The Yellow Wallpaper And How It Addresses Societal Topics

“The Yellow Wallpaper” and How it Addresses Societal Topics

“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a woman who gets diagnosed with a “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 648). The story details her mental health and how it is deteriorating. She gets diagnosed by her husband, who is also her physician, and even though he does not actually believe her to be sick he decides that the best thing to do for her is to move them to an isolated mansion in the country. Additionally, the narrator, who is the unnamed woman, is not allowed to write because according to John it will make her depression worse. However, she doesn’t listen and keeps a diary without his knowledge, in which she describes her treatment as well as

Frued was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis and his work contributes to the understanding we have of mental illnesses as Thrailkill mentions, “Freud’s inquiries into family background, which might appear to lend weight to a patient’s narrative of her sickness, actually sought to ascertain any hereditary predisposition to nervous illness” (Thrailkill). Freud is arguing that even though the environment in which a person lives impacts the way they view certain situations it also has to do with genetics. Thrailkill is arguing using Frued’s logic that the narrator most likely had a predisposition to acquire postpartum depression and her isolation plays a supporting role. Her mistreatment and her constant oppression after just delivering a baby boy does not help her feel like she has a sense of community. If the narrator were able to have time to herself and time to participate in stimulating activities that would get her mind off the pain she would be better off because of it. Even though her disorder would still be prevalent, it would be subdued and Freud is making the case that people should stimulate their brain especially in times of

When it was first published, the idea that men and women could be equals was such a foreign concept that people didn’t even jump to this conclusion. As well as many women and men were dealing with their own kinds of mental trauma but since society did not allow people to have open conversations about what they were feeling a lot of sufferers found refuge in this story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” at its core is about isolation and the effects that it can have on one's mental state and now that medicine and family structure has evolved the piece can be interpreted in a much broader sense then Charlotte Perkins Gilman could have ever