The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper Essay
The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a diary of a woman in the 19th century suffering from nervous depression. While writing this short story, in reality, Gilman was going through an illness, known as hysteria. This information helped me realize that the quote:
“Every kind of creature is developed by the exercise of its functions. If denied the exercise of its functions, it cannot develop in the fullest degree.” summarizes up the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. The fact that Gilman herself suffered from a nervous breakdown makes this reasonable. This quote also gives a clear explanation that the events that took place in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life, are directly reflected through her character’s life, feminism in the 19th century, and her treatment from her nervous breakdowns.
During the 19th century, the impact of the industrial revolution caused a sharp distinction between the gender roles. Men and women were thought to have completely different natures, due to Social Darwinism. People saw those differences as dictating separate and different functions in society. Women were thought to have a more private nature, and many women were thought to
be: weak, passive, domestic, emotional, susceptible to madness and hysteria, and easily corrupt. This is exactly how people treated Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and also how John, in the narrator’s life, treated his wife in The Yellow Wallpaper.
In the short story, the narrator has just moved into a house.
Her feeling that there is “something odd” about the situation leads her into a discussion of her illness. The narrator is known to be suffering from “nervous depression.” In hopes that “perfect rest” will restore his wife to health, her controlling husband, John, enclosed her to a former nursery (648). When the narrator isn’t showing signs of recovery, John threatens a more drastic treatment. The narrator says in The Yellow Wallpaper, “If I don’t pick up faster he will send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don’t want to go there at all” (650). She feels that activity, freedom, and interesting work would help her illness and reveals that she has begun her secret journal in order to “relieve her
mind.”
This is a similar situation in reality for Charlotte Gilman. But, in the 19th century, this kind of treatment was called the “Rest Cure Treatment.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman had experienced the rest cure while under Weir Mitchell’s care in 1887. Suffering from depression after the birth of her daughter, Gilman went to see Weir Mitchell “the greatest nerve specialist in the country”. Mitchell diagnosed Gilman with hysteria, and gave her advice to: live as domestic a life as possible, to have but two hours of intelligent life a day, and to never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as she lived. If I was denied the functions of independence and freedom, I wouldn’t be able to develop fully. My independence is an important factor in my life, and I couldn’t imagine myself without it. But I know that in the 19th century, many women were not granted their independence, which makes me proud that I have mine in this century. Women in the 19th century had to go through a lot of hard times. Just like it was said in the quote, women were treated like domestic animals during that time. This also shows you how the world has changed from then, until now.