Congenial Work In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Stetson

“So I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good”(Stetson 648). “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson who based her story on her own personal battle with postpartum depression. After reading this short story one would believe that the narrator turns into an insane woman whose mind plays tricks on her and causes her to see people who are not really there. These mind tricks are due to the rest cure prescribed to the narrator by John. The narrator knows what is best

According to Science Museum the rest cure was often prescribed to women that were diagnosed with a nervous condition like the narrator. The rest cure included isolation of friends and family and usually lasted about six or eight weeks. The patients were taken care of in the same way as infants were. They got waited on hand and foot and were cleaned and fed by their nurses just as a children were (Rest). The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was told that the rest cure would help her get better. “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good”(Stetson 648). The narrator knows what is best for her but everytime she tries to tell John he ignores it and tells her she needs to stop thinking so much because it will make her condition worse: “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad”(Stetson 648). John thinks that the less responsibilities the narrator has the better she will become and the less she thinks about it the faster she will heal. This is why John decides what room to put his wife in. It just gives her one less responsibility to worry

The narrator wants a room downstairs that does not have ugly yellow wallpaper, but again John does not take any of her advice and makes all the decisions. As soon as the narrator sees the wallpaper she decides right away that it is absolutely hideous. During the time the narrator spends in this room “healing” she begins to enjoy the room and its yellow wallpaper. “I 'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper”(Stetson 650). This gradual liking of the wallpaper is the first sign that the narrator has been in the yellow room too long. She tries to tell John this but he believes that she is letting the wallpaper get the better of her and shakes it off. According to Liselle Sant, John takes control of his wife’s everyday actions and that prohibites her from doing anything other than staring at the yellow wallpaper all day (Sant). She is told time and time again that she needs to stay in the yellow room to help her