Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“THE YELLOW WALLPAPER”: MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS TREATMENTS
Postpartum depression is defined as, “a mood disorder that can affect women after childbirth… [and can cause] feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that may make it difficult for them to complete daily care activities for themselves or for others.” Today postpartum depression is a mental illness that is widely known, but in the late 1800’s when Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” postpartum depression was not known. In fact, Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself “experienced a severe depression and underwent a series of unusual treatments for it… [that] is believed to have inspired her best-known short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” In this “best-known short story,” one can find a theme, of mental illness and its treatments, within the main character and her experiences throughout the story.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” follows a series of diary entries written by a woman who is suffering from postpartum depression. The women’s husband, John, is “a physician of high standing,” misdiagnoses her with hysteria and treats her with rest. This treatment “confines her to a room in an isolated country estate,” that John rented for the purpose of her treatment. John “expressly forbids her to do any work in the form of writing, her chosen occupation,” even …show more content…
Though Charlotte Perkins “Gilman did not become a creeping lunatic” like the narrator in the story, she was a “survivor who unlocked the door of the madwomen in the attic, and lived to tell about it.” Let “The Yellow Wallpaper” be a window into the notion and treatment of mental illnesses in the late 1800’s and a “moral lesson [to not] put women with [postpartum] depression into solitary
Postpartum depression is defined as, “a mood disorder that can affect women after childbirth… [and can cause] feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that may make it difficult for them to complete daily care activities for themselves or for others.” Today postpartum depression is a mental illness that is widely known, but in the late 1800’s when Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” postpartum depression was not known. In fact, Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself “experienced a severe depression and underwent a series of unusual treatments for it… [that] is believed to have inspired her best-known short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” In this “best-known short story,” one can find a theme, of mental illness and its treatments, within the main character and her experiences throughout the story.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” follows a series of diary entries written by a woman who is suffering from postpartum depression. The women’s husband, John, is “a physician of high standing,” misdiagnoses her with hysteria and treats her with rest. This treatment “confines her to a room in an isolated country estate,” that John rented for the purpose of her treatment. John “expressly forbids her to do any work in the form of writing, her chosen occupation,” even …show more content…
Though Charlotte Perkins “Gilman did not become a creeping lunatic” like the narrator in the story, she was a “survivor who unlocked the door of the madwomen in the attic, and lived to tell about it.” Let “The Yellow Wallpaper” be a window into the notion and treatment of mental illnesses in the late 1800’s and a “moral lesson [to not] put women with [postpartum] depression into solitary