Research Paper On The Yellow Wallpaper

Skylar Ballin

Granett

ENGL-152

13 August 2023

The Yellow Wallpaper’s psychoanalysis The short story The Yellow Wallpaper, a critically acclaimed feminist gothic, displays the madness of a woman, which is acquired from the heavily criticized “rest-cure” that was commonly prescribed to women during the 1800s. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was through similar treatment as the narrator of her story which shows us that her writing was a way to cope with her prescription. Before modern medicine was established, the prescriptions doctors would give women were overlooked and anything regarding mental health was ignored and rarely treated properly. The Yellow Wallpaper exposes medicines and treatments for this time that were given to women

“Mothers with rapid onset of intense mood disturbance, confusion, strange or delusional beliefs, hallucinations, and disorganized behaviors have symptoms of postpartum psychosis, which is the most common form of Bipolar Disorder” (Medicine). With the severe levels of isolation, she is left staring at the wallpaper in the room when she starts hallucinating a woman within it. She is confused as to whether she is the woman or if the woman is taunting her, but with the amount of unrest she has, she is not sure what exactly is going on. She obsesses over the look and smell of the room while being convinced that there is another woman in the room with her when there is not. She then ruins the wallpaper after he feels defeated by the other woman which shows how deranged such treatment makes her. Of course, these symptoms of postpartum depression are established by modern medicine so doctors in the 1800s would have no clue how to make such a diagnosis, which is why the narrator was sent into isolation for fear of being a harm to others and

Women are still discriminated against in the workplace, on the street, and even in the doctor’s office. “What stupefied her most was the treatment of the mentally ill. They are locked in dirty and crowded prison cells. Dorothea believed that the mentally ill needed treatment and care, not punishment” (Daud). While the women in today’s world do not know the conditions of claiming they were mentally ill in the 1800s, they still have some form of a psychological fear that they will be punished when they try to seek help, to a less harsh degree but still a physical and mental one. So many women go undiagnosed with physical and mental conditions because male doctors refuse to believe a woman is telling the truth. That may sound like an exaggeration but many ladies have reported these cases saying the same thing. It has gone to the point where women are scared to go to a doctor because of their fear of dismissal and