Essay: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a first person narrative of a 19th Century women. This women is suffering from what we call nowadays as postpartum depression. It is essentially a disorder that affects mothers that have recently given birth. This disorders causes the mother to experience depression, paranoia, and even hallucinations. In that time it was believed to simply be a nervous condition that could be cured by isolation. The treatment or “cure” for the women in story is to deprive her socially, physically, and mentally. She is not allowed to socialize with anyone or exercise. Additionally she is not allowed to use a pen, pencil, or brush for the rest of her life. Her husband, named John, directs every hour of her day. She feels ungrateful for not valuing him more. The women in the book is very naive from the readers point of view. Her situation blinds her from many things that seem obvious to the reader. The treatment her husband is giving her is not helping her, it is worsening her condition greatly. She cannot see what we see, she instead uses the love she thinks he has for her as an excuse for what he is doing. She also tries to talk with John about her condition, but he does not believe her. The women again brushes that off as the love he has for her. It is also apparent to the reader how John patronizes her by saying “she will be as sick as she pleases” when she tells him she feels that she is getting worse. He also calls her demeaning names such a little girl to treat her as if she was a child. She explains the beautiful mansion estate with locking gates all around it far away from the central village. She explains her room with bars on the windows, a bed nailed to the floor and rings on the wall. She explains how she loves the house, but she does not she the red flags staring her straight in the face. Those restrictions are less like a bedroom and more like a cell or mental hospital. The gates outside make it so she cannot leave, and the distance from the village allows nobody else to be close enough to discover she needs help. The women’s perspective is skewed due to her condition, but the reality of the situation is much different. She believes that the torn wallpaper, scratches on the bed, and stains on her clothes are done by other people prior to her being in the room, but in reality it was her that did those things all along. She suppresses many of her needs as well. She suppresses her need for human interaction and freedom by hiding them away. She begins to write in a secret journal of her perspective in the condition she is in. This is the reason The Yellow Wallpaper was written in the first place. These suppressed needs spiral her condition even further. At the end of the story she escapes the room and exclaims, “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane.” Jane is name that was not mentioned in the story anywhere else. When she looks at the yellow wallpaper in her room, she imagines things in the patterns. She imagines a depressed women striving to be happy. She does not want to be the lady in the wallpaper pattern. The fear of being that women makes her separate herself from the women on the wall and herself, but in reality she is both. This character that the women that she imagines is actually a depiction of herself that she can see. It is also the narrator of the entire story itself. This story opened my eyes to severity of mental health and how terrible it can be when not treated correctly. One take away from this story I got is that people should be listened to rather than being told to do something that they feel is hurting them. We should try to understand different mental illnesses then assume that the victim is lying or exaggerating. Situations or similar ones that the women was put through is something I hope nobody ever has to go through. I also hope science can learn from this story and use it to change practices they have even in today’s world.