The Role Of Hysteria In The Yellow Wallpaper

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

“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.

Hysteria was one of the class diseases of the 19th century…for centuries hysteria has been seen as characteristically female- the hysterical woman the embodiment of a perverse or hyper femininity…and in [the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s…physicians reported a high incidence of nervous disease and hysteria among women who felt overwhelmed by the burdens of frequent pregnancies, the demands of children, the daily exertions of housekeeping and family management (Smith-Rosenberg, 1972, 652, 653, 657).

Feminist studies generally focus on the role that hysterical diagnoses and treatments played in reinforcing the prevailing, male-dominant gender roles through the subversion, manipulation and degrading of female experience through the use of medical treatments and power structures. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a perfect example of these themes. In writing this story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman drew upon her own personal experiences with hysteria. The adoption of the sick-role was a product of-and a reaction against gender norms and all of the pressures and tensions that their satisfaction demanded. Gilman’s essay uses autobiographical experiences displayed as doppelganger quality the in the main narrator of the

Until the medical breakthroughs that we have made in the modern day, psychology as a science was not fully understood. Modern technology has given us a clearer idea of psychology, but in the past there was less known about the science. This alongside a predominantly male medical discourse led to a medical diagnosis in many women called hysteria. Female hysteria was a medical diagnosis given to specifically women as far back as the ancient Greek civilization. Hysteria started as a supernatural phenomena, but as medicine evolved it would be described as a mental disorder, (Tasca). Hysteria. in actuality, is an absurd and fabricated diagnosis that institutionalized and discriminated countless women. The way it makes a women feel, and the fact that it strips a woman of any sort of free will is a sickening display of blatant misogyny. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly displays not only the misogyny, but the torture a woman must face trapped under a hysteria diagnosis. Hysteria as a diagnoses fails to effectively treat many women, instead leading to the mistreatment and wrongful institutionalization of women.

Hysteria was the “go-to, catchall diagnosis” for all women, consisting of any “problem” including, but not limited to, nervousness, faintness, loss of appetite, (lack of) sexual desire, headaches, insomnia, muscle spasms, and trouble-making. For centuries, literature portrayed as submissive and obedient to men and oppressed by society, culture, and even men. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman presents readers with a story of a woman suffering from depression, possibly post-partum, but whose remedy is “rest cure,” a treatment invented by Silas Weir Mitchell for neurasthenia involving isolation and rest as a cure for hysteria in all its forms. The Yellow Wallpaper is a narrative concerning the gradual demise of the mental stability of an unnamed, newly married upper-middle class woman in late nineteenth century rural America. Gilman uses psychological terror to not only portray the narrator’s fall to insanity, but also to shed light on the rather unfortunate role of women in the institution of marriage. The narrator’s husband, John, is a physician who firmly expresses disbelief in his wife’s claims of depression. From the beginning of the story, the reader can tell immediately that the narrator has absolutely no voice. John assures her and others that nothing is wrong but “temporary nervous

The suppression of women not only inhibits their freedoms, but relies on keeping the inhibition hidden: “John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad” (Gilman 14). Her condition represents the oppression she, along with most women, faces. Her husband tells her not to think about it because thinking about it will not only force her to acknowledge the problems and unfair treatments she, as a women, faces, but it will make her want to deal with them [think of a

Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said, ‘’There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver’’. Gilman’s belief that there’s no difference in means of mentality between men or women demonstrated through ‘’The Yellow Wallpaper’’. Gilman symbolically portrays that women suffer from psychological disorders caused by lack of love, care, and a constant pressure of secondary roles and personal unimportance in social life. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time frame where women were oppressed. The short story can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and

Not understanding that some women can be strong and independent, the men lashed out feeling threatened. Women now and then are pushed under in forms of inequality. Although not nearly as harsh as during the time period of “Half-Hanged Mary”. Women are still forced into a world of inequality. For every dollar a man makes, a woman in the same job is paid seventy nine cents.

A Woman’s Fight for Freedom: The Yellow Wallpaper Gender equality serves as a prominent issue in today’s society. In spite of this, one does not realize how far America has progressed with civil rights and equality between both genders. During the 19th century, oppressed women fought for the simplest of rights that many take for granted today.

A constant theme conveyed throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the theme of mental illness and the extremes that it can reach. Introduced in the beginning of the short story, the main character, Jane, is supposedly diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression” and “a slight hysterical tendency.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman conveys the theme of mental illness throughout the story using point of view, irony, Gothic elements, and personification. Point of view plays an important role in communicating the theme of mental illness. Since the story is written in a first person perspective, we as readers have a deeper understanding of what is going on in Jane’s mind and how she feels as time goes on.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, an unnamed woman, is driven to madness due the people around her not acknowledging her real issue. The narrator is a wife to a physician named John and he does not believe she is ill. Instead, John believes that his wife suffers from “a slight hysterical tendency…” (Gilman 1). “The Yellow Wallpaper” critiques Victorian womanhood by exposing the challenges women faced because of gender roles and the patriarchy, which had a strong impact on women’s mental health and medical discourse.

Countless individuals have suffered and continue to suffer from mental illnesses all over the world both in the past and in the present. Charlotte Perkins Gilman introduces a character that suffers from a mental illness in her story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The setting of the story takes place in the nineteenth century and is compiled of a series of journal entries that is written by a woman who is progressively losing all sanity. Her husband John, who is a well-respected physician, believes that his wife’s condition is not in fact a serious case and essentially misdiagnoses her. The narrator suffers through treatment that consists of rest at a remote house that causes her to be isolated from society and develops an obsession with the image of a woman trapped inside the wallpaper in her room.

Is insanity brought through artificial circumstance, or is it a natural state of being that the human mind tends towards? The narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a very deep character, psychologically and emotionally, manipulated by a society that creates artificial difference between her and those around her, such as the differences between men and women, and the ideologies of pragmatism as opposed to creativity. This is a mirror of the society that feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman found herself trapped in for her entire life. This novel is a commentary based on the neglectful state of subservience and helplessness that women were forced into during their time period. This realistic mindset towards the society of the 1800s and

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a troubled mother attempting to overcome her struggle with mental illness. John the woman’s husband, a top-rated male psychologist treats her with something known as the “rest cure.” This treatment deprives her of any social interaction besides with him or her sister. As her condition slowly worsens we see the “rest cure” is not working and we see the gender roles of the ninetieth slowly emerge. Mental illness consumes the women; the reader can’t help see the overlying theme, that by trying to help someone, sometimes you make it worse.