The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she discusses some of the issues found in 19th century society such as women’s oppression and the treatment of mental illness. Many authors throughout history have written stories that mimic their own lives and we see this in the story. We see Gilman in the story portrayed as Jane, a mentally unstable housewife who cannot escape her husband’s oppression or her own mind. Gilman reveals a life of depression and women’s oppression through her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

In this psychological tale we are introduced to a woman facing a mental illness in the late 1800’s writing secretly about essentially being belittled about her health by her husband, John, a doctor, who subjects her to bed rest and isolation to the real world to recover. Her words: “...John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” (page 2 of The Yellow Wall-Paper) struck with me. I understand the feeling of suddenly feeling useless, unproductive and sort of trapped in your own mind. As she loses touch with life outside of the house, she begins to obsess with the women she sees behind the yellow wallpaper of her bedroom. First, I believed the wallpaper to be a metaphor of her depression, “I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design [of the wallpaper].” (page 4 of The

An anonymous author once said, “What consumes your mind, controls your life.” In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is suffering from severe depression, at the very least and constantly tries to get better. While trying to get better she becomes increasingly fixated on the yellow wallpaper that encompasses her in her room. It gets to the point where the wallpaper is all she thinks about and slowly, it starts to control her life. The yellow wallpaper in this story is a representation of the narrator’s relationship with her disease.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the text was seen as a woman who suffered from an illness that she identifies as real, but her blinded husband, John, thought she wasn’t sick and all she needed was to rest for a while. As the text progressed, the narrator began to connect to the yellow wallpaper in the nursery room she was staying at, seeing things move within the wallpaper and even seeing women trapped within it as well. The narrator’s illness progressively got worse as she had to stay strong and fight her illness by herself since her husband and his sister, Jennie, were no good for help and she would get judged harshly for showing any signs of a mental illness as a woman. Many symbols could be seen from the narrator seeing delusional things within the text, such as the women in the wallpaper shaking the bars within it like they’re in a prison and the women only being calm in the daytime, but restless in the evening. These symbols gave a strong rise to that fact that the narrator was actually sick and suffered a condition that would be called postpartum depression in today’s time, but due to her inability to talk to her husband and his sister about her illness and/or concerns and the fear of being harshly judged by society for being sick, her illness caused her to go insane from locking all the thoughts and feelings inside of her. Society, which included her husband and his sister, was to blame for the narrator going insane, since the

A brave woman sang a sombre song from inside a birdcage in the late 19th century. As a novelist and a well-known feminist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman fearlessly spoke up about her concepts on freedom in her masterpiece, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She proposed a big issue -divorce- around that time. In this semi-autobiographical story, she describes her conflict of marital discord. Gilman intertwines her frustrations about a relationship with her husband and depicts the distress through many symbols, so that people should be aware what genuine happiness as a human being is.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, protagonist of the “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the author of the short story herself, details her experiences while locked away on bed rest by order of her doctor husband. Through these experiences, Gilman displays the struggles women face while seeking independence. While this short story has many psychological aspects, it also displays several feminist perspectives that speak for the female gender throughout the late 1800’s, as well as difficulties with a society ran by primarily males. This idea is evident through Gilman’s husband, John, the writings of Jane, the unnamed narrator, and the environment Gilman herself was placed within. Through these components, isolation of women and the power given off by the male gender is reflected.

Neurasthenia was first described in 1869 as a disease characterized by extreme anxiety, depression, and fatigue. But in the 18th and 19th century, a temporary nervous depression, which is what the narrator in “The Yellow Paper” is diagnosed with, was the illness most common among women due to their perceived fragility and weak emotions. This nervous disease was associated with numerous symptoms, such as pale urine, a visible swelling of the stomach, headaches, fainting, palpitations of the heart, wind in the stomach and intestines, frequent sighing, giddiness, convulsive crying, convulsive laughing, despair, and melancholy (T. Wayne, C. Vincent). In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator, a woman who has recently given birth, has been diagnosed with neurasthenia, and imprisoned in a summer home as a result of the times period’s patriarchal and industrial society.

The standing that women have had in the past was so bad that often times they were deemed less than their counterparts. May a times a woman’s intuition of themselves were ignored, because the male doctors were certain they were the ones correct not the females. In the time period in which physiological heath was relatively new, certain diagnostics would have been overlooked and patient were given the wrong type of help they need, especially woman that often times knew they had something different. Other times if a woman desired to do something they had to ask there significant other, if they were refused they had to refrain themselves from asking again. As it was in the case in the story made by Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”, in which a young mother opinions and wants were all but ignored. A question that some people have while reading the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was if the young woman was suffering from oppression or depression. However one might feel that she might be subject to both, it is more than clear that depression is the higher factor involved here. Depression can be defined like an example given Merriam-Webster “by a state of feeling sad : dejection (2) : a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies” The emphasis of

“Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. – 43.8 million, or 18.5% - experiences mental illness in a given year” (“Mental Health…”). In the eighteenth century, mental illness was seen as mad and demonic. People were ignorant of the sickness of the mind and often mistreated people who had seemed mental, with the lack of research and resources for it. Isolation became an essential tool to those who needed to be cured. During this time, depression and lack of self-expression, more commonly with women, was regular. In the short story of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator goes through psychological stages and environmental issues. Psychological matters determine the truth and underlying meaning that lies between the narrator and the wall. In Gilman’s time, treatment of mental illness played a large role, as well as the effects of isolation, and the suppression of female intelligence.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) whom is most acclaimed for her short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1891) was a women’s author that was relatively revolutionary. Gilman makes an appalling picture of captivity and confinement in the short story, outlining a semi-personal photo of a young lady experiencing the rest cure treatment by her spouse, whom in addition to being her husband was also her therapist. Gilman misused the rest cure in The Yellow Wallpaper to alarm other ladies of the harming impacts of the treatment.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper the main character is a symbol of the authors personal experience. It is also symbol for all the repressed woman of that her time. You never no the name of this woman who is suffering so, throughout the entire story. She seems to lack any of her own identity. She is treated as weak and un-knowledgeable even when it comes to her own health. Her concerns are considered frivolous.

At what point does an individual come to the realization that they are trapped within an internal perpetual prison? Many women during the 19th century suffered from countless diseases and disorders that went untreated and society had deemed their voice powerless and useless. According to the University of Toledo Libraries “Women were especially vulnerable to inadequate diagnoses and treatment in 19th century America.” It was commonly believed that most physical ailments of women were caused by their sexual organs or mental disorders, resulting in painful, sometimes lethal treatments.” Within the oeuvre of Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” we examine the insouciant approach that society made towards the mental health of women, which ultimately led to the mental instability of countless females.

Throughout the course of history, gender roles have seen a drastic reform and reversal. The late 19th century and early 20th century have represented a time period where American women were restricted to common household jobs, and prevented from being part of much social or economical progress. Women were expected to maintain an image of moral standard and were frequently cast in an insignificant role in society, ironically, due to the worries men had with the higher population of women ("Women in the Twentieth Century and Beyond." 1). As a strong advocate for women 's rights, Charlotte Perkins Gilman played a significant role as she fought against the common, marginalized label that had been put on women during the time period. In her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", Perkins utilizes recurring, vivid imagery to highlight the theme of the unjust isolation of women. With the use of a distant house, a secluded garden, a shut window, and a useless wallpaper, Perkins conveys the message that the 20th century was plagued with the oppression of men by the social segregation of women in the United States. The century marked an era of deterioration of not only the emotional well being of women, but also caused detrimental mental issues as well.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” what is hoped to be a dream vacation for relaxation becomes a nightmare for the protagonist. This protagonist, who plays the role of narrator, is in the midst of a nervous breakdown who has left her village for recovery. The narrator, along with her husband, lives in a house that they have taken on rent so that she can recover efficiently. During this period, the protagonist passes her time observing the yellow wallpaper and after some time of observation, she finds attractive patterns in that wallpaper which changes with light that falls on it during night and day. The protagonist becomes so acquainted with that pattern that she sleeps all day and wakes up all night to observe the changes that happen in that pattern. After some time, the narrator gets much tired with the place that she wants to leave that house even if they have rented it for three months. On the other hand, pattern in the yellow wallpaper keeps the protagonist’s interest in that house which was a headache for her and she lives there for three months only to observe the pattern which changes with sunlight.

Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that explores the mind of a woman who is driven to insanity by her surrounding environment. This woman, who narrates her experiences in a journal, begins by marveling at the grandeur of the estate her husband has taken for their summer vacation. Her feeling that there is “something queer” (307) about the situation leads her into a discussion of her illness. The narrator describes that she is suffering from “nervous depression” (308) and of her marriage. She confesses that her husband John, who is additionally her doctor, belittles both her illness and her overall concerns. John contrasts the narrator’s creative, thoughtfulness with his pragmatic and analytical ways. Her treatment demands that she do almost nothing active, especially reading and writing. She feels that interesting work would help her condition and discloses that she has begun to write a secret account of her time in the house as a method to “[relieve her] mind” (307). As a result, the narrator begins describing the house. Her description is primarily of admiration, but disturbing elements such as the “rings and things” (309) in the bedroom walls, and bars on the windows, keep showing up. She is particularly disturbed by the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom as it carries with it a peculiar, amorphous pattern, and