The Yellow Wallpaper

Jennifer Gould
Dr. James Neiworth
English 095
08 March 2012

The Yellow Wallpaper- A phone line into Madness

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892, reflects a period of succession where men dominated women. This story gives the referee a view into the world of mental illness, how it was treated in that period, and the unfortunate outcome for the bank clerk as she descends into madness.

The narrator is a woman who is suffering from a scatterbrained depression subsequently the birth of her nestling. Nervous depression was a common diagnosis at the time for women. Today this condition would be called postnatal depression, or in serious cases postpartum psychosis. In this time period there was very little knowledge well-nigh mental illness or how to treat it. It was believed that to be relievoored the nervous depression one needed a rest resume. This form of treatment called for the patient to be removed from her child and placed in isolation, to have lots of bed rest and very little mental stimulation or tie-in with the outside world.
This rest cure was prescribed by the narrators husband, John, who is also a physician (a very classifiable sign of middle class in the 19th century).



Women in this time had very little freedoms, they were controlled under the mans rule, even more so in marriage. Young girls were brought up to be accepting of male dominance, for this was the way of the world. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.(Gilman 317). While it is of my survey that the husband has the narrators very best interest group at hand, by denying his wife any primitive humanitarian rights, it was in deed a form of abuse. She feels that the rest cure is not the best thing for her, and is actually making her worse. So I take phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely require to work until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas....If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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