Lit. Responce to Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts a woman’s minds while following her journey through madness. The story is filtered through a single narrator, a young married, upper-class woman, who had just given birth, in the late nineteenth century. Although the young women is brought to a large colonial mansion to carry out the doctors orders of a “rest cure”, her accommodations are less than  luxurious, for she stands confined to the four walls of a dated nursery. The dated nursery was agreed upon by the young women at the influence of her husband, the acting physician. The narrator is said to suffer from a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” or diagnosed by physicians of the error as either Neurasthenia or Puerperal Fever (Gilman 394). Neurasthenia is describes as an emotional disorders that arises from an unknown onset, those diagnosed would not respond to medical therapies. It the 19^th century a person’s mental state seemd to be seen only one of two ways, normal or having extreme psychoses. Neurasthenia was considered the compromise that lied between.

Neurasthenia, the psychosis the narrator was thought to be suffering from, was likely postpartum depression that evolved into postpartum psychosis. Postpartum mental illnesses were not yet fully recognized by physician of the error. Many women who experienced postpartum blues, depression, or psychosis in the late 19^th century where sent to Dr. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell described these patients as "nervous women, who, as a rule, are thin and lack blood", prescribing them with his famous “rest cure” in hopes of recovery (Mitchell 7). At one point John, the narrator’s husband and physician, comments to send his wife to Dr. Mitchell if progression lye idol. The narrator pleas away from his suggestion “he is just like John and my brother, only more so” (Gillman 398). John, who is devoted to his wife’s health, feels she “shall neglect proper self-control” so in hopes of recovery, he follows the form of Dr. Mitchell’s “rest cure” a method deemed to be safer than the other option of “the mischievous role of bromides, opium, chloral, and brandy” (Mitchell 28). The narrator in the story frowns upon the prescription for health, but a women suffering from postpartum psychosis cannot be trusted to her own psychological care. Considering the narrators deception and lack of admission to her growing illness, John could do nothing more, than the numerous attempts applied, to recover his wife’s health.

When it came to his wife’s illness, John was anything but lacking. He provided her with a limitless supply of rest, air, and assistants, while taking up occupancy in nothing less than a colonial mansion. He chose a room in the mansion that provided enough space for the couple to easily share and the architecture of large extended windows that allowed sunlight in, in every direction. If it were up to his sick wife, she would have buried herself in a dark room downstairs that provided no sunlight, due to the “roses all over the windows” (Gilman 395). The nursery upstairs had been chosen by John because of the fresh air and sunlight that better supported his wife’s health. He cared for his wife dearly and when she asked for another room, John “said he would go down [to the] cellar if [she] wished” providing her with the assurance that he would go anywhere and through anything for her (Gilman 397). The upstairs room, agreed upon, was prepared prior to the arrival of the narrator. John had the room fit in precaution for his wife’s condition. Although the chariness of the room played unnoticed while focusing on the narrator’s state, a closer look shows the detail taken. It was not ironic that the windows were barred, the bed nailed to the floor, and “there [were] rings and things in the [wall]” (Gilman 395). All of the institutional like equipment was carefully installed in preparation for his wife’s unpredictable mental illness.

Not only did John prepare the room for his wife’s safe recovery, he also summoned his sister for assistance in fully caring for his sick wife and their new born son. John did as much as he possibly could to unsure the safety of his wife and son. When present in the mansion, he was at his wife’s side and in his absence, he arranged care. Before continuing to work and leaving his family in the care of his sister, John “cautions his wife not to give way to fancy in the least” explaining the danger of “imaginative power and habit of story making, a nervous weakness like [hers] is sure to lead to all manners of excited fancies, [pleading] she uses her will and good sense to check the tendency” (Gilman 396). The plea was heard by his wife, yet her efforts to flow John’s cautions quickly disappeared as the wallpaper became mentally confused with reality.

John’s was unknowingly deceived by his wife due to her obsession of the wallpaper. The obsession took place behind closed doors, not only the bedroom door, but her mind. She was smart in taking great precautions of hiding the progressing illness, admitting to “cultivating deceit, for I don’t tell them” (Gilman 401). John’s observations only showed his wife to be improving; she was “gaining flesh and color, [even] her appetite was better” (Gilman 400). If he only knew his wife’s true state of dementia, her visions of women in the wallpaper and the belief that “[t]hey get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white” he could have attempted to help more (Gilman 399). John was unable to read her mind and his wife “had no intentions of telling him it was the wallpaper” that had consumed her mentally.

Do to the narrator’s secret agenda, deception, and precaution to what might spark her husband’s suspension “I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once” it led her to the full consumption of this mental psychosis (Gilman 403). John was unaware of the progressed state of his wife illness until the moment he observed her crawling on the floor “looking at him over her shoulder”, a sight that must have been the true version of Linda Blair in the exorcist (Gilman 405). Devastated by “his darling, his comfort, and all he had” John collapsed (Gilman 399). There was nothing more John could have done.

A hundred years later, women are still suffering from this illness. Even now with the awareness and drugs that treat postpartum psychosis similar cases have ended worse. On June 20, 2001, despite the countless efforts of Rusty Yates to help his wife Andrea and her battle with postpartum psychosis, his efforts failed. Andrea was left alone for a short 20 minutes; in this time she successfully drown her five children. A person dealing with a close member struggling from a mental illness is dealing with much more than the illness its self, due to overwhelmed responsibility, exhaustion, and stress, change in the ill person can easily be missed. John was not provided with modern medication and had little knowledge of the illness that plagued his wife, he did the best job possible, his new son was safe and wife still had a chance at recovery.

Works Cited

Literature; Reading, Reacting, Writing. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner. Compact 7^th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 394-405. Print.

Mitchell, S. Weir: Fat and Blood: And How to Make Them. Eds. Kimmel, S. Michael. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Altamira Press, Feb. 2004. 109. Print.