In the short story titled, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks outwardly of the methods to treat psychosis. In both the short story as well as the film adaptation by Sue Szostak, the designated treatment plan is depicted as being withdrawn from society and confined within an attic.
In Szostak’s adaption of the short story The Yellow Wallpaper the director captures the mental breakdown of the doctor’s wife. Under his treatment he believes she will get better and that the only reason she is ill is because she allows herself to worry (Szostak). He takes her to a rental home in the country away from society and limits the amount of social interactions, saying she’ll be cured within months and as a scholarly man he believes that
In Alan Brown’s article “The Yellow Wallpaper’: Another Diagnosis”; Brown discusses why Charolette Perkins Gilman published The Yellow Wallpaper as well as another diagnosis on the character in The Yellow Wallpaper. In the article it is explained that Gilman published this short story as a reflection of her own life. Gilman battled depression and sought out help from expert neurologist. The neurologist had suggested that she rest and be confined to her room. This experience lead to the creation of The Yellow Wallpaper. Being confined to a room like the character in The Yellow Wallpaper is enough to drive anyone to insanity. Brown had a different idea on why the character lost her mind and began to believe she was seeing figures in the wallpaper.
In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story is a woman who is struggling with her mental health. Throughout the story, she progressively gets worse in her condition, due to the lack of mental health awareness, and her treatment plan. To start off, she is given the “rest” method of treatment.This is a treatment that focuses on letting the brain rest due to the thought that mental health issues were just a matter of an overactive or overstimulated mind. The narrator’s husband is the reason why her condition continued to get slowly worse, his main concerns were making her normal again, even if he hurt her in the process. Although this story can be interpreted many ways, through symbolism and
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman’s gradual descent into insanity, after the birth of her child. The story was written in 1892 after the author herself suffered from a nervous breakdown, soon after the birth of her daughter in 1885. Gilman did spend a month in a sanitarium with the urging of her physician husband. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story about herself, during the timeframe of when Gilman was in the asylum.
She was placed in this treatment called the “rest cure” that made her somewhat like a prisoner. She started to slowly decrease into psychosis due to her husband’s treatment, the environment, and the way society has treated her illness. The love the husband felt for his wife and the fear he had of losing her lead him to treat her in questionable ways. He placed her in environment that made her feel trapped and aided to her reduction in sanity. Ann Oakley in her article, “Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper” discusses how important this story truly is. Oakley talks about the gender differences and the harm that it can bring to a society. This treatment was acceptable and normal for the situation because society has taught him and her that it was normal. Even if the protagonist’s husband meant well the treatment she was placed in for depression lead her to have more psychological damage, increasing her insanity more each
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
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.
There are various interpretations of what causes the narrator to go crazy in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These interpretations include suggestions that the narrator is possessed, that she is oppressed by society and is acting out, that she has suffered from a traumatic childbirth, and so on. While all of these ideas hold merit and are supported by evidence in the short story, there is an alternative explanation that fits the story just as well, if not better. That explanation is that the reason the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” acts strangely and sees images in the wallpaper of her room is that she is suffering from the disorder of postpartum psychosis. During this essay I will be going into depth on a psychological analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
In The yellow wallpaper the narrator is also the protagonist and her husband share a relationship that is a little off; the fact is that they are husband and wife, but they do not act so. There are many examples that show this. And many conflicts arise because of the relationship they share. The story is based around the fact that the protagonist is suffering from nervous depression and her husband is the physician, there are many things that he does not know because of the lack of communication in this relationship this is a challenge for the protagonist .She believes that she is sick and her husband John fails to see that the protagonist states that, “he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? 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 the temporary nervous depression- a slight nervous tendency-what is one to do?” (Gilman, 55) this is the start to the fact that there is no communication she fails to say anything, but she does want, to get better but she states “personally I be...
In her article "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper,'" as it appeared in The Forerunner (1913), Charlotte Perkins Gilman candidly reveals her personal story of mental illness and her subsequent journey to wellness after she rejected the "expert" advice of her physician. She retells the story, with some embellishments, in her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Her own nervous breakdown and prescribed "rest cure," popular at the time, brought her close to "utter mental ruin." With some help from a friend, and using what resources were left to her, she began to write again, intending to use this story as a means of saving others from being driven crazy. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published in May 1892, amid a flurry of rejections and protestations. Nevertheless, her story has been told, and I think there are many women who can relate to what she has experienced, to varying degrees.
“Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman was analyzed by many perspective readers and writers. In my research paper I analyzed work by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford. These two authors had similar but yet different arguments. During my review process on both articles, I found that there can be many interpretations of any literary work. When you typically see topics written about women, you tend to see biased explanations. Reading these from a female standpoint you would go on to assume the writer will only defend what is morally right.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has fabricated that includes a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator of this story grows obsessed with the wallpaper in her room because her husband minimizes her exposure to the outside world and maximizes her rest. Academic essayists such as Susan M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Elaine Showalter have a feminist reading of the story, however, this is not the most important reading. The author experienced the turmoil of the rest cure personally, which means that the story is most likely a comment on the great mistreatment of depression, hysteria and mental disorders in general. Despite the claims of Gilbert, Gubar, and Showalter that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is solely feminist propaganda, their analysis is often unnecessarily deep and their claims are often unwarranted, resulting in an inaccurate description of a story that is most importantly about the general mistreatment of psychosis and the descent into insanity regardless of gender.
The character of the husband, John, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is introduced as a respected physician and a caring husband who strives to improve the mental health of his wife, the narrator, who is diagnosed with temporary nervous condition. John tries throughout the story to apply professional treatment methods and medications in his approach to helping his wife gain strength. However, his patient, his wife, seems to disregard John’s professional opinions and act as if she is following his advices only during his awakening presence with her. The narrator seems to be in need of John’s positive opinion about the status of her mental condition in order to avoid the criticism even though she disagrees with his treatment methodology. John, without doubt, cares for his wife and her wellbeing, but he does not realize how his treatment method negatively impacts their relationship his wife’s progress towards gaining strength. Although John was portrayed as a caring and a loving physician and husband to the narrator through out most of the story, he was also suggested as being intrusive and directive to a provoking level in the mind of the narrator.
The woman who describes her life in the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, appears to have schizophrenia. She exhibits several pronounced criteria for schizophrenia including disorganized thoughts, hallucinations, and aberrant thought. At the beginning of her writings the author appears to be in the prodromal phase as initially her symptoms are subtler and it even appears that the symptoms may be related to recovering from childbirth. She stays in her room and is not eating well or caring for herself. Her husband John urges her to take care of herself. He is concerned about her and has brought her to country house to recover. She appears depressed and exhausted. Her negative symptoms include her inability to function in any sort of normal
Sometimes seeing is believing. By seeing things in life it helps someone believe that it is real or could possibly become real. In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson she talks about a women with postpartum depression. The narrator and her husband move into a house and sleep in the room with a yellow wallpaper with a strange pattern. In The Yellow Wallpaper she is able to find the friend. The pattern of the wall paper though is trapping her friend inside. Also she feels as if she is being boxed in her room by the wallpaper. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson the author uses The Yellow Wallpaper, the pattern of the wallpaper, and her own feeling trapped in the room by the wallpaper to symbolize
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.