




Edgar Allan Poe wrote, “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” (Good Reads). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman, the narrator of the story suffers from nervous depression. Because of this the narrator is subjected to the “rest cure” by her husband John, this was supposed to help her, but only made her more insane (Bassuk). Just like Poe the narrator went insane from not being able to deal with her reality. Her reality is being secluded from the world for the summer which ultimately hurt her. Furthermore, asylums were built in favor of the insane. The architecture and the way things were laid in America were due to the linear plan by Kirkbride and were much like Australian asylum Kew at the time. Both the linear plan and the Kew asylum sought to help cure patients through design (Yanni) (Malcolm). “The Yellow Wallpaper” is rich in cultural beliefs about the mentally insane during the 1800’s; from the narrator having to go through the rest cure to how the house she is living in is constructed.

During the 1800’s the rest cure was popular because of the neurologist Weir Mitchells. It became popular because of one incident with a girl he treated. The girl had a severe case of hysteria to the point if she heard someone speak she would scream, but because of Mitchells rest cure, which entailed “rest, seclusion, and excessive feeding”, the girl got better. This treatment was done to many more women, but not always successful. One example of it not working is Charlotte Gilman. She wrote about how the rest cure affected her in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Because the rest cure was a culturally accepted treatment during the time, Charlotte’s husband John tried treating her through the rest cure. In the short story John even uses the same exact regime as Mitchell, which includes being moved away to a quiet place where there is no one for miles, constant relaxation, and more food than needed, because that is what is thought to culturally cure hysteria in women (Bassuk). Charlotte Gilman fights against Mitchells “rest cure” in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by showing the negative affects it had on her.

Gilman shows how the culturally accepted rest cure affected her due to Mitchell’s belief that it cured women from their hysteria. Since the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was secluded from the rest of the world she had nothing to do, but stare at the wallpaper and occasionally write when people were not around, for she was not supposed to do anything with her hands. The narrator starts of the story by hating the wallpaper calling it “revolting” and “unclean” showing she is still sane because she just has emotions towards the paper, it is not alive to her yet. Throughout the story she starts to become more insane though, by seeing the paper moving and thinking the paper has a message for her. Being secluded from all life makes her unable to express her feelings, so she writes about the wallpaper to get some feelings out. By holding all her emotions in she becomes insane and eventually rips off the wallpaper because of a woman she sees in the wallpaper. She wants to help the woman out trapped by the wallpaper by getting her out. Because of the rest cure she ended up worse than she started. The rest cure drove her to the point of literally killing herself with a rope she hung herself with. Gilman was trying to show even though things are culturally accepted does not mean they always work. Showing that people should take other individuals thoughts into consideration because what is best for one person may not be the best for another. For example, the rest cure worked for one lady Mitchell treated, but it did not work for the narrator in the story. The narrator even said she needed excitement in her life, but John her husband said she needed the rest cure because it was what was thought to work best at the time. As we can see now no one even uses the rest cure anymore, we use other ways of treating the insane that are culturally acceptable now (Gilman). Culture has even gone as far to think that where people stay when they are recovering from a mental illness will help cure a patient.

Kew Asylum in Australia followed closely to the American linear plan in the 1800’s and looked much like the narrator’s house in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The linear plan called for symmetry just like the way Kew Asylum in Australia was constructed with symmetry. Also, Kirkbride believed that more men than women were omitted to insane asylums and the Kew Asylum had more men than women in it. This shows that asylums are not completely symmetrical. In the linear plan he expected women to stay inside and do small jobs like sowing because they were more fragile just like the Australian asylum Kew. Oddly, both the Kew asylum and the linear planned believed in communal living. This is odd because during this point in time solitary confinement was thought to be the best way to cure hysteria.  Furthermore, the Australian asylum was set up where the patients could not see the wall surrounding them, so they did not feel like they were in a prison. The linear plan also included that the patients should not see the wall, so they did not feel like they were imprisoned. They also relied heavily on nature for helping cure patients. Their courtyards both resembled a park and believed fresh air was necessary for recovery. Lastly, both places were to monitor everything the sickly did so that maybe one day they could go home (Yanni) (Malcolm). The design of asylums in the 1800’s can be seen in Charlotte Gilman’s book “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” we can see how the narrator’s house and environment relates to the Kew Asylum and Kirkbride’s culturally accepted linear plan. During this time the doctors in the asylums like Kew and Kirkbride’s oversaw every little thing their patients did. This is also like how John controls the narrator in Gilman’s short story. Again the narrator just accepts that the doctor knows what is best for her because her culture tells her to compliant to men, even though she thinks differently. The narrator thinks that she needs more excitement in her life, but the doctor or her husband refuses to believe anything besides rest is good for her because he has also bought into what culture says is best. Both the Australian asylum and the linear plan thought women to be more unstable, and made them stay indoors to not stress them out with physical labor. It is not ironic how John did the same to his wife because he was just mimicking what culture told him would heal his wife from her nervous depression. He locked the narrator up from the outside and required she did nothing to get better because other professionals were doing it. John then took the narrator from her family to a rural country home much like Australian Asylum and the linear plan called for. Furthermore, he chose a house with a large amount of land and gardens just like Australian asylum and linear plan did. John basically mimics what asylums are doing during this time because it is what culture tells him works, but it did not work for his wife the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This is because the culture of society is not always right and constantly changing.  Lastly, we see one difference in John choice of treatment and the asylums. The Australian asylum and the asylum plan encouraged socialization with others while John did not. This is what may have caused death of the narrator because she even says she wants “excitement and change” and not to be locked away by herself. Because he did not listen he indirectly killed his wife. Being locked away in an asylum type place was the complete opposite of what she wanted and needed, but John could not see past what was culturally thought to work. Sometimes what is thought to be right by a culture is not always right for an individual, as we can see through the narrator going insane by being locked away, but others being cured (Yanni) (Malcolm) (Gilman).

Cultural beliefs like the rest cure and how asylums should be constructed to help the mentally ill dominated Johns mind. He adopted Mitchell’s ideas about the rest cure like they were his own to try and cure his wife of her nervous depression just because they were so widely accepted and talked about. Then he goes even farther to put her in the right kind of atmosphere. He gets a house as similar to an asylum as he can get because the design of an asylum was thought to help cure patients. All this time he thought he was doing the sane thing by following the culture beliefs of the 1800’s that was supposed to heal his wife, but it just made her insane. 






