The Yellow Wallpaper

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the form of journal entries of a woman undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Her form of treatment is the “resting cure,” in which a person is isolated and put on bed rest. Her only social interaction is with her sister-in-law Jennie and her husband, John, who is also her doctor. Besides small interactions with them, most of the time she is left alone. Society believes all she needs is a break from the stresses of everyday life, while she believes that “society and stimulus” (pg 347, paragraph 16) will make

     The plot of “The Yellow Wallpaper” comes from a moderation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s personal experience. In 1887, just two years after the birth of her first child, Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell diagnosed Gilman with neurasthenia, an emotional disorder characterized by fatigue and depression. Mitchell decided that the best prescription would be a “rest cure”. Mitchell encouraged Gilman to “Live a domestic life as far as possible,” to “have two hours’ intellectual life each day,” and to “never touch a pen, brush or pencil again,”(Gilman 20) as long as she lived. After three months of isolation, abiding by Dr. Mitchell’s orders, Gilman realized she was becoming insane. She abandoned Dr. Mitchell’s advice and,

The Yellow Paper is a symbolic story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is a disheartening tale of a woman struggling to free herself from postpartum depression. This story gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman who is a wife and a mother who is struggling to break free from her metal prison and find peace. The post-partum depression forced her to look for a neurologist doctor who gives a rest cure. She was supposed to have a strict bed rest. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy by as a result of the Victorian “rest-cure.” Her husband made sure that she had a strict bed rest by separating her from her child by taking her to recuperate in

tried telling John the rest treatment was not helping her get better, and that she needed to

The room that John picks out for his wife is upstairs and secluded. There are bars on the windows and the wallpaper has patches that have been ripped off. Would you want to stay in a room like this after already suffering from depression and anxiety? She tells him that she expected a room “downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window.” (217). However, she walks in to find a bed that is nailed to the floor. Imagine how scary that would be! John assures his wife and their family that she is fine. He thinks she will get better being in this room away from everyone and everything. Her “brother is also a physician and he says the same thing.” (216). She is placed into an uncomfortable environment and is made to be alone against her will. This is one of the reasons she loses her mind.

In “The yellow wallpaper” the narrator described the condition of a woman that is a wife and a

While the bedroom is a hermetic enclosure that never invites the social element into it, it reserves a strange voyeuristic entrance for John by way of an erotic system of locks. Recall the barred windows in the bedroom and the gate at the head of the stairs. The narrator writes,

Mental illness, a problem mankind has had since the dawn of time. While we have not had any major breakthrough until modern times we have yet to uncover the cause and cure for the majority of them. While earlier physicians had fought with what they believed would help people to get better of their ailments. Charlotte Perkins Gillman was an author from the 1800’s that had own personal fight with a mental illness. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is said to be an autobiography of sorts even down to the fact that she uses her doctor’s name that diagnosed her with depression, Weir Mitchell (Gillman 6). Throughout the story the unnamed narrator speaks of different women who her husband John only mentions Jennie once and does not recognize her as being at the house but says "Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better! “(Gillman 6). He only speaks of people who are not around. This points to the narrator possibly having a dissociative identity disorder which the

The scene 1 starts with Carol going to John's office to look for help with the same of the material in the book. John is occupied on the telephone with his wife and their real estate agent. He is being considered for a residency and plans to buy another house once he gets the endorsement of the Tenure Committee. John sympathizes with her and by interrupting her questions, he starts telling her his problems. She argues for him to help her to understand his class. At the same time, John is constantly getting the phone calls about the new house. John assured Carol that he will give her A grade if she keeps coming to his office hours. When Carol finally breaks down and begs him to help her understand, he sympathetically puts his arm around her

When looking at two nineteenth century works of change for two females in an American society, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Stephen Crane come to mind. A feminist socialist and a realist novelist capture moments that make their readers rethink life and the world surrounding. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in 1892, about a white middle-class woman who was confined to an upstairs room by her husband and doctor, the room’s wallpaper imprisons her and as well as liberates herself when she tears the wallpaper off at the end of the story. On the other hand, Crane’s 1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the realist account of a New York girl and her trials of growing up with an alcoholic mother and slum life world. The

The pain medication that her husband has her on appears to be causing her to feel groggy and unable to express herself even through her journal entries. This is seen when the narrator states that she thinks “sometimes that if [she] were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and [bring her comfort]. But [she] finds [she] gets pretty tired when [she tries]” (Gilman,79). She goes on to states that she finds “it is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about [her] work” (Gilman, 79). John is causing the narrator more harm than good, and one can see that more clearly because when a person lacks the strength to do something that they love that means that there is something really wrong with that person. In addition, John is treating his wife like someone that is less than him, which leads one to state that he is driving his wife crazy. As a result, the cure that John has put her on, causes her to begin to have delusions. The narrator begins to imagine that there is a woman trapped in the wallpaper. By showing that the narrator is going insane, Gilman helps show the severity of the narrator’s health and the lack of control that she has over her own well-being. The narrator asks her husband if they could leave the home that they are renting one last time because she feels like she is losing her mind, and John responds by saying that she is not in any real danger and that she should not let false ideas into her head (Gilman,83). John then begs her to stop letting “false and foolish [ideas]” (Gilman, 83) like that into her head for his sake, the sake of their child, and her sake. (Gilman, 83) Then the narrator stops talking and lets her husband go to sleep. This shows that once again the narrator is trying to take control of her own situation but she unable to gain control because her

When John was outside from home, some sadness invade her and crying arrives for nothing. In a conversation with John, she manifests her non conformity with the room, what he replied that she is improving her health here. Besides that, John suggests that there are not any serious things to worry now, until three weeks, when they travel out for a few days for remodeling . "Better in body perhaps-" she said back. Eventually, her life now begins to have a meaning and purpose. Most of her attention through the rest of the day and particularly at nights is focused on the discovery of the scene behind of the yellow wallpaper in the corner of her room. Occasionally, she saw one or more women creeping along not only at night in the yellow wallpaper, but also during the day around the house. At the last night before the trip, a large amount of that yellow paper was ripped when she was trying to help her to get out of that pattern. She finds a connection between she at the women in the paper. John's sister tries to take her out of the room, but in a refusal to leave the room, she locked herself in the room and thrower the key under a plantain leaf. John arrives

In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman, the husband is portrayed as the perfect husband because he takes care of his wife while she is sick. The author shows us the wife's point of view to inform the readers of what goes on "behind close doors". Society has seen the wife as a weak, sickly, women who can not take care of her newly born baby. Her husband is seen as the compassionate and living father and husband to his family. In the story we see a different view of both wife and husband. The author gives the reader clues on how in reality the "perfect" husband is killing her slowly. It is suggested that he didn’t know his actions were the cause of her depression, but if he was a doctor wouldn’t he know the signs of declining health? "I

Contradictions in his speech occur often. He says he is not her father and then later states that he is “talking to [her] as [he’d] talk to a son.” John tells her of his love for teaching and his students but also disregards his class and the textbook as things of little consequence. Instead of addressing the issues Carol presents, John suggests she drop the course and later simply offers her a free A: clearly not the actions of a teacher with a student’s educational success in mind. Instead of simplifying his language for Carol’s understanding, John heightens it.

john: precision it would seem more helpful if john would,going back over what he his written