Isolating the sick is only necessary if the ailing is contagious. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the isolation of Jennie was the major foundation of her illness. If Jennie was surrounded by loved ones, she would feel their love and be encouraged to get stronger. By being isolated from family and friends Jennie slips into her abandoned, bleak thoughts.
Her only way to express herself was through writing on “dead paper” in her journal. Those words alone should have been a warning signal. When one is sick they should be able to talk about it freely, articulate what they are going through, and vent their emotions out loud. Jennie should not have been isolating her thoughts to “dead paper.” Jennie’s husband John was present only when he had time in his schedule to care for her. He should have made time to be with his depressed wife. When John did come to visit, he only listened for a short period and never granted any of Jennie’s desires. On one occasion Jennie asked John to take down the wallpaper, but John would not see to it. He told Jennie to not “give way to such fancies.” If the wallpaper caused John’s wife such anxiety and made her feel disturbed, why couldn’t he take it down? The wallpaper did not cause this woman to go insane, isolation did.
Jennie’s newborn child was taken from her early after birth. Her son was given to a caretaker. This feat crippled the new mother. She was not only isolating her thoughts to “dead paper” but she was isolating the emotions of motherhood. She was moved out to the country and put in a nursery to heal her. Jennie worried for her son when she was sent away. She knew he was in good hands with Mary, but it made her nervous. If Jennie was surrounded by loved on...
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...think she was sick; she kept no restraint on her thoughts; and was abandoned with no one to listen to her. These three things caused Jennie to lose her life. One’s mind is a powerful thing, if left to wander the imagination can bring it to the point of insanity. Isolation should never be a medication.
Works Cited
Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto, and William E. Cain. "An Introduction to Literature." In The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 420-421. Pearson Longman, 2006.
IMDb. Frozen Plot Summary. 2013. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/plotsummary (accessed 1 30, 2014).
Metrolyrics. (Disney's Frozen) Let It Go lyrics. 2013. http://www.metrolyrics.com/disneys-frozen-let-it-go-lyrics-idina-menzel.html (accessed 1 30, 2014).
Treichler, Paula A. "Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in "The Yellow Wallpaper"." University of Tulsa , 2011: 61-64.
The narrator, a new mother, is revoked of her freedom to live a free life and denied the fact that she is “sick”, perhaps with postpartum depression, by her husband, a physician, who believes whatever sorrows she is feeling now will pass over soon. The problematic part of this narrative is that this woman is not only kept isolated in a room she wishes to have nothing to do with, but her creative expression is revoked by her husband as we can see when she writes: “there comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word (Gilman,
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
Ford, Karen. “The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Women’s Discourse.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 4.2 (1985):309-314. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 182. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
There is no one to listen to her or care for her ‘personal’ opinions. Her husband cares for her, in a doctor’s fashion, but her doesn’t listen to her (Rao, 39). Dealing with a mentally ill patient can be difficult, however, it’s extremely inappropriate for her husband to be her doctor when he has a much larger job to fulfill. He solely treats his wife as a patient telling her only what could benefit her mental sickness rather than providing her with the companionship and support she desperately needs. If her husband would have communicated with her on a personal level, her insanity episode could have been prevented. Instead of telling her everything she needed he should’ve been there to listen and hear her out. Instead she had to seek an alternate audience, being her journal in which he then forbids her to do. All of this leads to the woman having nobody to speak or express emotion to. All of her deep and insane thoughts now fluttered through her head like bats in the Crystal Cave.
Treichler. In Treichler’s critique, “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper” she examines the full story and breaks down pieces of Gilman’s work. She explains that the wallpaper occupies the narrator’s entire existence and that its true meaning is revealed when the narrator starts ripping it. Treichler explains that that the story’s central issue is between woman and language (61-63). This is shown in the story as the narrator is forced to put down pen and paper, separated from all communication, and unable to work. Treichler also points out how Gilman uses Weir Mitchell in the story to show the world outside of her story.(68) Gilman does this so that he may reconsider his treatment and work on a way to fix it. Treichler shows the readers the main issue that the narrator goes through that an inexperienced reader may
Lacking any mode of self-expression, except for the few times she can sneak writing into her journal, the narrator looks for something to occupy her mind and the yellow wallpaper is the answer. Gilman points out the fault of psychiatrists at the time. Even though doctors believe that starving the mentally ill of any sort of stimulus is a cure of mental health issues, Gilman illustrates that this only creates an environment for even further deterioration of the mind. Instead, what the narrator initially suggests to her husband is right. Allowing those who suffer from mental health issues to express themselves and explore what’s out there is the real cure.
Although the physical confinement drains the narrators strength and will, the mental and emotional confinement symbolized in the story play an important role in her ultimate fall into dementia. By being forced to be her own company she is confined within her mind. Likewise part of the narrators mental confinement stems from her recognition of her physical confinement. The depression the narrator has experienced associated with child bearing is mentally confining as well. "It is fortunate Mary is good with the baby. Such a dear Baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous"(675). Specifically, she cannot control her emotion or manage her guilt over her inability to care for her child. These structures of confinement contribute to the rapid degeneration of her state of mind.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator becomes more depressed throughout the story because of the recommendation of isolation that was made to her. In this short story the narrator is detained in a lonesome, drab room in an attempt to free herself of a nervous disorder. The narrator’s husband, a physician, adheres to this belief and forces his wife into a treatment of solitude. Rather than heal the narrator of her psychological disorder, the treatment only contributes to its effects, driving her into a severe depression. Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where in she is locked into an upstairs room.
Treichler, Paula A. "Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 3:1-2 (Spring-Fall 1984): 61-77.
Before going into why I think the narrator has postpartum depression, I would like to discuss what it is. Postpartum depression is, " a complex mix of physical, emotional and behavioral changes that occur in a mother after giving birth"("WebMD"). The causes of this illness can be hereditary and can be changes in most women's hormones. Most mothers who experience postpartum depression love their children but feel that they won't be good at mothering. (HealthyMinds.org). An example of this in the story is when the narrator is discussing what little she can do and says, "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." (Gillman 105) We see from this quote that the narrator doubts her ability to take care of her baby.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Updike, John. "A & P." Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
...her to feel despair. Her misery resulted in her doing unthinkable things such us the unexplainable bond with the woman in the wallpaper.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story told from the first person point of view of a doctor's wife who has nervous condition. The first person standpoint gives the reader access only to the woman’s thoughts, and thus, is limited. The limited viewpoint of this story helps the reader to experience a feeling of isolation, just as the wife feels throughout the story. The point of view is also limited in that the story takes places in the present, and as a result the wife has no benefit of hindsight, and is never able to actually see that the men in her life are part of the reason she never gets well. This paper will discuss how Gilman’s choice of point of view helps communicate the central theme of the story- that women of the time were viewed as being subordinate to men. Also, the paper will discuss how ignoring oneself and one’s desires is self-destructive, as seen throughout the story as the woman’s condition worsens while she is in isolation, in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and her at the same time as her thoughts are being oppressed by her husband and brother.