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Theme Of Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper

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The story that I chose, is “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. I've chosen this short story based on the physical environment. I found that the physical environment back in the 1800s based on how mental illness is looked upon is most interesting; however, it socially wasn't acceptable. My focus is how mental illness is treated physically and physically how a person suffering from mental illness felt. The main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the author herself, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an account of how she felt struggling with mental illness. Charlotte's husband John, a prominent physician didn't believe that Charlotte was sick that she was suffering from nervous depression; therefore, the best courses …show more content…

Charlotte suppresses her mental illness around her husband John by down playing her symptoms when, he was physically around her. This suppression weighs heavily on Charlotte as a result she found it is extremely exhausting. John employed his sister, to physical running the mansion. This again suppressed Charlotte and removed any purpose of keeping her mentally stimulated within the home. Charlotte began to sleep the best part of the day away, only too awake when her husband John returned home in the evening. Charlotte became increasingly obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom that she and John shared. The wallpaper described in Charlotte's own words, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It was dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of –contradictions.” Charlotte was in her height of depression, being in a place that she had no wish to be, and not having freedom to work created this obsession with the pattern of the wallpaper and sunk Charlotte deeper into her mental

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