Mitchell's Rest Cure In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Gender, Madness, and Weir Mitchell’s Rest Cure in The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper explores themes of insanity, isolation, and sexism in the late 19th century. Gilman skillfully places the reader inside the head of a deeply unstable narrator, taking the reader along for the ride as she begins a rapid descent into mental illness. However, The Yellow Wallpaper is more than the story of one woman’s mental deterioration; it is a highly personal critique of psychological treatments of the time and of the way that women of the era were systematically repressed and undervalued. In this way, The Yellow Wallpaper skillfully illustrates the narrator’s descent into madness, while also providing the reader …show more content…
The narrator mentions the wallpaper before she even mentions her infant child, and it becomes increasingly prevalent in the narrative until it completely takes over the narrator’s mind. It traps her, slowly driving her to insanity. The narrator spends a great deal of time describing the wallpaper, and the terms she uses often hold deeply sinistar connotations. Early in the story she writes that the curving patterns within the paper “suddenly commit suicide”; a few lines later she likens the color of the wallpaper to sulphur, which brings to mind the supposedly sulphurous fires of hell …show more content…
In the essay, she states that The Yellow Wallpaper was largely autobiographical, based off her own experiences with the “rest cure,” a popular treatment for women suffering mental illness at the time (Gilman). The rest cure, created by physician Silas Weir Mitchell, required women undergoing the treatment to remain confined to bed for weeks or months at a time. These women were force fed, and forbidden from reading, writing, or social engagement. Many women felt that the rest cure caused their condition to deteriorate, and in one instance, a woman died from complications relating to the force fed diet (Poirier). Gilman’s essay states that, while undergoing the rest cure, she “...came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over” (Gilman). While she never experienced the hallucinations or “objections to my mural decorations” described by the narrator of the piece, she felt that The Yellow Wallpaper was nevertheless representative of her experience
Personification In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
779 Words | 4 PagesThe short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a brilliant piece of fictional literature. The tale involves a mentally ill woman who is kept in a hideous, yellow room under the orders of her husband, John, who is a physician. The ill woman is conflicted due to the fact that the horrifying yellow wallpaper in the room is trapping a woman who she must help escape, but the sick woman is aware that she must get better in order to leave the terrifying, yellow room. The setting and personification applied in the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, allows readers to develop an understanding of the sickness of the main character faces.
Role Of Darkness In The Yellow Wallpaper
749 Words | 3 PagesOnly Darkness Cavemen could not defeat it. Pioneers would not venture into it. Every child fears it. Darkness has been captivating mankind throughout many centuries in attempt to convey the significance of it.
Husband's Control In The Yellow Wallpaper
737 Words | 3 PagesA Husband’s Control: Women Must Defer to Her Husband in All Matters of Marriage and Obedience As the narrator introduces her story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader goes back in where a women is considered fragile in her mind and naïve to the world around them. The narrative depicts a woman’s strife while personally suffering “nervous depression” (376) and how such a malady happened to be treated by her attending physician, whom is also her husband by the name of John. In 1899, polite society dictated and observed propriety at all times therefore, wives and unmarried ladies were expected to defer to their husband or the oldest living male family member within the residence.
Identity In The Yellow Wallpaper
1008 Words | 5 PagesMartin states that the narrator’s confinement in the upstairs bedroom fortifies her mental illness developing into “a frightening hallucinatory world constructed around the pattern of the yellow paper on the wall.” This shift in her identity happens as the shift in her disposition towards the wallpaper changes. The wallpaper is a visible metaphor that eventually becomes her identity. In the beginning of her stay in the bedroom she says the wallpaper is “committing artistic sin” (Par34) and can push anyone to “suddenly commit suicide” (Par35) These comments show her despise towards the wallpaper and the separation she originally has from it.
Argumentative Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper
1096 Words | 5 PagesThe narrator is a woman who is imaginative trying to make her mind think and realize the meaning of the yellow wallpaper. She describes the wallpaper as, “repellant, almost revolting; smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight” (Gilman 641). This specific wallpaper makes the narrator feel a certain way. At first, she does not like the color or how it looks. But then not having anything else to do in the room, she starts examining the wallpaper.
The Yellow Wallpaper Cause And Effect Essay
797 Words | 4 PagesShe becomes obsessed with the patterns of the wallpaper, but she mainly notices a woman that she thinks is trying to free herself from the confines of the wall. During the day this woman is still, but when night time comes around, it seems as though the woman creeps around. Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a breakdown and thinks that she is this woman inside of the wallpaper, and begins to perform similar actions like creeping around. This meaning of this scene is simple cause and effect. Not only did she already have postpartum depression, but she is basically trapped in this house for a whole summer with nothing to do so she can heal.
Examples Of Isolation In The Yellow Wallpaper
1002 Words | 5 PagesIn Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is treated for depression by “rest cure,” isolation from society, which affects her mentality causing her to become secretive, withdrawn, and insane. With the treatment
Analysis Of Heroine In The Yellow Wallpaper
1032 Words | 5 PagesAnalysis of the Insane Process of the Heroine in the Yellow Wallpaper The author of the Yellow Wallpaper is Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860—1935), an outstanding American feminist, writer, novelist and so on. During her life, Gilman has written so many poetry and short stories. She is a utopian feminist and is honored as a role model for future generations of females due to her odd concepts and lifestyle. The Yellow Wallpaper is not the first or the longest work of her, but it is a best-seller of all her works.
What Is The Cause Of Jane's Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper
571 Words | 3 PagesIn the short story “the Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator, Jane who has just given birth becomes progressively more ill and depressed. Her husband John, who is a physician prescribes that she get lots of rest and fresh air so Jane and John rent a colonial mansion for the summer. Throughout the story John is one of the main causes for Jane’s deepening depression.
The Yellow Wallpaper Point Of View Analysis
814 Words | 4 PagesThe vast majority of people wouldn’t give the wallpaper much thought, however the narrator becomes obsessed with it. To the narrator, the wallpaper is alive and becomes the focus of all her time. Her overwhelming lure to the wallpaper becomes obvious when she first provides a very vivid description stating “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and 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” (217-218). As she begins to lose her grip on reality, the narrator beings to see faces and eventually a woman within the wallpaper. At first, her description of seeing faces in the wallpaper seems like it could be her mind making since of the varying patterns or just part of her imagination.
Foreshadowing In The Yellow Wallpaper
1112 Words | 5 PagesIn Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she tells a horrific ghost story about symptoms of the rest cure. The “rest cure” was a treatment developed by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell who restricted women of intellectual stimuli and condemned them to a domestic life to help their postpartum recovery. After being a victim of this treatment, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Careful attention to the use of Gilman’s symbols in her short story allows the reader to analyze some of the themes concerning feminism and societal misogyny. Foreshadowing throughout, Gilman uses the house, the writing, and the wallpaper as symbols to show how man’s use of the “rest cure” limit women in society and offers that the solution to this issue is to persistently tear away at man’s injustice.
Theme Of Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper
562 Words | 3 Pages(678) in this statement she is challenging herself and this shows the reader she is facing some confusion. The yellow wallpaper in the main characters (the narrator) bedroom is a major point in the story. The yellow wallpaper plays a major role in the woman’s insanity. The woman’s obsession with the wallpaper creates her problem and affects her mind and judgment. This is shown in, “It dwells on my mind so!”
Yellow Wallpaper Sane
611 Words | 3 PagesInitially, the narrator is disgusted and irritated by the paper, claiming, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (339). This reaction mirrors that of a sane person’s--fearing the unknown, they distance themselves from insanity and any iteration of it, seeing it as grotesque and shameful. Yet, as she spends more time in the room, she grows interested in the wallpaper and begins to investigate. She comes to the conclusion that: “I didn 't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (346).
Literary Analysis Of The Yellow Wallpaper
1248 Words | 5 PagesIn Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator 's husband John, who also happens to be her physician, prescribes the rest cure to help lift his wife of her depressive state and ultimately heal her depression. However, the rest cure does not allow the narrator to experience any mental stimulation. Therefore, to manage her boredom the narrator begins obsessing over the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars.
Literary Criticism Of The Yellow Wallpaper
802 Words | 4 Pages“The Yellow Wallpaper” Literary Analysis The “Yellow Wallpaper” is a iconic short story written by Charlotte Perkins, a famous feminist author. The novel takes place the 19th century and deals with the issue of how women dealt with mental health issues, specifically postpartum depression. Back in the 19th century the way physicians dealt with women 's mental health was much different then it is today, back then they believed that the cure for depression was solvable by isolation and rest. As a result many women suffering from postpartum depression were forced into isolation which only made their situation worse. Jane; the narrator of the short story, is one of these woman forced into the rest treatment by her physician husband.
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