Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wall-Paper," does more than just tell the story of a woman who suffers at the hands of 19th century quack medicine. Gilman created a protagonist with real emotions and a real psych that can be examined and analyzed in the context of modern psychology. In fact, to understand the psychology of the unnamed protagonist is to be well on the way to understanding the story itself. "The Yellow Wall-Paper," written in first-person narrative, charts the psychological state of the protagonist as she slowly deteriorates into schizophrenia (a disintegration of the personality).
The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.
The "Yellow Wall Paper "by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression. The setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the driving force in the story because it is the main factor that caused the narrator to go insane.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" first appeared in 1892 and became a notary piece of literature for it' s historical and influential context. Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" was a first hand account of the oppression faced toward females and the mentally ill,whom were both shunned in society in the late 1890's. It is the story of an unnamed woman confined by her doctor-husband to an attic nursery with barred windows and a bolted down bed. Forbidden to write, the narrator-protagonist becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper, which she finds first hideous and then fascinating; on it she eventually deciphers an imprisoned woman whom she attempts to liberate by peeling the paper off the wall. The
When asked the question of why she chose to write 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Charlotte Perkins Gilman claimed that experiences in her own life dealing with a nervous condition, then termed 'melancholia', had prompted her to write the short story as a means to try and save other people from a similar fate. Although she may have suffered from a similar condition to the narrator of her illuminating short story, Gilman's story cannot be coined merely a tale of insanity. Insanity is the vehicle for Gilman's larger comment on the atrocities of social conformity. The main character of "The Yellow Wallpaper" comes to recognize the inhumanity in society's treatment of women, and in her
In the grips of depression and the restrictions prescribed by her physician husband a woman struggles with maintaining her sanity and purpose. As a new mother and a writer, and she is denied the responsibility and intellectual stimulation of these elements in her life as part of her rest cure. Her world is reduced to prison-like enforcement on her diet, exercise, sleep and intellectual activities until she is "well again". As she gives in to the restrictions and falls deeper into depression, she focuses on the wallpaper and slides towards insanity. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story written from a first-person perspective about a young woman's mental deterioration during the 1800's and
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator must deal with several different conflicts. She is diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 221). Most of her conflicts, such as, differentiating from creativity and reality, her sense of entrapment by her husband, and not fitting in with the stereotypical role of women in her time, are centered around her mental illness and she has to deal with them.
"The Yellow Wallpaper," is a larger-than-life version of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own personal experiences. She grieved for several years in depression, as her physician diagnosed her with “neurasthenia” and prescribed the "rest cure" seen in the story. Unable to write or seek company, Gilman's rest drove her insane for three months. Gilman wrote the story not simply to change one man's view of neurasthenia, but to utilize the floor as a symbol of the oppression of women in a patriarchal society as mentioned in her article “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”.
John takes her sensitivity as a sign of lacking "proper self-control" (Gilman 179). Because of his callous opinion, she must hide parts of herself. This reminds the reader of a parent telling a child to grow up. The colorful, sensitive side of her psyche is being pushed aside for his more black-and-white male perspective. His view is one of a colorless world that is cut, dried, and neatly organized with no room for varying shades. If he can't see or touch it, then it doesn't exist. Beverly Hume writes, "John is mechanistic, rigid, predictable, and sexist; he 'combines' as Rachael Duplesis notes 'the professional authority of the physician with the legal and emotional authority of the husband'" (478).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman is widely recognized for her support of feminism and calls for awareness to her mental condition by voicing her ideas through her original writing. One of her works, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, describes a woman who suffers from severe anxiety and is isolated in a room in order to “heal” according to her husband. While in the room, she becomes obsessed with the ugly wallpaper, which leads to her fall. In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author discusses the Narrator’s deteriorating mental state, her inability to differentiate reality and imagination, and her desire to rebel against
John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by the American feminist and author Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The story was first published in January 1892 in the New England Magazine and is credited with being one of the first books to talk about mental health issues within females. In 1887, Gilman after battling with depression for a number of years decided to see Silas Weir Mitchell, a well respected physician at the time. Writing it off as another female feigning illness Mitchell prescribed her with the treatment that was all the rage this century called the “rest cure”. Normally prescribed to women, the “rest cure” put the patient in a sort of solitary confinement; prohibiting any type of unnecessary human contact. Following the doctor’s
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.
"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).