Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Isolation is a dangerous thing. It can push us into thinking very pessimistically, which can lead us into doing harmful actions. As Miguel de Unamuno once said, “isolation is the worst possible counselor.” In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is portrayed as psychotic as a result of solidarity; this shows us the dangerous effects of complete isolation.

Women with mental illnesses in the 1800s were not taken very seriously. They were often told to get some rest, and they would be fine. Taking rest involved being alone for a long period of time and doing nothing at all. This is precisely what happened to the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper. Little did doctors understand that isolation and sitting idly can cause mental illnesses to get worse. It is evident that the narrator is frequently alone with her thoughts. Her husband, John, “is away all day, and even some nights” (42), and Jennie, who takes care of her, leaves her to be alone and does the housework. This isolation caused her mental health to deteriorate. A dangerous effect of the complete isolation the narrator experienced is obsession. The narrator was told to do nothing, except sleep. She could not even talk to anyone about how she felt. One of

In The Yellow Wallpaper a dangerous effect of complete isolation is paranoia. It is linked in with the obsession of the wallpaper as the narrator does not want anyone else becoming interested in it. The narrator wants the wallpaper all to herself to study and becomes suspicious of John and Jennie. She claims to have “caught [John] several times looking at the wallpaper” and “caught Jennie with her hand on it” (162). This effect of isolation is dangerous because the narrator locks herself in her room and throws the key out of the window in order to free the women who are trapped in the wallpaper. This, too, intensifies the narrator’s mental