The Yellow Wallpaper Confession Essay

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Confession in The Yellow Wallpaper In Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator struggles to confess her thoughts and feelings to her husband causing her to withhold emotions and turn to writing for proper confession. The physically and mentally isolated woman uses writing as a way to cope with the immoral treatment she is undergoing. The belittled wife confesses her worries to her journal rather than being mocked spouse. Her distant husband is using the Rest Cure treatment on his wife, and remains detached treating her as a patient rather than his wife. The treatment that led the main character to confession through writing is called the Rest Cure. The Rest Cure involves isolation from friends and family, along with bed rest,
The narrator is trying to talk to her husband and confess her feelings on her mental illness and the treatment that is she is forced to undergo and is patronized. At one point she begins discussing with her husband about the wallpaper that upsets her. One reading would expect her husband to openly listen to her concerns but instead he disregards her feelings and seems to make fun of the thoughts she has by belittling her. “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.”(647 Gilman), this excerpt is a perfect example of John putting down her thoughts and feelings and making her feel like she is a child. The loving wife justifies his remarks although they are condescending. The inability to talk to her husband and the lack of justification of her feelings leads the narrator to feel as if she is not understood by her husband, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.”. (649
Being able to write down one’s thoughts and feelings is a very therapeutic form of confession. Writing in the journal allows the narrator a new form of introspection. Introspection allows her to process the experience of going through the rest cure treatment. Although the act of journaling is a positive experience, the main character must hide her writing from her husband for fear that he would catch her writing. She writes ‘Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.’ (653 Gilman). She begins to make progress with her mental health when she is finally able to get her feelings out without them being mocked. She can confess the struggles she is going through to her paper but will not share this with her husband. It gets her brain stimulated and is processing more and more which in turn leads to better mental health for the main

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