becomes an obsession.

Today, women have more freedoms than we did in the early nineteenth century. We have the right to vote, seek positions that are normally meant for men, and most of all, the right to use our minds. However, for women in the late 1800’s, they were brought up to be submissive housewives who were not allowed to express their own interests. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a woman is isolated from the world and her family because she is suffering from a temporary illness. Under her husband’s care, she undergoes a treatment called “rest cure” prescribed by her doctor, Dr. Weir Mitchell. It includes bed rest, no emotional or physical stimulus, and

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, is a great example of early works pertaining to feminism and the disease of insanity. Charlotte Gilman’s own struggles as a woman, mother, and wife shine through in this short story capturing the haunting realism of a mental breakdown.The main character, much like Gilman herself, slips into bouts of depression after the birth of her child and is prescribed a ‘rest cure’ to relieve the young woman of her suffering. Any use of the mind or source of stimulus is strictly prohibited, including the narrator’s favorite hobby of writing. The woman’s husband, a physician, installs into his wife that the rest treatment is correct and will only due harm if not followed through. This type of treatment ultimately drives the woman insane, causing her to envision a woman crawling behind the yellow wallpaper of her room. Powerlessness and repression the main character is subject to creates an even more poignant message through the narrator’s mental breakdown. The ever present theme of subordination of women in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is advanced throughout the story by the literary devices of symbolism, imagery, and allegory.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story about a mentally ill women,written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at age 32, in 1892 is a story with a hidden meaning and many truths. Charlotte Perkins Gilman coincidentally also had a mental illness and developed cancer leading her to kill herself in the sixties. The story begins with Jane, the mentally ill woman who feels a bit distressed, and although both of the well respected men in her life are physicians she is put simply on a “rest cure”. This rest cure as well as many symbols such as the Yellow Wallpaper, her journal, and her inevitable breakdown are prime examples of the typical life of a woman in this time period and their suppressed lives that they lived even with something as serious as a

In her story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman expresses exasperation towards the separate male and female roles expected of her society, and the evident repressed rights of a woman versus the active duties of a man. The story depicts the methods taken to cure a woman of her psychological state during Gilman’s time, and delineates the dominant cure of the time period, “the resting cure,” which encouraged the restraint of the imagination ("The Yellow Wallpaper: Looking Beyond the Boundaries") Gilman uses the unnamed narrator to represent the average repressed woman of her time and how her needs were neglected in an attempt to mark a fixed distinction between the standards and expectations of men and women. John, the narrator’s husband, take the designated and patriarchal role of a man who believes he knows everything there is to know about the human mind. His belief of his superior knowledge pushes him to condescend, overshadow, and misunderstand his wife. As a result, his wife loses control of her life and escapes into her own fantasy world, where she is able dominate her imagination, free her mind, and fall into insanity. Gilman describes her era’s approach toward female psychology in order to criticize the patriarchal society she lived in as well as to reveal its effects on the women of her time.

Mitchell was predisposed to think that women did not need to leave there bed or even their homes when they were ill. The rest cure also exacerbated normal gender roles of that era. Men were the ones who belonged in the outside world; they were the bread winners. Men needed to be outside of the home and to take care of the needs of everyone in it. In contrast, women were supposed to inside the home of take care of the home. Dr. Mitchell ensures men were not feeling emasculated by being subject to the same treatment as women and be subject to their homes where they felt only women were supposed to be. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman, highlight the mental distress that the rest cure tolls on your mental state. Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” because of her experience on the rest cure and she wanted to “save people from being driven crazy”. Another reason that Gilman could have written the short story is to show that women need intellectual stimulation as much as men and that living domestically and not doing things that express a person’s creative side could drive them insane.

In an article titled, “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman talks about her personal experience with the rest cure, also denouncing the diagnosis as a whole. “For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond.”(Gilman). While this ailment would not be handled as heavily today, Gilman would actually be subject to the rest cure by Silas Weir Mitchel himself. Mitchel would tell Gilman to “live as domestic a life as far as possible”, “(to) have but two hours intellectual life a day”, and “never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again.” Like the fate of her stories protagonist, the treatment would almost drive Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born into poverty, her father abandoned the family as a child which greatly hurt her education. She only had 4 years of formal education. Gilman is remembered today as a poet, an author, a feminist and a social activist.

Depression, Loneliness, and confusion engulfed the narrator of the wallpaper, confinement broke her. During the time of Charlotte Gilman, Postpartum depression was said to be “…temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency”(Gilman). With her illness, she was unable to perform her role as a mother nurturing her child or as wife tending to her husband needs, rendering her useless. Set in these roles, women at the time were seen as domestic and unable perform any other task. The yellow wallpaper clearly evinces the oppression by her husband, “I am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again… Personally, I disagree with [his] ideas . . .”, although she disagrees with the treatment, she has no say whatsoever when it comes to the matter of her illness, John does what he thinks is right for her.(Gilman) John decided that the best cure was the “rest cure”, meaning no brain stimulating activities while lying in a

Life during the 1800s for a woman was rather distressing. Society had essentially designated them the role of being a housekeeper and bearing children. They had little to no voice on how they lived their daily lives. Men decided everything for them. To clash with society 's conventional views is a challenging thing to do; however, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does an excellent job fighting that battle by writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” one of the most captivating pieces of literature from her time. By using the conventions of a narrative, such as character, setting, and point of view, she is capable of bringing the reader into a world that society

After a long, hard day, it is so nice to relax and not think about anything that is too taxing on the brain. However, there is such a thing as too much rest. The author Charlotte Perkins Gilman of “The Yellow Wallpaper” highlights what it was like to be a woman put on the rest cure back in the 1800’s. The woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” lost all sense of sanity and reality after undergoing her experience with the rest cure.

I was able to connect the “Rest Cure” with The Yellow Wallpaper. In the short story Gilman wrote the narrator describes how she is always alone and is not allowed to participate in activities she wishes to. She says how she is forbidden to do exercises and

Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is centered on the deteriorating psychological condition of the female narrator. As a woman in a male dominating society in the 19th century, the narrator has no control over her life. This persistence eventually evolves into her madness. The insanity is triggered by her change in attitude towards her husband, the emergent obsession with the wallpaper and the projection of herself as the women behind the wallpaper. The “rest cure” which was prescribed by her physician husband, created the ideal environment for her madness to extend because, it was in her imagination that she had some freedom and control.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is portraying a story of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. The story describes the mental and emotional outcomes of a distinct old therapy called “rest cure” that was prescribed to people. Which is what their prescribed Mrs. Gilman with. It appears that she was writing about her own suffering that she went through in the year 1887, two years after giving birth to child. From the story, it was obvious that Mrs. Gilman was writing about her own life experience which can now be viewed as a clear reflection of the feelings of women, like herself who have gone through these same treatments. In her words, “It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.” (Gilman,487).