Postpartum Depression in "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, portrays the life and mind of a woman suffering from post-partum depression in the late eighteenth century. Gilman uses setting to strengthen the impact of her story by allowing the distant country mansion symbolize the loneliness of her narrator, Jane. Gilman also uses flat characters to enhance the depth of Jane’s thoughts; however, Gilman’s use of narrative technique impacts her story the most. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses interior monologue to add impact to Jane’s progression into insanity, to add insight into the relationships in the story, and to increase the depth of Jane’s connection with the yellow wallpaper it self.

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman’s descent into madness as a result of postpartum psychosis. Postpartum psychosis is a condition that affects between one and two of every thousand live births. The condition of postpartum psychosis usually begins within two weeks of giving birth and sometimes within a matter of days. (“Depression”, 2009)

In the short story. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we are introduced to a woman, the narrator, who suffers from postpartum depression, a disorder in women that results from childbirth. This disorder can have serious effects on the individual and may result in extreme behaviors such as suicide. (Mahoney 1) The narrator of the story is symbolic of Gilman, as she had experienced this illness after the birth of her daughter. (Gilman 181) Postpartum depression is a serious issue that must be dealt with in order to help its victums carry on with everyday life. In order for society to effictively help those affected with postpartum depression, they must know what it is, what its symptoms are,

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, already suffering with Post-Partum Depression, is further constrained when her husband John prescribes her resting treatment for her illness. John clarifies that she must lie in bed in the same, enclosed room, refrain from using her imagination and especially abstain from writing. This, in turn, forces the narrator deeper into her

Several analyses have been made of the book "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman mostly focusing on patriarchal society as the main source of narrator’s mental illness. However, less has depicted acknowledgement of legitimate biological causes of depression. Postpartum depression is often diagnosed in women especially new mothers. This is characterized by mood swings, crying spells, anxiety and difficulty in sleeping. Some women can experience long-lasting depression that can lead to postpartum psychosis. Symptoms of this psychosis may include; hallucinations, delusions, hyperactivity, paranoia, rapid mood swings, insomnia, unsupported feelings of worthlessness and even thoughts of death. In the modern society, postpartum psychosis is temporary and treatable with professional help. The paper analyses the possibilities of society induced depression and

Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives the reader a profound look by using characterization at a wife who is attempting to overcome postpartum depression after the birth of her newborn. The woman thinks she is severely ill, but her physicians, (her brother and John her husband) describe the woman to have “a slight hysterical tendency” (Perkins 1). Her physicians think it is best to keep the new mother locked up in a room with yellow wallpaper and to have little to no interactions. The woman has no say in what she thinks is in her best interest to recover from her depression. The woman says “excitement and change would be good, but what do I know” (1).

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is about Jane who has a “nervous condition” (postpartum depression) and her journey to madness. Not only was her husband a doctor, but she went to see a doctor as well who prescribed the “rest cure”. The “rest cure” meant that she was not allowed to write, have company, or do very much of anything at all. Her bedroom was on the top floor away from everyone else and it had bars on the windows, this all made her feel isolated from the rest of the world. Something that we would today find depressing even today. Jane begins to have a fixation on the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and she believes that she sees a woman trapped behind the wallpaper. She

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through

It is believed the narrator (sometimes identified as Jane) in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is diagnosed with temporary nervous depression after having a baby. Her husband, John, denies she has a “real” problem (Gilman 87). He takes

. . There is something strange about the house-I can feel it"; she also relates how everything she does exhausts her.  These symptoms, as well as the numerous referrals by the narrator to the baby, indicate post-partum depression.  When speaking of the baby the narrator says, for example, "I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous."

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," Jane, the main character, is a good example of Sigmund Freud’s Studies In Hysteria. Jane suffers from symptoms such as story making and daydreaming. Jane has a nervous weakness throughout the story.

  "The Yellow Wallpaper," written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late nineteenth century, explores the dark forbidding world of one woman's plunge into a severe post-partum depressive state. The story presents a theme of the search for self-identity. Through interacting with human beings and the environment, the protagonist creates for herself a life of her own.

Short Stories normally address issues in society at the current time of the story which these issues sometime end up being timeless issues that still occur in the current time period. For instance, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman the story deals with the issue of postpartum depression in new mothers. While postpartum depression is still a very real and current topic in today’s society. Current society handles the issue differently than when the “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written. The difference in modern day and past society is contributed to the increasing knowledge of postpartum depression that has led to a new view for society, improved treatments, and a better approach for support from family. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The yellow wallpaper symbolizes Jane’s depression and her struggle with her overwhelming mental illness. At night, Jane lies awake studying the paper desperately trying to keep watch over the woman behind it (316). Gilman shows that Jane’s depression

In Charlotte Gilmans story "The Yellow Wallpaper" she writes about a woman who later we find out is a lady name Jane who suffers from a nervous depression. Nowadays, this would probably be known as postpartum depression, because the narrator had just had a healthy baby boy. Her husband John who is a physician treats her and sentences her to bed rest until it passes. John moves them into a rent house were her symptoms worsen and the yellow wall paper in the room she stays in drives her to madness. The narrator ends up conjuring a woman trying to break out of the wall paper and she watches her every night. Finally, the narrators problems only grow and grown until she falls over the edge and becomes the woman in the wall paper. The claim that