The Yellow Wallpaper and Postpartum Depression What is postpartum depression one would ask from the 1800’s? It wasn’t until the late 1850s when medical professionals first recognized postpartum depression as a disorder. “Postpartum depression isn't a character flaw or a weakness. Sometimes it's simply a complication of giving birth” ("Postpartum Depression - Mayo Clinic"). Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” to show the different levels of postpartum depression one can go through (Gilman 792). She actually suffered from depression for many years and seeks help and was told to “live as domestic a life as possible, ‘to have but two hours’ intelligent life a day,’and ‘never to touch a pen, brush or pencil again” (Gilman …show more content…
Women were to be considered the weaker sex. “Some even compare the conditions of women in this time to a form of slavery” (Smith). Gilman shows this in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when her husband sends her to the room upstairs, “it was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium”(Gilman 793). John sees her as a child that is why he placed her in the nursery room all alone and that is why is calls her “little girl” (Gilman 798). The bars on the windows show her incarceration as if she were in a jail cell looking to break free. The bars on the window are not the only symbol to show entrapment. The wallpaper design she starts to talk about in the story is a sign of delusion she begins to have. Delusion and hallucinations is to be considered a more severe “postpartum psychosis” ("Postpartum Depression - Mayo Clinic") She makes a statement that the wallpaper has “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes staring at you upside down” (Gilman 795). We can see she is beginning to hallucinate from being in that room for so long. She goes on to describe the wallpaper with big patches and “uncertain curves” (Gilman 793) She begins to see the all women in the wallpaper trapped behind all the designs trying to get her to join