The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Medicine and science were male-dominated practices in the Victorian era; women were seen as intellectually inferior, leaving domestic roles as their sole purpose. Women were enchained by the gendered presumption that nervous disorders were the root of unrest and discontent that plagued women. In a stifling society, pathology became a means to further repress and control women. The “rest cure,” a Victorian idea, was used to treat the increasingly diagnosed nervous disorder. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, battled with clinical depression most of her life.

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.”

Many people know what it feels like to be “trapped” in the emotional sense of things, but how many can say they have been both physically and emotionally trapped. Charlotte Perkins Gilman used her personal bout with depression to create a powerful fictional narrative, which has broad implications for women. When the narrator recognizes that there is more than one trapped, creeping woman, Gilman indicates that the meaning of her story extends beyond an isolated, individual situation. Gilman’s main purpose in writing The Yellow Wallpaper is to doom not only a specific medical treatment but also the misogynistic principles and resulting sexual politics that make such a treatment possible. Those things lead to the major themes of the story: freedom, confinement, and madness.

Anne Stiles details that Silas Weir Mitchell developed the rest cure in the late 1800s to treat hysteria and other nervous conditions. The treatment usually lasted from six to eight weeks where patients were confined to their bed and “sometimes prohibited from talking, reading, writing and even sewing.” Women were also force fed a fat-dense diet, consisting of red meat, and three to four pints of milk each day to promote weight gain and were not allowed to turn over or be moved from the bed without permission. Stiles explains that physicians prescribed a rest cure for conditions they were unsure about. However, the narrator’s condition probably arose from giving birth and depression emotional depression that followed.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she explores the world of madness, torture, and imprisonment. In the story, the narrator is suppressed by her husband and his ‘‘superior wisdom,’’ leading to the loss of her sanity. Although it seems as though her husband is trying to help her, in actuality, his methods of healing her are detrimental to her health, both emotionally and mentally. The destruction of her sanity in relation to his attempt to help her are strategically illustrated by Gilman throughout the story.

The “rest cure” was a common treatment for depression in women in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Women were locked in a room involuntarily and forced to “rest.” The patient was locked in a room and not allowed to leave or function in any type of way. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper is subjected to this cure. The story is written to expose the cruelty of the “resting cure”. Gilman uses the wall paper to represent the narrators sense of entrapment, the notion of creativity gone astray, and a distraction that becomes an obsession.

treats her like a child and just like a child she is kept in this

Imagine having a mental illness in the 1800s with no doctors that actually have experience with these conditions. Charlotte Perkins Gilman has written this short story to relate to her mental condition. She has come up with a character that goes through a similar illness and undergoes the rest cure. In the 1800s, the rest cure was believed to cure someone with a mental illness by not allowing them to read, write, or speak to anyone. They could only lay in bed and eat the food that they were given.

I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!” (Perkins Gilman 6). John’s implication of sending Jane to Weir Mitchell applies the social stigma directly to her. Weir Mitchell was a 19th century doctor who developed a treatment called the “rest cure.” A “rest cure” would include electrotherapy, a meat-rich diet, and little to no mental stimulation for 6-8 weeks.

“In 1886, Gilman had a breakdown and was treated for hysteria by neurologist S. Weir Mitchell, who prescribed total rest and abstinence from work” (Butterworth). While under Mitchell’s care, Gilman realized that she was getting worse and was concerned for her sanity. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane has been isolated and prescribed a total rest and abstinence from work treatment by her husband John after giving birth and experiencing what her husband called a “temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 355). The treatment that was prescribed for Jane was based on S. Weir Mitchell’s rest cure.

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.

     In the late nineteenth century, after the American social and economic shift commonly referred to as the "Industrial Revolution" had changed the very fabric of American society, increased attention was paid to the psychological disorders that apparently had steamed up out of the new smokestacks and skyscrapers in urban populations (Bauer, 131).  These disorders were presumed to have been born out of the exhaustion and "wear and tear" of industrial society (Bauer, 131-132).  An obvious effect of these new disorders was a slew of physicians and psychiatrists advocating one sort of cure or another, although the "rest cure" popularized by the physician S. Weir Mitchell was the most

Within the medical community, doctors often neglected women 's health during the nineteenth century. Society viewed women as weak and fragile beings making them more susceptible to illness. Surprisingly some believed that women could consciously control their sickness to gain attention or to avoid their womanly duties (Poirier 16). Silas Weir Mitchell was a well-known neurologist during Gilman 's life. He made many medical discoveries during his career along with creating treatment for locomotor ataxia (a nervous disease), neurotic women, and gunshot wounds that disrupted the nervous systems (Poirier 17). This procedure, called the Rest Cure, consists of the patient resting and exerting as little energy as possible alongside maintaining a balanced diet. Gillman personally visited Mitchell in seek of help during a time of great depression post the birth of her daughter. However, his treatment did not help but, caused her almost to lose her sanity. Gillman addresses Mitchel in her literature "John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother (Gilman 197)." Janes husband, brother, and Mitchell are alike in the fact they all believe a woman 's hysteria correlates with their sex. These men also agree in one form of treatment: isolation, rest, and food. Showing that men of

The rest cure was one of the treatments given to women with hysteria. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, experienced the treatment and the outcome of the treatment. In my belief, the rest cure was somewhat a form of punishment toward the narrator and other women in the Victorian Era, in the 1900s. From the beginning of the short story, the narrator stated that her husband John was a physician of high standing and that he prescribed her rest, the rest cure. (Gilman 553) Her condition was hysteria a very common diagnosis in women in the 1900s. The rest cure was the one of the preferred treatments in that era. The rest cure meant that she had to stay isolated from family and friends for three months, placed on a fatty, milk-based diet, and forbidden to work. (Gilman 553) I believe all of these things led her to go insane. “The Yellow Wallpaper” took place in the late 1900s. In the Victorian Era, a woman’s sole purpose in life was to bear children and make their husbands happy. Also, women dressed in very tight corsets which would sometimes cut oxygen and women were fainting. Women also, could not show their ankles, and if they did, they were considered a prostitute.

with a rest cure. The doctor in the story is much like the doctor that