The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman
“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Gilman is a chilling portrayal of a woman’s downward spiral towards madness after undergoing treatment for postpartum depression in the 1800’s. The narrator, whose name remains nameless, represents the hundreds of middle to upper- class women who were diagnosed with “hysteria” and prescribed a “rest” treatment. Although Gilman’s story was a heroic attempt to “save people from being driven crazy” (Gilman p 1) by this type of “cure” it was much more. “The Yellow Wallpaper” opened the eyes of many to the apparent oppression of women in the 1800’s and “possibly the only way they could (unconsciously) resist or protest their traditional ‘feminine’ work—or over-work” (Chesler p 11) by going “mad”.
In order for the reader to understand the psychology of the story, they must understand this type of diagnosis of women in the 1800’s and the supposed cure. This treatment, created by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, was a prescription of almost total inactivity and isolation. “Passivity was the main prescription, along with warm baths, cool baths, abstinence from animal foods and spices, and indulgence in milk, and puddings, cereals, and ‘mild sub-acidfruits’” (Ehrenreich and English p 49). Gilman, herself, was treated by Dr. Mitchell and underwent the same treatment as the heroine of the story.
This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to ‘live as domestic a life as far as possible’, to ‘have but two hours’ intellectual life a day’ and ‘never to touch pen, brush or pencil again’ as long...
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...s “The Yellow Wallpaper”: a Poetics of the Inside p 12) John ends up fainting. He came to the realization that his wife had traded submission for insanity.
Bibliography:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Poetics of the Inside May 8, 2000 Http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/snyder.htm
Chesler, Phyllis “When They Call You Crazy” CHOICES, Women’s Medical Center, Inc Vol III, June 6th, 1994 p 9-14)
Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, The Feminist Press
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper” The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Third Edition, ed Paul Lauter New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 1998
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “Why I wrote the ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?” April 27th 2000
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/wallpaper/whywrote.html
John comes home to discover his wife circling the room removing the wallpaper. John faints at the sight of his, clearly, insane wife. It is notably; interesting that Gilman has John faint. Other literally works of that time often describe females fainting. It was a stereotypical “female” behavior. As John’s unconscious body lay on the floor, the narrator is forced “to creep over him every time” (Gilman. 803) She is quite, literally stepping over John and all his patriarchal ideals; as a woman she has finally freed herself. She explains at the end that she came out of the paper (Gilman. 803).
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1892. Ed. Dale M. Bauer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
“The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” The woman had started seeing another female in the wallpaper, imprisoned behind bars and shaking the paper to be freed. The wallpaper began depreciating, and so did the conquering influence that male hierarchy forced on women. Women arose to reason out of line, be conscious of their overthrow, and conflict patriarchal statute. The development of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, within the story, indicates to a triumph over John.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Introduction To Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th Ed. New York, Norton, 1998. 2: 630-642.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 1892. The New England Magazine. Reprinted in "Lives & Moments - An Introduction to Short Fiction" by Hans Ostrom. Hold,
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays, eds. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 354-65. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 462-473. Print.
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper"—Writing Women." EDSITEment: The Best of the Humanities on the Web. Web. 05 Mar. 2011.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. 1684-1695.
Wohlpart, Jim. American Literature Research and Analysis Web Site. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”” 1997. Florida Gulf Coast University
In Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author takes the reader through the terrors of a woman’s psychosis. The story convey to understatements pertaining to feminism and individuality that at the time was only idealized. Gillman illustrates her chronological descent into insanity. The narrators husband John, who is also her physician diagnosed her with “nervous depression” and therefore ordered her to isolate until she recuperates. She is not only deprived of outside contact but also of her passion to write, since it could deteriorate her condition. The central conflict of the story is person versus society; the healthy part of her, in touch with herself clashing with her internalized thoughts of her society’s expectations. In a feminist point of view the central idea pertains to the social confinement that woman undergo due to their society.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories. Mineola: Dover, 1997. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte P. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Compact 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 340-351.
Home, in contemporary literature, often plays an integral role often symbolizing security, unison, and support; although, things were not always this way. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts the all-too-real struggle many women faced in the nineteenth century and earlier. This short passage portrays the narrative of female intellectual oppression – an examination of nineteenth century social mores. The passage voices the common practice of diagnosing women with “rest cure” who displayed symptoms of depression and anxiety with a supposed treatment of lying in bed for several weeks, allowing no more than twenty minutes of intellectual application per day. Women, at this time, were considered to be the second sex – weaker and more fragile, unable to grapple the same daily activities as men – and such the “rest cure” prevents women from using any form of thinking, trusting the notion that naturally the female mind is empty. Not even were