The Yellow Wallpaper Psychotic Break

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, portrays the life and mind of a woman suffering from post-partum depression in the late eighteenth century. Gilman uses setting to strengthen the impact of her story by allowing the distant country mansion symbolize the loneliness of her narrator, Jane. Gilman also uses flat characters to enhance the depth of Jane’s thoughts; however, Gilman’s use of narrative technique impacts her story the most. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses interior monologue to add impact to Jane’s progression into insanity, to add insight into the relationships in the story, and to increase the depth of Jane’s connection with the yellow wallpaper it self.

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.

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,

He had even hired a housekeeper to take care of not only the house, but the baby as well. John also controlled almost everything in her life. In fact, the only thing he did not control was her journal writing, and even then she had to hide it from him since he did not approve of it. When he comes she says, "I must put this (the journal) away - he hates to have me write a word"(471). Part of John's problem 1s that he is a doctor. As a doctor, he control's his wife's health care, prescribing her medicines and her overall cure. As her husband, he is too emotionally involved to look at the case objectively, or if he had, he might have seen her mind going before it was too late. Not only that, the accepted "cure" at that particular time was ineffective and would only serve to make his wife worse (473). This "cure" was the product of a certain Dr. Weir Mitchell; a nerve specialist whose theory of a "rest cure" for mentally unstable patients was later found to be unsuccessful. In the story, the husband's ill-advised attempts to treat his wife's symptoms drive her insane by taking all responsibility from her and forcing isolation upon her as a part of her "cure."

Also, we can relate the woman in the wallpaper to the narrator because she is free to do what she wants because John is not there, but during the night she is locked up in her room much like the woman in the wallpaper. These circumstances in which the narrator was put under during the late 1800's would not have been an oddity, and therefore I believe many women just as the narrator did would have had problems go undiagnosed.

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

In order to gain a greater understanding of who one is on the inside one must remove themselves and their mind from their external surroundings. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman the main character, who the reader only knows as the narrator, is diagnosed with neurasthenia which is a disease characterized by “nervous exhaustion” and may otherwise be known as hysteria . She undergoes episodes of mild fatigue and depression as well as showing signs of anxiety which leads to her husband and physician, John, to prescribe her with Silas Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure”. He does this in the hopes of calming her nervous depression and allowing her to take up her proper position in the household. As she follows the rules and regulations put on her while under the rest cure the narrator’s

In a guise of a physician’s authority over his patient, John exercises patriarchal domination. He dominates the narrator both physically and mentally, by confining her to a prison like room and latter constraining her from writing. Every time he focuses that they came to that house merely on the narrator’s account so that she would get better soon. However, he doesn’t even let her talk about her anxieties and fears. She very disappointingly remarks that:

In “The Yellow wallpaper”, the wallpaper is a metaphor that expresses women’s protest against the repression of her society personal identity at the rise of feminism. Especially in the nineteenth century, women were kept down and kept in line by their married men as well as other male influences. " The Yellow Wallpaper", written By Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a tale of a woman, her psychological difficulties and her husbands so called therapeutic treatment ‘rest cure’ of her depression during the late 1800s. The tale starts out in the summer with a young woman and her husband travelling for the healing powers of being out from writing, which only appears to aggravate her condition.

The main theme, oppression, in the story is evident when Jane is imprisoned in an unhealthy environment and cannot leave as she wishes because John insists she stay in her room as a rest cure for her illness. Jane does what she is told believing in her husband, a doctor, even though she feels uncomfortable in the room. Women in this time who had an illness were “disempowered… once locked

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 Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman focuses on the oppression of women in the 19th century. The story introduces us into the awareness of a woman who is slowly going insane over the course of the summer. She recently just gave birth to a baby and is most likely suffering from some type of depression. Analyzing this story, we see the frustrations of women during The Victorian era. Women were manipulated into certain stereotypes as a wife and mother. Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper” analyses the question is “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s real life experiences are reflected in her short story”? “The Yellow Wallpaper” examines the theme of

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the theme of madness permeates through the character Jane. Gilman portrays the theme of madness by showing, not telling. We see the world through Jane’s eyes and mind. The readers stay with Jane as the loses her grip on reality which in turn causes her actions to grow more and more chaotic as she begins seeing shapes in the wallpaper. We extrapolate that there is no actual woman in the wallpaper, but the narrator thinks so because she is losing her wits. Gilman shows Jane’s descent into madness by revealing how John looks upon her as psychotic, how John treats her like a child, and how the moment she precisely loses her sanity is the peak of the madness.

Patients of the rest cure were prescribed a life of quiet bed rest, often secluded from social activities, writing, knitting, or reading. The under-stimulated patients were not allowed to express themselves or engage in intellectual activities because it was believed it would cause more nervousness and hysteria. Women and some men who advocated for women argued that the rest cure was widely used to subdue intellectual women. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells the story about a woman prescribed the rest cure and how it pushed her deeper into depression and later led to manic hysteria and hallucination.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” story, the theme is mental illness. The woman in this story clearly is suffering from some sort of mental illness such as post part-partum depression and hysterical tendencies. Which can turn into something much more serious if someone does not intervene and get her some the help she really needs. However, they felt it was the right way to handle it at the time because they were following the old therapy treatment called “rest cure.” You watch her slowly go out her mind. Meanwhile she thinks her husband is taking perfect care of her. It seems like John was purely controlling her and prescribing her things that she probably did not really need. It was like he was making her