Suffering Disorders In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

During the nineteenth century, women and men played vastly different roles. While men had the free will to choose the life paths they desired, women lacked such privileges. Women, instead, were expected to tend to domestic responsibilities. Unlike men, they were unable to voice their opinions, instead, myriads of them lived monotonous lives with their, often condescending, husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, portrays a woman in the nineteenth century descending into psychosis. After the birth of her daughter, the unnamed narrator presumably endures postpartum depression and is forced into bed rest as a cure. In her male-dominated society, the narrator often feels as though she is at a loss of control over her life. Despite what she believes is best for her own betterment, her husband, John, overrides her inputs. She is stripped away from the outside world and left with nothing more than her concealed diary entries and the horrid yellow wallpaper of her bedroom. Although John seemingly wants the best for his wife, his dismissiveness towards her mental state and solicitations necessarily cause her to become deranged; her breakdown is a result of feeling powerless as she is encaged in a house she does not care for, restricted from her activities, and her inability to communicate effectively.

Mental illness, a problem mankind has had since the dawn of time. While we have not had any major breakthrough until modern times we have yet to uncover the cause and cure for the majority of them. While earlier physicians had fought with what they believed would help people to get better of their ailments. Charlotte Perkins Gillman was an author from the 1800’s that had own personal fight with a mental illness. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is said to be an autobiography of sorts even down to the fact that she uses her doctor’s name that diagnosed her with depression, Weir Mitchell (Gillman 6). Throughout the story the unnamed narrator speaks of different women who her husband John only mentions Jennie once and does not recognize her as being at the house but says "Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better! “(Gillman 6). He only speaks of people who are not around. This points to the narrator possibly having a dissociative identity disorder which the

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society . . . or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist symbolizes the effect of the oppression of women in society in the Nineteenth Century. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author reveals the narrator is torn between hate and love, but emotion is difficult to determine. The effects are produced by the use of complex themes used in the story, which assisted her oppression and reflected on her self-expression.

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.

and having carefully analyzed the text, I am leaning towards a diagnosis of, major depressive disorder. The observed symptoms, which the protagonist seems to line up with the following symptoms listed in for Major depressive disorder in the DSM-5 checklist provided in the book (Comer, 2014). In the short story, the protagonist has mentioned and expressed with her actions feeling: in a depressed mood for most of the day, Daily diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activates for most of the day, Decrease in daily appetite, experiencing hypersomnia, daily fatigue or loss of energy (Comer, 2014). These things mentioned are symptoms that are categorized as being

Women have long felt the emotional, psychological and physical effects of child bearing. Before modern medicine, these mental struggles were said to be nothing more than nervousness. In The Yellow Wallpaper a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, the narrator is a young woman who has recently given birth, during the late 19th century. After giving birth she has fallen victim of postpartum depression. When a woman becomes pregnant her body immediately starts to produce hormones in excess. These same hormones that help a woman through pregnancy can cause psychological detriment postpartum. Her husband, who is a doctor, tells her, it is nothing more than nervousness. Narrator states, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” If postpartum depression symptoms are not taken care of it can result in a complete mental illness and can lead to suicidal tendencies. Dr, Rui Campos and her colleagues discuss the findings of their study in their article Neediness and Depression in women. What they found was that most women have mental illness as a result of a hormonal imbalance, their own self-worth and the environment in which they live. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is kept contained in a room. Her husband believes that with rest and time alone she will get better. Instead of improving, her mental clarity worsens as a result of no treatment, and being held hostage in a room, and while alone she lives

This gothic horror tale of nineteenth century fiction, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892; during a time that women writers were starting to come out and write about key issues in their treatment. She craftily sets up or spins the story with a setting of isolation and a character who feels trapped, by a husband who chooses not to know her; yet does not listen to her and keeps her trapped on an island, all in her best interest. The tone is filled with desperation, sarcasm, anger, and shows that though she is mentally unstable there is intelligence behind her instability that is kept unseen. The main symbol is the wallpaper which is a constant bane to her.

In 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a short story entitled “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She tells the story of a wife whose physician husband has prescribed the “rest cure” method as a means for recovery from hysteria. Gilman details the story as it is based mostly on her own experience when her husband sent her away for treatment for depression. Like Gilman’s husband, John is a prime example of how men are perceived as the dominant sex of the time. Women were to be submissive to their husbands and male society.

Isolating the sick is only necessary if the ailing is contagious. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the isolation of Jennie was the major foundation of her illness. If Jennie was surrounded by loved ones, she would feel their love and be encouraged to get stronger. By being isolated from family and friends Jennie slips into her abandoned, bleak thoughts.

Schizophrenia is a vicious disease, which can manipulate a life, making it difficult to distinguish between what is real, and what is imaginary. In the short story, “Yellow Wallpaper”, a psychological aspect is taken upon a woman who appears to be schizophrenic. The narrator and her husband have recently moved into a rented house for the summer. According to her husband, John, he believes that she is not sick, but she presumes otherwise. After essentially being trapped in one room (not of her choice) the whole summer, the narrator develops a peculiar interest for the unique wallpaper.

On the surface, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson can be a confusing short story. The motivations of the narrator and the nature of her illness are not clear. This can be mediated through examining this short story through ideas from Simone de Beavoir’s The Second Sex. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is trapped in being the Other, as defined in the relationship between men and women by de Beavoir in The Second Sex through the actions and attitudes of her husband, John, and because she lacks means to escape this relegation to Other, it at least in part contributes to her fall into mental illness.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman, the husband is portrayed as the perfect husband because he takes care of his wife while she is sick. The author shows us the wife's point of view to inform the readers of what goes on "behind close doors". Society has seen the wife as a weak, sickly, women who can not take care of her newly born baby. Her husband is seen as the compassionate and living father and husband to his family. In the story we see a different view of both wife and husband. The author gives the reader clues on how in reality the "perfect" husband is killing her slowly. It is suggested that he didn’t know his actions were the cause of her depression, but if he was a doctor wouldn’t he know the signs of declining health? "I

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.

This insanity is projected by nineteenth century women writers into their works to convey the dilemma, problems, and the isolation that the Victorian women were facing in their everyday life. The mad diabolical heroines in their works are not any out of place characters but are most often the counterparts to the women writers representing their own needs and desires. Desires, isolation, problems, and rebel of the main heroine give the image of writer’s own anxiety and rage, giving a sense of being author’s double. The madness projected by female writer does not only represent their everyday lives problems but also demonstrates their strong sense of resistance to the conditions imposed on them by the patriarchal order. As in Michel Foucault’s