Charlotte Perkins Mental Illness Research Paper

While the concept behind the story is simple, as it is based from the experiences of a real person, the authenticity of a mad-woman’s words make her memoir all the more valuable. While the story is non-fictional, thus making it impossible to critique, the author’s decision to publish her experiences can still be supported. Today, the stigma that follows mental illness is one that can only be considered detrimental, forcing a large population of people to remain ignorant of the psychiatric disability that torments so many. It is this social blacklisting that makes Girl, Interrupted such a valuable cornerstone in educating the public, allowing its thousands of readers to perhaps understand the significance of disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder and Sociopathy for the first time, which happen to be the respective afflictions of Susanna, who suffers from fits of depression and fear, and Lisa, who tormented a new patient to the point of leaving the hospital, quickly causing her to succumb to addiction once

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

Laurell K. Hamilton spoke in great words that, “there are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” Hamilton embodied a central state of mind of a person who is mentally ill. The wounds mentioned are those caused, and worsened, by traumatic events and public perception of a person with a mental illness. The women in the short stories that have been read embody an internal injury caused by an outward force. In “Story of an Hour”, “Rose for Emily”, and “Yellow Wallpaper” it is impactfully shown how traumatic life experiences can lead to and worsen mental illnesses.

To manage mental illness, the women all asserted that as writers, writing on different media outlets was their way of managing mental illness in addition to having a positive and supportive community. Zeba Blay claimed that she felt that her “illness is a burden, and … on some level, isn’t black” (Blay, 2016). Blay feels as if she has to work harder to manage her illness in order to perform “normally”.

The ways of Health Care has advanced tremendously over the centuries, specifically, Psychiatric Care. There is a drastic difference between how the mentally impaired were treated in the 1930s and the now, 21st century. People with mental illnesses in the 21st century can be anyone, they’re just another face you see on the sidewalk, no big deal.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” each depict a personal viewpoint of mentally ill characters, who both differ and are alike in various aspects of “madness.” Edgar Allan Poe’s character denies a presence of madness entirely, yet blames a physical ailment instead. As deeply disturbed as the character seems because of the eye, he abruptly decides to eradicate what he believes is the primary issue rather than considering attempting to heal his own “disease.” Charlotte Gilman’s story differs in the sense that the character somewhat acknowledges her mental instability, but is similar in how she eventually attempts to act upon it. While the character acknowledges her mental problem, the progression of the story shows her problem worsening due to the conditions she is placed in because of her feeling of entrapment. Each character’s “madness” is fundamentally the same, but differs on the basis of how they accept it, and act upon it.

A comparative literary study of the effect of mental illness on the central characters is the semi-autobiographical novels The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Comparing two women trying to deal with mental illness and are trying to cope with the mental pressures they put on themselves and by other people. Although the differences between these two novels are The Bell Jar shows Esther’s life before she descends into mental illness whereas Susanna’s story is about her time in a mental institution and experiencing other patients who are in similar situations.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the text was seen as a woman who suffered from an illness that she identifies as real, but her blinded husband, John, thought she wasn’t sick and all she needed was to rest for a while. As the text progressed, the narrator began to connect to the yellow wallpaper in the nursery room she was staying at, seeing things move within the wallpaper and even seeing women trapped within it as well. The narrator’s illness progressively got worse as she had to stay strong and fight her illness by herself since her husband and his sister, Jennie, were no good for help and she would get judged harshly for showing any signs of a mental illness as a woman. Many symbols could be seen from the narrator seeing delusional things within the text, such as the women in the wallpaper shaking the bars within it like they’re in a prison and the women only being calm in the daytime, but restless in the evening. These symbols gave a strong rise to that fact that the narrator was actually sick and suffered a condition that would be called postpartum depression in today’s time, but due to her inability to talk to her husband and his sister about her illness and/or concerns and the fear of being harshly judged by society for being sick, her illness caused her to go insane from locking all the thoughts and feelings inside of her. Society, which included her husband and his sister, was to blame for the narrator going insane, since the

The short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, have a lot in common regarding the main characters. Each narrative focuses on the lifestyle and behavior of a bizarre woman who has been kept away for a certain period of time. One could argue that these women were not initially deranged, though something must have occurred to send them on such a downward spiral. The main characters in each account, Jane and Miss Emily, endure situations in their lives which prove to be crucial in the development of their mental illness, and being isolated gradually causes their illness to escalate.

In the 1800s, people knew absolutely nothing about mental illness. Benjamin Rush and Dorothea Dix came along and changed the psychological world forever. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written in 1892, by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, wrote this short story after suffering from her own “personal nervous breakdown in 1885. It is a semi-autobiographical record of psychiatric treatment and the descent into ‘madness’.” In that time, little relief and help was available. Gilman emphasizes that fear has copious power through the devices of imagery, the ghostly sight, the characterization through the dark thoughts, and the symbol of the wallpaper, her life, suggesting that fear in the rawest form will either terrorize the soul or set it free.

Sometimes when one concerns too much about the views of others on heroneself, it is difficult to remain true to her oneself. Such as the woman in the text “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she attempts to pay no attention to her mental illness in order to cater for the opinions of others. Therefore, the woman trust her husband and always listen to him, so she does not consider her own opinion, “[The narrator]so I takes phosphates or phosphites- whichever it is...” she continues taking the drug even though she does not know the name of the drug and what is it for, she is lack of her own decisions. However, compares to the poem “The Type” by Sarah Kay, she states a woman should act by her own ideas, and not to live in the

Mental illness is a pressing condition that requires a doctor’s acceptance and understanding to be treated. One must respect the disorder and be aware of its side effects and characteristics in order to comprehend what is happening to the affected individual. In today’s society, most people are accepting of people’s handicaps and take into consideration their limits, but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people were unaccepting of impairments and were quick to misjudge individuals leading them to be wrongly diagnosed. No piece of American literature better demonstrates this concern than Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman uses her background filled with her own struggles with mental illness and

In the 1800s a woman would go undiagnosed with depression to an idea of women having hysteria versus a legitimate mental health issue. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, “The Awakening” and “Trifles”, the undiagnosed mental illness is apparent. All three women are suffering from some sort of mental illness and due to the oppression of women during those times; the mental illness was not addressed. In the “Yellow Wallpaper” and “the Awakening” these are cases where doctors and men close to them didn’t try and hurt them intentionally, however due to lack of knowledge and psychological care mental health illnesses were a major issue among women.

An author and a poet Charlotte Perkins Gilman left her own experience as asking questions about a human right for a society in her short story in The Yellow Wallpaper. In the colonial mansion that no one had not lived for long, she was prisoned in the second floor by her husband. He told her that this is the best treatment to her depression; however, she suspected his plot from his actions. Charlotte well-illustrated her suffering and emotion through many symbolism that make us think a human right to treat people who have mental illnesses.

It should be noted that, before the late 1900s mental illness was not recognized as an illness. Instead, it was considered terrible and people who were suffering from it were never spoken of. Ashamed families instead, locked their loved ones away in institutions and never spoke about them. When analyzing, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the main character could be suffering from mental illness. Throughout the book, Gregor, the main character, becomes dehumanized and locked away by his family.