Cult Of True Womanhood Summary

In “The Cult of True Womanhood” by: Barbara Walters, she explains how women of the reform era were expected to submit totally to their husbands and societal pressures to gain a high level of respect while women that fell short of nearly unattainable standards were publicly ostracized. During this period in America women were finally being recognized as important members of society, and on a more personal level men were recognizing that women had emotional qualities that also held value. Women were seen as more naturally pure and moral in this era. On top of moral obligations the mother of a family had many worldly responsibilities. Women were expected to serve as nurse to the family, a sexual and moral companion to the husband, and a spiritual figure within the community. On top of their worldly duties women were also expected to be dainty, but not high maintenance, and submissive, but not mindless. The reading of books was encouraged for maintaining a sharp mind, but not books that were highly educated either, so the Bible became a constant source of knowledge and moral guidance.

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.

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.

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

Kessler further explains that Dr. Mitchell’s treatment only made Gilman’s depression worse and that eventually "she ceased to follow his regimen" (158). The character she creates in "The Yellow Wallpaper" also fantasizes about ending her regimen saying, "I wish I could get well faster" (Gilman 81). Both seem to view the rest cure as an unwanted interruption in their lives. It should be no surprise then that Gilman draws from her own experience and Dr. Mitchell’s treatment. She even finds a way to incorporate him into the story as a kind of threat to the narrator. The narrator in the story is thinking about the reaction of her husband, who is also a doctor, to her slow convalescence, "if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall" (Gilman 82).

After learning of Gilman’s personal story, it becomes apparent that “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the struggle of its narrator, carries a distinct message. Gilman grew up in an unhappy and impoverished family with a brother, a single mother, and no father figure. She later went on to marry Charles Stetson (whom she later divorced) and had a daughter with him. After the birth of her daughter, Gilman fell into a deeply depressed state, indicating the relevance of postpartum depression. When she consulted Dr. Weir Mitchell about it, she was prescribed a “rest cure.” It was this event that inspired Gilman to write “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and many similarities can be drawn between

Thesis: A “true women” in the 19th Century was one who was domestic, religious, and chaste. These were virtues established by men but enforced and taught by other women. Women were also told that they were inferior to men and they should accept it and be grateful that someone just loved them.

housewife, to stay at home. This is my explanation of the essay, "The Cult of

“ [I] came perilously near to losing my mind. The mental agony grew so unbearable that I would sit blankly moving my head from side to side”, Charlotte Gilman writes after a month of following the “rest cure”. The rest cure is summed up by not forcing women to nothing. Men in the nineteenth century dominated women, treating them like children, causing them to go insane. Jane and her husband, John, move into a mansion for Jane to get some “air”, yet she ends up feeling trapped and going crazy. Gilman deals with a very real issue from the nineteenth century through the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper.

The rest cure is defined as “a treatment” given for “nervous disorders, consisting of a complete rest, usually combined with systematic diet, massage, etc.”. This therapy was created by Silas Weir Mitchell, M.D. to treat nervous disorders of women in the nineteenth century. To completely cure the disorder could take approximately six to eight weeks long. For instance, in the beginning of the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” it states “we have been here two weeks” as the story continues on, she tells her husband, she feels she is not getting better it states “it is only three weeks more” and they would be leaving the house (195,199). It was also necessary for the patient to be secluded from friends and family members. Not to mention, furnishing

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper short story approximately 3 years after the birth of her daughter, and a personal experience with the ‘rest cure’ of forced inactivity. Her work stood out for me because Gilman questions the role of women in the nineteenth century during a time when the social norms dictated their duties to be that of wives and mothers. I also liked Gilman's contextualization of her experience, and how she is able to prompt gender equality because she was a victim in that time period and also a patient of the rest cure treatment. Gillman’s use of the first person to convey the story allows readers to understand the mental unraveling of an individual and develop a connection with the narrator and her plight.

Cutter, believes that “The Yellow Wallpaper” overall theme is feminism. The protagonist is forbidden to engage in any intellectual activity and resorts to writing in her journal, secretly. Cutter says, “Ultimately these readings reveal a hidden history of feminine suppression.” (109). This is supported by the protagonist seeing a woman behind the bars, a woman who creeps and a woman who becomes many women throughout the short story. The protagonist begins to tear down the wallpaper in order to set the woman free and in the end, becomes the woman behind the wallpaper. Cutter states, “Paradoxically, the narrator also has a rope to tie the other woman, should she try to escape.” (109). Then the protagonist ties herself to the bed and creeps around the perimeter of the room with her shoulder in the groove of the wall, which the previous occupant had worn down. Cutter suggests, “Claiming to be free, the narrator seems all more enchained, mechanically rotating on an umbilical cord tying her to the scene of entrapment and oppression, the patriarchal marriage bed.” (109). Cutter argues that the protagonist “escapes” the sentence only through deconstruction of herself. “…[she] is suspended between her husband’s precise, rational discourse and the “discourse” of the yellow wallpaper.” (Cutter 109). Cutter then proposes that “Gilman portrays a conflict between a patriarchal, masculine language that silences women and an alternative feminine speech that seems more liberating.” (109). Gilman went through a similar experience in her own life that is portrayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman suppressed her “masculine” side when she decided to stop working and follow Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure.” In doing so, she fell into a deeper depression and was on the verge of a mental breakdown. That’s when she decided to suppress her “feminine” side and return to work, making a full

The rest cure, a used to be popular treatment for people diagnosed with nervous illness’s, mostly women. Started by neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, he worked mainly with women that were labeled as “hysterical” and said to avoid their household roles such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. Treatment consisted of forced bedrest, strict diet, massages, and absolutely no intellectual activity such as reading or writing. Most women like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Winfred disagreed with Mitchell’s methods, saying it was a form of oppression, but they were labeled to be full of “hypochondriacally illusions”