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Mental Degradation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper draws her audience into a woman’s mental degradation in order to discuss the faults in current treatment for mental distress and the overarching treatment of women at the time. Her husband is her physician, allowing their interactions to be interpreted as both gender based and medically based. Within the story, the narrator is fixated on the wall paper of her bedroom and it leads to an extended analogy for the women and the cultural rules women must follow. The identity of the narrator is never revealed, likely to elicit additional empathy and maintain that the story is not necessarily unique to a single woman. By never naming her narrator, Gilman is opening the possibility that the story could …show more content…

Her position is dismissed and treated as false without room to defend herself and her creditability is stripped away. All symptoms aside, the narrator is pinned in without hope. Then with a smile and a kiss, autonomy is deemed too great a responsibility, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.” From this statement, she seems to believe that her natural response to reject captivity is quite the opposite of how she should react. Society has embedded within her the idea that she does not know herself as a woman, nor should she question the orders she receives. Free will and mental stimulation are stolen yet the narrator feels the need to be grateful for being a victim. Her husband and physician is placed in a position of power above her that she is struggling adhere

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As was common of the treatment of women during the nineteenth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is one of oppression as John, the protagonist's physician husband, tries to cure her mental illness with a treatment plan of solitude and rest after moving in hopes his wife will regain her health. While critics have debated what causes the character's eventual insanity, María Teresa González Mínguez suggests that lack of a creative outlet lends to the woman's rapid regression. The protagonist's lack of a creative outlet combined with isolation ensures a downward spiral for the woman as symptoms of her mental illness ultimately consume her. While John hopes monitoring his wife's behaviors will cure her, his efforts only worsen her mental state.

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There are times within our lives that we feel trapped to the point where we watch our sanity spiral down. This could be a mental or physical issue; however, if you haven’t felt this emotional rollercoaster before you can with the female narrator within the story The Yellow Wallpaper created by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This book is a lot more than a woman going through a mental breakdown, The Yellow Wallpaper is a book that focuses on women's lives that she writes from her own personal experiences and conveys a message that sometimes in a male dominated society women suffer from the relentless power that some men carry out over women through themes, symbolism, and the characters within the plot. Before we get into the heart of the story we need to understand the story itself. The narrator has fallen into a depressive state after the birth of her baby and ordered to rest by her husband and brother, a respected physician.

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