Theme Of Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper

The 19th century was a remarkable era for the advancement of technology, marking the creation of the cotton gin, light bulb, telegraph, steam locomotive, and many more inventions that revolutionized the lives of Americans forever. However, with all of these incredible technological advancements, mental illness in the United States was still treated primitively. Men, women, and children could be medically diagnosed as "mental” if they showed signs of religious excitement, domestic unhappiness, physical sickness, jealousy, or stupidity, whereas today these diagnoses would be seen as foolish and injudicious. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives an insight into the historical treatment of the mentally unstable through the lens of a young woman battling with depression to demonstrate the reoccurring themes of the immorality of the resting cure and the subordination of women in marriage along with her own personal experiences.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is an example of the way a human’s mind that is previously overwhelmed with apprehension can worsen when it is kept from healthy activities and coerced into indolence. In the beginning of the short story, the woman speaking is relatively normal - she recognizes the details of the setting around her and expresses a very imaginative mind, imagining that the estate that
In this case, the male counterparts of the speaker are her husband, brother, and doctor. “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do” (233). In addition to this, the narrator is also likened to a child. Her husband, John, will belittle her and “call [her] his blessed little goose”, implying that she has no mind of her own and cannot stand up for herself