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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we never learn the narrators’ name, which begs the question could Gilman be narrating her own life. The tale was written in the late eighteen hundreds as a private diary of sorts and is a lugubrious narration about a woman who has quite possibly went mad. The narrator’s husband John and her brother both respected physician diagnosis her with nervous depression and at the time, a Victorian era of time, the cure for losing one’s mind was to rest. While she may have indeed been suffering from depression which dictionary.com defines as “sad and gloomy; dejected; downcast” (dictoionarycomdepression) she just had a child so she may have actually been suffering from postpartum depression. Due to her diagnosis and because she tired so easily, she was forbidden from working, her attempts at conversations were stifled and her hallowed writing was even frowned upon. In an effort to help her to overcome her depression and to rest, her husband whisked her away to a rental home where they would have a housekeeper and a nanny. While those around her thought these efforts were for the best, shortly after arriving at the mansion she started her diary and wrote, “congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman 434) which implies she felt activities and interactions would be a better course of treatment. Because she has no one to talk with and no activities to occupy her time with, she

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