Silas Weir Mitchell

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Silas Weir Mitchell were part of two worlds, one having to live and be treated for a nervous condition and the other having to study the conditions of nerves. Yet, in this particular moment in the late-19th century United States, one can detect a dialogue between doctor and patient in each of their short stories. That is exactly what is detected between Charlotte Perkins Gilman and S. Weir Mitchell. While both The Case of Dedlow and the Yellow Wallpaper use fiction to

Yellow Wallpaper" explores the concept of rest cure therapy and its effectiveness on a woman patient. The best-known doctor for treating neurasthenia was a highly regarded neurologist named Silas Weir Mitchell (Kivo 8). Women from all over the world traveled to the United States to be treated by Silas Weir Mitchell (5). Rest cure therapy included secluding the patient from family and friends and complete physical and intellectual rest (5). Many women who followed Mitchell's treatment plan returned

Confinement Madness Many people know how it feels to be confined emotionally, but how many can say they have been confined physically, mentally, and socially? In a male dominated society women face many forms of oppression and often times are imprisoned by their expected roles. Women are expected to take on a submissive role and, due to a lack of educational opportunities, are left in a “state of perpetual childhood” (Mary Wollstonecraft). In the short story, “Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins

Rest Cure. Therefore, the oppressive treatment of women is best exemplified by exploring the gender roles that resulted in the creation of the Rest Cure which in turn did not cure the severe depression felt by women during this time period. Dr. Silas Weir

“Voices of the Woman Beyond the Pattern” "The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, is at first glance the story of a woman driven to madness in a desperate attempt to escape the strict confines placed on her by the treatment regime of the day. More than that though, Gilman has created an alter ego to give voice to her own experiences and frustrations with the societal constraints imposed on women at the time of its publishing. This tale of disempowerment and the subjugation

mental suffering to brain pathology as they excluded emotions, beliefs, and ideas as possible contributors to one’s mental health”, meaning that mental suffering was entirely thought to be pathological (Harris par. 1). American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell developed the rest cure in the late 1800s for the treatment of hysteria,

the name of Silas Weir Mitchell was an American neurologist who developed a “rest cure” for patients with conditions of neurasthenia, hysteria and other nervous illnesses. “Problems that would now be treated by psychiatrists, such as depression, were treated by neurologists such as Mitchell” (Korb, Rena. “An overview of The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gale Online Encyclopedia). In the late 1800’s psychiatrists were not around to treat depression, so these symptoms were taken to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell for treatment

Although a reader cannot assume the narrator is also the author, in some instances the resemblance is uncanny. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, drew on her own experience of undergoing the infamous Rest Cure of Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell to write her story. According to Gilman, “[The story] was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked” (The Forerunner). Through her platform of writing Gilman successfully illustrated the inferiority

Women and hysteria, how society has undoubtedly linked the two together. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a late 19th century feminist whose various works like “The Yellow wallpaper” have continuously fought against the oppressive portrayal views on women. In this short story Gilman critiques the perspective of women, their roles, emotions and actions through a nameless woman who holds a negative mental state. Post-partum depression in “the Yellow Wallpaper” is embodied by a puke-yellow wallpaper, this

crippling mental disease. It is important to first note that the rest cure was a medical method used to cure most cases of depression, during the 1800s and early 1900s according to section writing by Welcome Library, London. Created by Silas Weir Mitchell the countries leading nervous specialist at the time, the rest cure was developed to give the patient as much rest without any or little activity. The section would go on to additional add, how some patients and even doctors considered this