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Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper

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When thinking about adding a new addition into a household, there are many things to consider. A main point would question the parents of the future child/children regarding their ability to have a stable income and a big enough house to accommodate the growth in their family. Throughout the pregnancy, the parents will face many eye opening situations, but do we ever consider what can happen after a woman conceives the child/children.
Recently in class, my classmates and I have read and watched different resources that explained the effects of postpartum depression. While discovering these resources, each had a different way of explaining the effects of postpartum depression throughout different women. While researching postpartum depression, …show more content…

In the story, Stetson uses her personal experience with postpartum depression to show other women how her experience with the illness affected her life. In the beginning of her description, she describes a house that her and her husband are beginning to move into. This can represent the change seen after a birth of a child. While describing the house she uses such a time where as the rather would see the estate as a old mansion, wondering how the couple afforded it. She describes her feeling toward the house as "something queer. Even thought her husband is a doctor, he underestimates her illness and thoughts and tells her that she is suffering from "nervous depression". He suggest that she get rest and avoid working or writing. After being told this, she starts a secret journal to help "relieve her mind". The journal's main focus was the house and its description. She would write about the bedroom walls and barred windows, but her main focus would always be the "revolting" yellow wallpaper. Later on in her journal, she mentions John and how he is always worried about her, but never wanted to change the wallpaper. Her imagination soon drifts off as she describes freedom people have outside of the room. She then sees the wallpaper as a trap, noticing the women trapped behind it. By the end of the novel, the narrator is convinced that not only are there are women around her trapped inside of the wallpaper, but that she …show more content…

Andrea Yates, mother of five children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years old, suffered severe postpartum psychosis in 2001. While her husband was at work, she drowned each of her children one after the other in the bathtub of their home. After doing so, she had noticed what she had done was wring and called both the police and her husband. After the incident Yates was taken in by the police and tried guilty for the death of her children. People today still wonder if she did this out of a mental illness or

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