English 102 / Essay Assignment #2

Kronbeck

October 10, 2016

A Call for Reform: A Historical Reading of “The Yellow Wallpaper”

It has only been a few generations since Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s New England society relied on an interesting belief for treating depression. This stemmed from the notion that women were more fragile, both physically and mentally, and unable to handle very much stimulation while in treatment, be it social or intellectual. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on the inner thoughts of an unnamed narrator who endures the “rest cure” isolated from others and dismissed by her physician and husband. Forbidden from mental stimulation, the narrator’s depression takes on a form of obsession with the room’s grotesque wallpaper. When she begins to see a woman imprisoned behind its patterns, she has a mental breakdown and destroys the wallpaper, believing herself to be free from imprisonment in the room. Using the intimate first-person perspective, dynamic narrator characterization, and macabre imagery, Gilman argues that the isolating "rest cure" worsens the narrator’s depression, and that the constrained stimulation actually exacerbates the original symptoms; thus, it must be done away with completely as an acceptable treatment.

The narrator’s worsening depression is revealed through the first-person point of view Gilman employs in her narration. By allowing the reader to see the inner workings of the narrator’s mind, the author opens up a window to her own. It is easy to grasp how frustrated and powerless the narrator feels as she describes little things that snowball into hallucinations and more. In fact, the reader is more easily able to empathize with the narrator through this intimate experience. The beginning of the story opens up with complaints about how her husband and brother treat her, where they invalidate her ideas on improving her mental state because they disagree with popular medicine, and continue to do so throughout the story even as she noticeably worsens: "Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?" Her loss of agency is already made clear here, which seems to be the driving force that upsets her. Any reasonable person would have the right to express their indignant thoughts if concerns about their own bodies were wholly and perpetually ignored in order to avoid “stimulation”. Gilman means to remind people of their basic humanity to contrast with the narrator’s lack thereof. However, her doctor and equally educated husband and brother have more authority over her welfare and so nothing can be done to advocate for herself. Her frustration is palpable through this point of view, which mirrors Gilman's emotions recalling her own experience in "Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration,” where she describes her own mental breakdown caused by following the same instructions as the narrator: “Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live (238).” The helplessness and anger the narrator feels about these constraints is a factor that fed into her treatment-provoked mental breakdown. Gilman’s rebellion through her secret writing is perhaps the only thing that staved off insanity for so long besides leaving the place that caused her stress, and this is reflected in the story through the narrator’s thoughts.

Also, through further consideration of the first-person narration, the reader makes out motifs of patronizing attitudes adding to the narrator’s distress when she writes, “John laughs at me, of course but one expects that in marriage.” This line may initially seem trivial in comparison to other elements one can look at, as it is not as direct a complaint about the author’s life, but in “Undergoing the Cure,” Gilman argues that her psyche suffered because of her experience with the Rest Cure and the psychologist who prescribed it, which changed her negatively and permanently. “He had a prejudice against the Beechers...But he did reassure me on one point - there was no dementia, only hysteria (238).” Taking these two quotes in context and noticing other instances of the narrator’s concerns going unheard, the case can be stated that Gilman is actually alluding to the condescension of the psychologist, who appeared to have a disdain for other women in her family who had visited him (Beecher is Gilman’s maiden name). The “weakness” she mentions is the perpetual depression she dealt with when trying to raise her child while dealing with postpartum depression and a cruel set of care instructions. The “marriage” is a substitute for the mental health institution that her psychiatrist used to deem her “hysterical” and prescribe her the rest cure. This strengthens Gilman’s case that she was misdiagnosed - and even more importantly, that the mentally tortuous treatment should not have been effective, with the way it was forced upon her.

So not only does the first person perspective reveal truths about the narrator’s internal suffering, but it also helps showcase a clear transition to insanity in the narrator after establishing her as afflicted. The change in reliability of the narrator to perceive reality is a simple way for the reader to notice the occurrence of a mental breakdown. The lack of mental stimulation broke the narrator down and drove her to fixate on the wallpaper, which is brought to light when she notices her caretakers looking at the wallpaper. Her defensive reaction to such innocent gestures comes from her sister-in-law’s concern that the yellow color of the wallpaper has somehow rubbed off on the narrator’s clothes: “Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished we would be more careful (7)!” It is implied here that she has begun rubbing her body on the wallpaper absentmindedly as her mind slips further from sanity, and of course she can’t remember, because innocent intellectual stimulation like imagining has been discouraged. The narrator also does not realize that she is the one who has been tearing up the floorboards and gnawing up the bed, and continues to think of the children who lived in the nursery room before she did. This is full blown psychosis. This change marks a shift in the narrator’s character and reflects the author’s reflection on her prescribed rest cure - from following all the rules prescribed to her to being a shell of her former self, unable to stop herself from acting upon her delusions. So, by characterizing the narrator as an unnamed person in need of help and not some sort of Gothic monster, a stronger parallel can be drawn between her experience and the author’s that allows readers to be more empathetic with this case of insanity, because one can easily replace the narrator with the author or even oneself.

Last but not least, macabre imagery permeates the story from the introduction to its unsettling denouement as another way to express the dark thoughts experienced by the author through the narrator. From the start, descriptions such as the following and her approach to what should be mundane things, such as the wallpaper’s pattern, indicate that the narrator’s mindset is not within the norms: “...When you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (2).” This only seems mild when reading the description of the same wallpaper further into the treatment: “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down (3).” The narrator is obviously more comfortable with the idea of death than a normal person of the time would be, and is beginning to project it already onto her surroundings. It is established in her forbidden writing that she is aware of the true nature of her depression, and as its bearer, understands that the treatments prescribed to her by the clueless, patronizing people around her who subscribe to outdated concepts of mental health are not the best idea. Moreover, the things the narrator notices in the wallpaper become increasingly graphic as she deteriorates. By the time the narrator spots another woman trapped behind the wallpaper, images of death and decay are explicitly evoked: “All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision (9)!” As the narrator’s psychosis reaches a crescendo, so too does the alarming imagery of her hallucinations and actions. The sheer shock of ripping out the wallpaper to free the woman should provide a jarring effect to the reader. Gilman chooses to drive the point home about the rest cure’s adverse psychological effects through immersing the reader in unsightly imagery depicting the sordid details of unnecessary mental instability.

Overall, what the reader can come away with upon inspecting the various elements discussed within the story is the message that Dr. Weir’s famous rest cure is not a “cure” by any means, but a cruel way to subdue an individual in the short term and an effective means to damage their psyche in the long term. This short story, while written with a few fantastical additions, can be taken as a candid admission of the damage inflicted onto the author represented through the narrator. Gilman poured her heart into “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest the idea that she should have her freedom to write taken away for the sake of this so-called “cure” - without the ability to express herself, there was no cathartic release of the emotions that weighed her down in the first place and made her be seen as fragile in the face of any stimulation. Add dismissive attitudes from those around the narrator and the bleak imagery provided by the setting, and it is a recipe for disaster to the afflicted mind. Only the least conscientious of readers would be unmoved by the message of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Fortunately, the beliefs that upheld this relatively barbaric practice are not a part of modern medicine or psychology anymore, and symptoms of postpartum depression can now be addressed with more understanding treatment methods, which would undoubtedly ease the author’s mind were she alive today.

( Student 1 )

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration”. Literature and its Writers. 6th edition. Edited by Ann and Samuel Charters. Karen S. Henry. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2013. 238-239. Print.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper". Mineola: National Library of Medicine,