Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” there are three main themes. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892. Gilman's short story is kind of a picture of her life. Gilman addresses three main things in her short story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” reveals Gilman's views on mental illness, the way mental illness was treated during her lifetime and the way women were treated. Gilman speaks of mental illness and how it affected her life in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Mental illness affected Gilman's life personally. Amy Hudock says “Charlotte Perkins Gilman used her personal bout with postpartum depression to create a powerful fictional narrative which has broad implications for women (2). This shows how Gilman uses her own experience

The big treatment for mental illness during Gilman's life was the rest cure. The famous doctor for the rest cure was S. Weir Mitchell (Hudock 1). Amy E. Hudock speaks of how “In 1887, S. Weir Mitchell treated Charlotte for a “nervous condition” at his Philadelphia sanatorium...” (1). Amy E. Hudock also states that “the treatment was unsuccessful and harmful”(1). The treatment that Jane had never helped her but made her worse that she was before. The rest cure treatment consisted of “combined isolation, rest, and inactivity...” (Barth 2). Jane “has been confined to her room, to the medicine provided for her and to engage in “no work” at all” this method of treatment will bring her more harm than help. Jane thought that activity would help her but everyone around her opposes and prevents her from doing anything (Kerr 1). Jane says “so I take phosphates or phospites – whichever it is – and tonics, and air, and exercise, and journeys and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again” (Gilman 310). Jane just does what everyone around her thinks is good for her instead of doing what she thinks is good for herself. Along with the rest cure her “social interactions are also held to a minimum” (Dunn 1). However, Jane does go against her husbands wishes and keeps a journal. Jane says “I did write for a while in spite of them...” (Gilman 310). When she sees John coming she hides her

Kerr states “that women were to be confined to the home and were to perform only domestic tasks which would serve the family and the household” (1). women were not allowed to work at all, they were to stay home and be a homemaker. Even after women were married they were still held to a standard of staying “modest and “pure” appearing chaste” (Kerr 1). Amy E. Hudock explained how “society views women who exhibit artistic and intellectual potential as anomalies, misfits, or as in this story ill” (1). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” “the unequal relationship between the narrator and John is a microcosm of the larger gender inequality in society,” this shows how women and men were not treated equal (Hudock 2). Mary Dunn speaks of how “when John discovers her disobedience, Jane is chastened and her diary is cruely destroyed (1). This shows unequal roles in that John did not let Jane write as she wanted, he got on to her for not doing what he wanted her to do. In the short story “Gilman makes John the window through which readers can veiw the negative images of women in her society” (Hudock 2). This shows that women were a negative image in society during Gilman's life and how everyone veiwed women different and as less than a man. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jane says, “ personally, I believe that congenial work with excitement and change, would do me good,” but John does not listen to her approach