The Yellow Wallpaper Mental Illness

Mental Illness
There are several important topics in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”Throughout the story the narrator is experiencing severe mental illnesses. The audience can see the build up of the narrator's mental health and the way it declines throughout the short story. Gilman explains signs of madness, depression, despair, and negative self worth. The narrator has nothing to keep herself busy since she is required bed rest by her husband (Gilman 571). She is emotionally sucked into the wallpaper. The audience can see how she projects everything she feels onto the wallpaper as a way to escape. She detaches and dissociates from who she is, and she has changes that are incredibly noticeable in her personality. The narrator

The figure is trapped in the wallpaper which symbolizes how the narrator is trapped with no way to escape, this causes her to be angry and frustrated which leads her to insanity. Desperation starts to kick, in and she tries to escape through the bars on the window. She wonders if she could jump out of it but the bars prevent her from doing so(Gilman 581). According to Kathleen Wilson, "The Yellow Wallpaper" in Short Stories for Students states that this short story goes into depth on how this is an example of physiological realism, and it also shows how realistic some of the narrator's mental issues are, especially how women felt and how they were treated in the nineteenth century. While the narrator is dependent on her husband (John) , after conceiving his child he still belittles her, discourages her, and treats her like a child. Wilson states that Gilman does not romanticize John but makes the narrator portray him as controlling. John is why the narrator felt this way since he prevents her from doing any activities, which makes her mental health deteriorate. Gilman shows how physicians looked at mental health especially within female patients in the

This short story is important to spread awareness of mental health and how there is still information to be learned and studied. The role of women in this short story is a big part of the story itself and it shows how people tend to not take women seriously in their cry for help and just push it aside as if they were seeking attention. This story could be graphic for young children and people who suffer from severe mental health disorders, it should be advised if you suffer from mental illness then this could be triggering. “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows how mental health can decline so quickly in certain conditions and has a very interesting plot with an ending that can be interpreted. It should be recommended to people who enjoy learning about mental health and for people who enjoy a story that you can get wrapped up in and decide how it