





The viewer determines the intensity of insanity, not the subject. ----. It is important to keep in mind that insanity, craziness, and being delusional is subjective to the viewer because the subject does not always view himself/herself as crazy. A version of insanity that is extremely historically critical is hysteria. Hysteria was a medical diagnosis widely used all the way up to the early 20th century. Peter Melville Logan’s review of “The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents” by Elisabeth Bronfen shows a modern look at hysteria both medically and culturally. The review explains the historical differences in medical knowledge as well as the cultural uses of hysteria today. The cure-all for hysteria used in the late 19th century and early 20th century was called the “rest cure”. The rest cure used sleep/bedrest and confinement to treat ill patients. “Reading the Rest Cure” by Michael Blackie is an article that discusses the differences between Charlotte Gilman and Weir Mitchell. Charlotte Gilman is the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper” which will be the textual focus in this essay. Weir Mitchell is the man who invented the rest cure to treat hysterical women. Both academic pieces by Michael Blackie and Peter Logan talk about the cultural and historical differences of early 20th century society versus today’s society. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that dives into the mechanisms of the rest cure and hysterical women in the early 20th century. The text itself is 


very strange to readers today because of the methods used within medical practice during the time. Today women do not experience such torture as the rest cure. By looking at the articles “The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents” and “Reading the Rest Cure”, we can see the evil in the ignorant patriarchal society that sparked the creating of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This is important because to modern day readers, it is easy to mark off the story as not feasible and forget how society used to be.

The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” starts off giving the background of the narrator. The narrator in the story is a wife and new mother whose husband has locked her in a nursery. Her husband and her brother are both physicians during this time which is late 19th century through the early 20th century. The story begins with an explanation of how the narrator has recently given birth to a child and has been confined to a nursery with yellow wallpaper. The narrator starts having strange visions of a figure trying to come out of the wallpaper as if it was stuck. The delusions become more vivid and scary throughout the story’s progression. Eventually the narrator becomes completely insane and thinks that she is the figure behind the wallpaper while sliding against the walls. The narrator’s story is a retelling of Charlotte Gilman’s life. The story sounds absurd and horrific to modern society, but to women in Gilman’s time this was a reality. Contributors to how different society was in Gilman’s time include: women being targeted for mental illness instead of men, all female mental illness was filed under hysteria, Weir Mitchell with his rest cure views, and the lack of knowledge in medicine.

The medical differences between 100 years ago, vs. now is just unbelievable. Hysteria no longer medically exists today per Peter Logan’s review of “The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents” by Elisabeth Bronfen. Hysteria is not a legitimate medical term used for diagnosis 


today because it was disproved as a disease in the 20th century (Logan 174).  Charlotte Perkins Gilman had to live in a time where everyone believed in this disease, which means in her time, unlike today, many found her story believable. Hysteria throughout its lifetime was used as a medical “wastebasket” (Logan 175). Medical professionals who were trying to diagnose a mentally ill patient with an unknown condition threw the patient a diagnosis of hysteria. This shows how little medicine understood mental illness before the 20th century, especially in women. The two physicians that treat the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” obviously believe in hysteria and the rest cure because they gave the narrator a diagnosis of “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 300). Logan’s review also touches on how only women were diagnosed with hysteria because women were believed to be mentally unstable and incapable of making decisions. This is shown through the narrator of Gilman’s story when she says “But what is one to do?” (Gilman 300). The quote means she cannot go against the will of her husband or brother. In other words, the patriarchy of the time, oppressed women through false belief in hysteria. Between the way women were viewed and the medical hoax that is hysteria, we can see how different “The Yellow Wallpaper” was viewed in Gilman’s time.

The advancement of the narrator’s insanity in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is from her treatment plan. The treatment that the narrator and Charlotte Gilman were on because their false diagnosis, was the famous “rest cure”. The journal entry that dives into the differences of Weir Mitchell and Charlotte Gilman is “Reading the Rest Cure” by Michael Blackie. According to Blackie, Mitchell specialized in treating hysteria and would continue to develop his rest cure throughout his lifetime. The physician only treated women, even though neurologists of the time found symptoms of hysteria in men as well as women. Sometimes, along with the rest cure, 


Mitchell would suggest extremely invasive and vulgar gynecological procedures, which had no effect on the mental health of patients (Blackie 69). The narrator’s husband in Gilman’s story threatens to take her to see Weir Mitchell if she does not behave properly (Gilman 303). This act shows that Gilman uses the husband to represent Weir Mitchell in the story, without using Weir Mitchell as a character. Mitchell’s, just like the husband’s, goal was to keep women in line with the patriarchal society of the time. This means that Weir Mitchell cared more about bringing out good mothers and wives than healing a woman of mental illness. (Blackie 59). These qualities are seen in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by the narrator’s husband who repeatedly fails to listen to his sick wife, and expects her to get back to work/return to her previous state, instead of healing properly. Today’s medicine focuses on healing individuals from illness instead of shoving them back into a purpose. This is very important when looking at the view of “The Yellow Wallpaper” from Charlotte Gilman’s time vs. modern society.

Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” had a very different impact on her society than the story does today. It was written in response to the beliefs in hysteria, which is a very false medical diagnosis today. As well as Weir Mitchell and his rest cure for hysterical women. Weir Mitchell himself was a well-known figure in Gilman’s day while Charlotte Gilman was not (Blackie 59). This exemplifies that “The Yellow Wallpaper” sadly had little effect on society and people’s views in Gilman’s time. However, later the story would gain enormous fame and historical pride. The story itself leads modern day readers to believe it is fiction, while historical readers understand the severity and realistic aspects of the plot. “Reading the Rest Cure” and “The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents” allow readers to gain the historical and 

cultural context needed to better understand the non-fiction that is “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Through this historical/cultural oculus people can understand just how far society has come. 


