Postpartum Psychosis In The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a well-known writer who ended up being diagnosed with Postpartum Psychosis, a disease that made people suffer from confusion, paranoia, hallucinations, etc., which connects with how Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the majority of her stories. In her story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrates what having Postpartum Psychosis was like for those who were diagnosed with that disease. One example of how Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrates what Postpartum Psychosis is is how she describes the garden in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she changes the description of the garden as the story progresses. These changes in the garden suggests how the narrator feels that the garden is no different from the attic: a place of

In the story Gilman says, “There is a delicious garden . . . large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them” (486). When the narrator first arrives at the house, she saw everything as wonderful and beautiful. Her husband describes her situation as there is nothing wrong with her. The narrator describes the garden as being spacious, at first, and she believes that she has freedom, but throughout the story, her situation begins to get worse as she starts feeling depressed and like a prisoner. Although, in the beginning of the story, Gilman describes the garden as spacious and beautiful, further along in the story, Gilman changes the description of the garden. In the story, Gilman describes the garden as having “hedges and walls and gates that lock” (486). The narrator changes her description of the garden because she is starting to realize that her husband is not helping her get better, and she is starting to realize that she is being held as a prisoner. She realizes that nothing was as beautiful as it may have