Treatment In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman details a semi-autobiographical, yet fictional, story of a woman suffering from neurasthenia and postpartum depression after her pregnancy. The story is told from the woman 's point-of-view from her journal entries, which are written in secrecy. Her husband secluded her in a special room and took multiple precautions in an attempt to cure her of her depression. The treatment that the woman underwent in the story was referred to as "rest cure" during the late 1800s and was later abandoned as a practice. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a critique of the rest cure and depicts how the treatment’s requirements lead to further depression and mental health issues. The rest cure was a medical practice invented …show more content…

In fact, Gilman indirectly makes a reference to herself when the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” discusses her friend that was seen by Weir Mitchell and was treated using rest cure. Gilman strongly disapproved of the rest cure treatment and wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in response to her negative emotions towards it and to further support her position as a revered feminist of her time. Gilman condemned the manipulation of women by men, which also motivated her to write this short story in critique of Weir Mitchell’s rest cure treatment and the mindset it instilled throughout society in the 1800s (Cott). The harsh criticism of the rest cure treatment by Gilman and other feminist contemporaries eventually caused Weir Mitchell to retire the practice of the rest cure treatment due to its oppressive nature towards women in the name of one’s health.
Ultimately, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a critique of and as an attack on Silas Weir Mitchell’s rest cure treatment, as evident through the narrator’s negative experience undergoing the treatment. The rest cure treatment only caused the narrator to become further depressed and nervous, and led her to become insane, similar to other patients who were treated with rest cure. The manipulative treatment of men over women in the 1800s is also shown through the plot, reinforcing Gilman’s feminist critique of the rest cure

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