Yellow Wallpaper Mental Health

The narrator falls into a state of deep depression following the birth of her baby, which is currently known now as postpartum depression. During the 1800’s they called it “temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” a diagnosis common to women during that era. There was little or no knowledge for the treatment of postpartum depression. The doctors used “rest cure” as a form of treatment, the patient is prohibited from doing any kind of work. All they need is to rest, exercise, eat well and get enough air then they will recover. No external stimulation which lead to the deterioration of the narrator’s mental health in the story. She is ordered by her husband and brother, who are respected physicians to rest. She is isolated from everyone except her husband John and her sister in law Jennie the house keeper. Locked in a room with yellow wall paper, windows facing all direction, all the

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society . . . or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

In her story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman expresses exasperation towards the separate male and female roles expected of her society, and the evident repressed rights of a woman versus the active duties of a man. The story depicts the methods taken to cure a woman of her psychological state during Gilman’s time, and delineates the dominant cure of the time period, “the resting cure,” which encouraged the restraint of the imagination ("The Yellow Wallpaper: Looking Beyond the Boundaries") Gilman uses the unnamed narrator to represent the average repressed woman of her time and how her needs were neglected in an attempt to mark a fixed distinction between the standards and expectations of men and women. John, the narrator’s husband, take the designated and patriarchal role of a man who believes he knows everything there is to know about the human mind. His belief of his superior knowledge pushes him to condescend, overshadow, and misunderstand his wife. As a result, his wife loses control of her life and escapes into her own fantasy world, where she is able dominate her imagination, free her mind, and fall into insanity. Gilman describes her era’s approach toward female psychology in order to criticize the patriarchal society she lived in as well as to reveal its effects on the women of her time.

Mental illness is really affecting the main character; she is getting worse and worse. She is is given a “rest” treatment, and she is not allowed work or write. She decides to keep a secret journal to help relieve her mind. In the journal she writes about the room she is in and describes it and describes the disturbing yellow wallpaper. In her journal she writes “The paper is showing sub patterns only visible in certain light and it is deteriorating fast”.  Over a few weeks she said that the wallpaper has become not only ugly but menacing. By resting she feels she is getting worse and her husband John knows she is getting worse, but doesn’t change his treatment. He just belittles her illness and brushing of anything she says. John eventually get her to see another doctor, doctor S. Weir Mitchell. She sees him but he is not much help either. She is getting a form of medical care that ignores the concerns of the patient, and is being belittled by the doctor, and is kinda brushing her off to the side and not really fully examining her situation.

In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband has rented an old mansion in the country for the summer. John is relying on this getaway as time for his wife’s nervous condition to resolve itself with rest and medicines. As the story unfolds for the readers, it becomes apparent her husband, John, is dominating, and controlling. She feels somewhat doomed that she is unable to change her circumstances and she ends up as a victim, thus confirming the dominance of men over women during that period. Between the narrator’s controlling husband and the deterioration of her mind, she snaps and becomes completely delusional.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's "The Yellow Wallpaper," relays to the reader something more than a simple story of a woman at the mercy of the limited medical knowledge in the late 1800 's. Gilman creates a character that expresses real emotions and a psyche that can be examined in the context of modern understanding. "The Yellow Wallpaper," written in first person and first published in 1892 in the January edition of the New England Magazine, depicts the downward spiral of depression, loss of control and competence, and feelings of worthlessness that lead to greater depression and the possibility of schizophrenia.

As a woman, the narrator must be protected and controlled and kept away from harm. This seemed to be the natural mindset in the 19th century, that women need to have guidance in what they do, what decisions they make, and what they say. John calls her a “little goose”(95) and his “little girl”(236), referring her to a child, someone who needs special attention and control. His need for control over her is proven when she admits that her husband is “careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction”(49). John has mentally restrained the speaker’s mind, she is forced to hide her anxieties, fears and be submissive, to preserve the happiness of their marriage. When the narrator attempts to speak up, she is bogged down and made guilty of her actions. Her husband makes her feel guilty for asking, he says, “‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!’”(225-226). By making her feel guilty for her illness, John has trapped her mentally from speaking up about it, convincing her that she must be more careful about her actions. Men often impose the hardships placed upon women during this era. They are often the people reassuring them of their “womanly” duties, and guiding them

In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman a lady whose name is not mentioned, tells about her experience she encounters while suffering from a serious disease known as postpartum depression. Her husband is a doctor and tells her that she is fine and all she needs is rest. She is not allowed to leave the house and must stay in her room in attempts to heal herself. Her husband tells her that he doesn’t want her writing in her journal anymore. She is pretty much controlled by her husband and must do what she is told. This story shows how women feel that they must listen to every word their husbands tell them and not make decision for themselves.

   The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society  - or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

The Victorian era was known as a time of peace and prosperity, and often forgotten that it was also a time period where the stereotype of the fragile female and being the good old housewife still existed. Women at that time were expected to take on and fulfill a submissive and docile role. Mental illness during this time period were downplayed and proper treatment was not given if the husband deemed that they actually were not suffering. Charlotte Perkins Gilman semi-autobiography “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on a woman's struggle against the patriarchal society and the boundaries and limits that are set in place. The character just gave birth to her child and is suffering from postpartum depression and her husbands sees it best to treat

The Older They Get The Crazier They Are When a human being is isolated with no support; and with nothing to do, they slowly become crazy. In the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte P. Gilman the story tells readers about a woman who had just a baby and is suffering post-partum depression. The woman has a husband named John who is a Doctor and has rented out a cottage to stay at while the wife recovers. The husband makes sure that she is bedridden and does not do any work.

The Yellow Wallpaper The “Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a seemingly simple short narrative that tells the complicated and unclear story of a woman trying cope with her mental illness, but is unable to because of the conformist time period that she lives in. It is obviously clear that the narrator is not herself making her unreliable to depend on for true facts. However it is through this shaky perspective that the audience gains insight on the burden of being a woman,but especially a woman with a mental illness during this time period. With that being said the “The Yellow Wallpaper”, highlights the narrator's deteriorating mental state resulting from her inability to cope with her postpartum depression and meet

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 once said, ‘’There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver’’. Gilman’s belief that there’s no difference in means of mentality between men or women demonstrated through ‘’The Yellow Wallpaper’’. Gilman symbolically portrays that women suffer from psychological disorders caused by lack of love, care, and a constant pressure of secondary roles and personal unimportance in social life. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time frame where women were oppressed. The short story can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and