Woman Opression

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The 1800’s was a time of great oppression and prejudice against women. Women had their role in the community and were left with no room to grow or explore their capabilities. They were considered a weak and fragile compared to men. In several ways women were not treated as a man’s equal counterpart, economically, educationally and medically. In 1860 a great woman activist/theorist, author, teacher, and artist was born by the name of Charlotte Anna Perkins, later to be known as Charlotte Perkins Gilman. One of her most famous pieces “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a fictional story based on her own personal experience of oppression, and an example of the modern advancements in medical technology that enable us view different aspects of her story.
The unnamed women in “The Yellow Wallpaper” suffered from postpartum depression (PPD). Medical knowledge had not yet discovered the very real effects that PPD had on a woman. PPD is a serious illness that occurs after childbirth. The mother feels hopeless, worthless, and alone. Most typically the mother loses connection to the outside world and feels secluded. This illness affects the bond a mother should feel to her child. Not only is the mother affected, but the child as well. A child of a mother with PPD is developmentally behind and often shows emotional detachment. When not treated properly PPD can progress into postpartum psychosis (PPP), which is what is seen happening in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman explains her experience of PPD and the treatment they used on her, which inspired her story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, a famous neurologist and specialist in women’s nervous disorders, applied the “rest cure’ on Gilman. The doctor “Sent me home [aft...

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...er inner conscience. The woman inside of her that she longed for so long to release, her creativity and her intellect, she finally was induced to lose grasp of her self-control.
Finally, the woman completely lets herself go. She no longer cares what anyone thinks. She totally and uninhibitedly gives in to herself and allows her feelings to be expressed. "Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it". The woman is doing as she wills and destroying that which limits her. One may argue that she has gone insane, and subsequently furthered her illness, but I believe Gilman's intention is to show her celebration of her sense of new found independence. Her husband faints at the sight of her. Now it is she who is in control symbolically rising above her husband. “I had to creep over him every time!”

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