The Effects Of Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a woman who struggling with her inner self. Her husband John who is a doctor believed she only had a “temporary nervous depression” and the cure for it was “rest cure” (Gilman). He isolated her from everyone including the real world maybe because of her mental state and what would the people think or say about her. They had to pretend to live the perfect life in front of others while she suffered in silence. She was taken to a house for the summer that she described as “It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village.” She was taken to a place isolated and far from her family and friends. She had a baby that she could not care for.

“Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotions or behavior (or a combination of these)” ( Parekh ). Mental illness is a difficult illness to comprehend especially in the 19th century when there was not much research done for these type of diseases. The doctors did not have enough knowledge about how to properly treat people with mental disorders during that time. People do not comprehend mental illness because they are uninformed about the illness and they do not know the signs and symptoms to look for. Back then it was believed that the remedy for mental illness was, “Rest and diet were popularly recommended cures for less severe cases” (Graham). This was also the mentality John had about curing mental illness. “He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time” (Gilman). John her husband was a doctor who believed he knew what was best for her. Now a days mental illness are treated “It may include psychotherapy (talk therapy), medication or other treatments”

She had to do what he said not what she wanted. “If a physician of high standing, and one 's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do?”( Gilman) She felt alone and misunderstood especially by her husband. He would treat her as a little girl he would call her “little goose, dear, darling” he would even carry her upstairs and read her a story until she would fall asleep. He made a schedule for her for every hour of the day and he had someone watching her all day while he was away. John seem like a sweet caring man but I think he was just doing all this to keep her under control. The house where he took her is like a jail because it has barred windows, her room was upstairs with a gate on top of the stairs, the bed is bolted to the floor. Living in a place like this made it difficult to escape. She did not wanted to be in the room he chose for her because she did not like it. She wanted to be in another room downstairs and he would not allow her to be in the room she wanted to be in. By John treating her this way he was not helping with her mental state because he was forcing her to be somewhere were she did not wanted to be. John did not see how his wife was struggling and felt trap inside of