Yellow Wallpaper Mental Health

Words: 976
Pages: 4
Open Document
No writing, no movement, nothing but their minds. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jane, a woman admitted to a mental institution, struggles with her depression in a hostile environment during an unaccepting era. Throughout the story, Jane must resist her urge to leave the room she has been placed in for rest, and ignore the inner struggle that the wallpaper in the room causes for her. Eventually, the wallpaper becomes the only thing anchoring her to reality. Charlotte Perkins Gilman also endeavored through depression and rest therapy throughout her lifetime which inspired her to write this short story. Jane’s fight with postpartum depression and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own personal encounter with the illness connects …show more content…
In the story, this can be inferred by the way John looks at Jane’s illness. As a physician, he tells their friends that her illness is “but temporary nervous depression” (Gilman). He doesn’t believe that she’s sick, and even laughs at her as she observes the mental institution because she thinks that they’re renting a house (Gilman). Gilman, also, did not have a healthy marriage while experiencing her postpartum depression. Her husband and she separated, and eventually were formally divorced (Ryan). Their unhealthy marriages were detriments for both of them during their …show more content…
After two weeks in the room, Jane begins to write about the “flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin”, which she tells her husband needs to be changed (Gilman). Her husband, however, tells her that renovating a house for just a rental is useless, much to Jane’s dismay (Gilman). She learns to live with the yellow wallpaper for a while, but then her feelings towards the wallpaper begin to shift from disgust to curiosity, as time passes. She begins to grow “really fond of the room in spite of the wall paper”, and she spends her time observing the pattern of the wallpaper rather than despising her rest therapy (Gilman). Eventually, the yellow wallpaper becomes a symbol of Jane and Charlotte’s paralleled mental illnesses; Jane begins to rip the paper down (Gilman). The destruction of the wallpaper shows the women’s break from their minds, and the freedom that they gain by overcoming their mental
Show More

Related Documents: Yellow Wallpaper Mental Health

Yellow Wallpaper Mental Health

struggled with her mental health after the birth of her first child. Although medical professionals didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, it was a serious issue that was often overlooked and not treated in the right way because they just told the women to rest instead of giving them coping mechanisms. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a semi autobiography written by Gilman to show the dangers of treatments given to women. Charlotte Perkins Gilman conveys the theme of how mental health issues from misdiagnosis…

Words 1457 - Pages 6

Charlotte Perkins Wilman Research Paper

some works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this is not true because additional reading is necessary to understanding and receiving the true impact of the story. Rather than a writing based around the slow growth of insanity in a woman, as a superficial reader may grasp, it is a message of warning towards those using the rest cure. It is only through the additional reading of works such as Gilman’s other piece “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” and S. Weir Mitchell’s…

Words 813 - Pages 4

The Tell-Tale Heart Comparative Essay

Tell-Tale Heart,” written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1843, shows the mental deterioration of an unnamed narrator. Similarly, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” also centers around a nameless narrator who is mentally declining. However, it was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman almost fifty years later. In both stories, certain aspects of the narrators’ surroundings cause this degradation. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” these effects originate from the wallpaper in her room. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” they arise equally from…

Words 1983 - Pages 8

Interpretation Of Symbols In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Interpretation of Symbols in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Nearly every piece of literature has an interpretation which delves further in meaning than that which is immediately portrayed in the story. Quite frequently, the understanding of symbols in a story helps to emphasize the root meaning of a story and what the parts of a story represent. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there are several significant symbols which emerge over the course of the story. The three main symbols with the most meaning in…

Words 873 - Pages 4

Similarities Between A Rose For Emily And The Yellow Wallpaper

presents the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a frustrated young woman entrapped by her psychological disorder. The limitations others impose upon the narrator eventually bring about her descent into madness. Her desperate attempt to free the women she believes inhibits the yellow wallpaper in her nursery room is a reflection of her own internal endeavor to free herself from her mental illness. Despite the two women’s differences, Emily and the narrator of “The Yellow…

Words 1375 - Pages 6

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is, on the surface, a chronicle of a woman’s descent into insanity due to postpartum depression and improper treatment. However, a feminist examination of the story reveals that the protagonist’s plight extends beyond an isolated, individual situation. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a critique of not just the dangerous treatment experienced by the protagonist herself, but of the misogyny and female marginalization present in the late nineteenth century…

Words 953 - Pages 4

Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper

mothers can develop a mental health condition known as postpartum depression. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist has a mild feeling of depression after childbirth, and her husband John, a physician, mistreats her and believes that a change of scenery and employing the rest of the cure would improve her mental health. Subsequently, her mental health deteriorated and she ripped off the yellow wallpaper in the house. During this decline in her mental state, she recorded…

Words 806 - Pages 4

Thematic Essay Hitchcock Presents

feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. Alfred Hitchcock pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, billed…

Words 1455 - Pages 6

Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And Sonny's Blues

“The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sonny’s Blues”. In the readings “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sonny’s Blues” they both have a common theme along the lines of oppression. Although Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” both explore the identity of self-expression, a search for the oppression of women in the late nineteenth century, the authors use the characterization of each point of view to show how each character overcomes their struggles for autonomy, growth and a good mental…

Words 798 - Pages 4

Who Is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper?

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wall Paper is a short story written by Gilman which mirrors the struggle that she herself faced through her entire life. Therefore, by writing the story was to express her inner tussle through literature. The story took a place in a colonial house localized in an area where no people surrounded. In the house there were two couples who decided to spend a short, one week vacation away from people. John is the narrator’s husband, and her…

Words 516 - Pages 3