What Is The Rest Cure In The Yellow Wallpaper

The mind of someone struggling with mental illness can be a terrifying yet intriguing place. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives the reader an in-depth look at what a depressed and nervous mind looked like through Jane’s writings. While Jane’s husband and brother were both physicians, they believed she was somewhat hysterical, and was treated with “rest cure”. “Rest cure” consisted of, “bed rest, isolation, overfeeding, and massage/electricity on her muscles” (The Rest Cure In Relation To “The Yellow Wallpaper”, 2013). Women being treated with rest cure were also forbidden from writing, reading, sewing, talking, etc. Jane’s writings take place while she is being treated with rest cure while away for the summer with her husband, John, their baby and their housekeeper who is also John’s sister, Jennie. While on this “vacation” Jane is confined to one room. This room has a bed, which is nailed to the floor, barred windows, and horrible yellow wallpaper. Although they may seem like just parts of a room, these three symbols represent Jane’s confinement and lead Jane to her obsession with the yellow wallpaper and eventually a breakdown. Her large, immovable bed is where Jane is expected to spend most of her time. Undergoing the “rest cure” treatment she is expected to
She spends the summer locked away in a room succumbing to the many negative parts of “rest cure”. Her room consists of three main elements: a bed nailed to the floor, barred windows and mesmerizing yellow wallpaper. These three elements represent her confinement due to the rest cure and eventually lead to the loss of her sanity, believing she is trapped behind bars in the yellow wallpaper. Jane wants to show her husband how truly sick she is, and does so by tearing down the wallpaper in her room and locking herself in, proving his “treatment” had not helped her like he believed it