The Yellow Wallpaper Mental Illness

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has

The structure of the text, particularly evident in the author’s interactions with her husband, reveals the binary opposition between the façade of a middle-class woman living under the societal parameters of the Cult of Domesticity and the underlying suffering and dehumanization intrinsic to marriage and womanhood during the nineteenth century. While readers recognize the story for its troubling description of the way in which the yellow wallpaper morphs into a representation of the narrator’s insanity, the most interesting and telling component of the story lies apart from the wallpaper. “The Yellow Wallpaper” outwardly tells the story of a woman struggling with post-partum depression, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman snakes expressions of the true inequality faced within the daily lives of nineteenth century women throughout the story. Although the climax certainly surrounds the narrator’s overpowering obsession with the yellow wallpaper that covers the room to which her husband banished her for the summer, the moments that do not specifically concern the wallpaper or the narrator’s mania divulge a deeper and more powerful understanding of the torturous meaning of womanhood.

After learning of Gilman’s personal story, it becomes apparent that “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the struggle of its narrator, carries a distinct message. Gilman grew up in an unhappy and impoverished family with a brother, a single mother, and no father figure. She later went on to marry Charles Stetson (whom she later divorced) and had a daughter with him. After the birth of her daughter, Gilman fell into a deeply depressed state, indicating the relevance of postpartum depression. When she consulted Dr. Weir Mitchell about it, she was prescribed a “rest cure.” It was this event that inspired Gilman to write “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and many similarities can be drawn between

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman who is very mentally ill on her vacation with her husband. She is suffering from “nervous depression", which effect her greatly on her psyche levels and reality. While she is recovering she starts imaging a woman in the wallpaper looking at her trying to escape. Her mind start to believe that the woman in the wallpaper is real to the point that she consume her very mind. The narrator illustrate that the woman in the yellow wallpaper is a representation of mind failing to the illness she has. The reason why is because she suffers from neglect, depression, and the insanity that warps her mentally.

  "The Yellow Wallpaper," written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late nineteenth century, explores the dark forbidding world of one woman's plunge into a severe post-partum depressive state. The story presents a theme of the search for self-identity. Through interacting with human beings and the environment, the protagonist creates for herself a life of her own.

She went through the same things the narrator struggled with. Gilman suffered from postpartum depression after having her first child. During this time period it was seen as women being invalid to what they have to say. In 1888 Gilman and her husband separated which was a very rare thing to do during that time period. After they divorced in 1894 Gilman and her daughter moved to California where she started to become an active feminist. She is most famous for the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and her views are made very clear throughout the story. She wrote this story to show how woman were treated in her society and to change their minds about it. Her main point of story was to show how hard it was for women to be heard like they should be. The story is an important part of history because it brought positiveness for women to be respected and it shows how far women's rights have came since this story was

Can you imagine being a patient in an insane asylum? How about not even being aware that you are a patient in an insane asylum? Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s dramatic short story is about a woman who explains in her journal that she is in a vacation home accompanied by her husband, John, and his sister, Jennie. They are “vacationing” there because she is being treated for a case of a “slight hysterical tendency”, but by the end of the story the narrator has gone completely insane. The information given by the narrator is not completely reliable, due to her condition. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator expresses traits of a mental patient, and describes features of the other characters in the story and

In a male dominated society, women had little choice when it came to the path of life they would trek upon until death. From the first words of the doctor when they announce, “it’s a girl”, amidst cries of the baby and the relief of the mother, the path a woman shall take has already been predetermined. Chalotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a harrowing short story about a woman diagnosed with post-partum depression and her gradual slip into insanity when she is prescribed the rest-cure, a discredited treatment that only allows two hours of productivity each day. Gilman, the author, not only integrates stupendous aspects of gothic literature into her story but she also depicts a deeper, hidden message about the 19th century attitudes towards women from the words written in the journal of the unreliable narrator. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a woman born on July 3, 1860 during an extremely turbulent decade with numerous upheavals in society. After Gilman’s father left the family in 1859, Gilman grew up with the sole care of her cold mother and this childhood shaped her into an ambitious, independent woman. Holding onto her strong dreams and goals, Gilman hesitantly married Charles Walter Stetson, an artist. However, she began suffering from severe bouts of depression and was diagnosed with post-partum depression

Throughout the story we can see the oppression Gillman faced battling mental illness during the 1800’s. It also indicates that she wrote the story because women's voices were not being heard. Gilman's writing helped to give women a voice. Everyone should have a say in their medical treatment. She brought light to the inferiority that women faced during these times. Gillman’s writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” has significantly helped women and changed the way mental health conditions are treated.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story set in a 19th century colonial mansion, in which the narrator and her husband stay for the summer. The narrator, who is unnamed, is undergoing a rest cure for some kind of mental illness after giving birth. This mental illness is now known as postpartum depression. Rest cure involves doing absolutely nothing and this triggered the further deterioration of the narrator’s mental health. Her husband, John, monitors her condition while they stay in the mansion. She is confined in a room— supposedly a nursery room— with barred windows and scratches on the floor. The most noticeable feature of the room by the narrator is the yellow wallpaper. Each day, her description of the yellow wallpaper becomes more disturbing; from being just plain wallpaper to being a prison cell for trapped women, shaking the bars, wanting to be free from it. Instead of getting well from the rest cure, the narrator’s mental state worsened as what is depicted in her journal entries. She eventually goes mad and her husband fainted from the sight of her condition.

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is best known today as the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a riveting account of a young mother’s descent into madness as a result of the stultifying cultural expectations for women in Victorian America” (Maloney). The experiences of the protagonist, John’s wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a reflection of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own life. The story is about a creative woman whose talents are suppressed by her dominant husband. John, a physician, thinks by oppressing his wife it will keep her within societies normal ways of what a wife is supposed to act like, but it only leads her to a mental breakdown. He is more concerned with what others may say about her than the mental health of his wife. In trying to become independent, overcome her own suppressed thoughts, and her husband’s false diagnosis of her, she loses her sanity.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is portraying a story of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. The story describes the mental and emotional outcomes of a distinct old therapy called “rest cure” that was prescribed to people. Which is what their prescribed Mrs. Gilman with. It appears that she was writing about her own suffering that she went through in the year 1887, two years after giving birth to child. From the story, it was obvious that Mrs. Gilman was writing about her own life experience which can now be viewed as a clear reflection of the feelings of women, like herself who have gone through these same treatments. In her words, “It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.” (Gilman,487).

At first glance, Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” appears to simply be a tragic telling of a woman’s descent into madness. It is a story told through the diary entries of the protagonist, the woman, as she battles with postpartum depression but ultimately succumbs to it—losing her own sanity in the process. It is an interesting narrative, and while taking the story at face value is indeed sufficient, the message behind it becomes severely diminished if read plainly. More often than not, literature mirrors the society and societal values that it was created in. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is no exception to this. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a depiction of the unbalanced social equality between men and women in the late 19th century. Women were seen as lesser individuals back then and were treated as such. And Gilman, through various literary devices, seeks to unveil the oppression that women in marriage had to undergo in the late 19th century.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening story of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. The story is set during the late 1890s, and shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era for postpartum depression as well as the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. In her story, Gillman portrays the theme of confinement and control. The narrator is forced to hide anxiety and fears to fight the depression and to keep up the pretense of a happy life