Examples Of Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper: Postpartum Depression In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” the character, who is unnamed, is a young, high and middle class woman in the 1890’s. She suffers from what we now call postpartum depression, when a woman, after giving birth, goes into depression. She is married to John, who is physician and can be very controlling over the narrator's actions and choices making it seem as if he is only protecting her in her eyes. John brings her, the baby, mary and jennie to their summer house for a vacation. The house is described as a haunted house. Although, being in this depressing house does not guarantee a cure for her condition. The Yellow Wallpaper is a symbolic of how in the 1890s

With the history we are aware of, women as a whole were never taken as seriously as men. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s personal life experience helped shaped this short story as it represents a woman's perspective in the 1800s. The Yellow Wallpaper shows the tragic effects of postpartum depression on women and the lack of focus on women’s health including medical community versus men. Firstly, Charlotte Perkins Gilman went through postpartum depression herself which was the basis of her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, it validates that the symptoms the narrator suffers, are accurate. She symbolically writes the story about the symptoms and suffering of
Kaur 2 postpartum depression. In 1935, Gilman wrote her autobiography; the autobiography contained a section titled “Undergoing the Cure For Nervous Prostration”. Gilman explains her horrible personal experience with undergoing the postpartum depression. Every tragic event that she had suffered through, was also symbolized in The Yellow Wallpaper. For example,