In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a mentally ill woman with severe postpartum depression and anxiety narrates her own story of isolation and solitude as she is forced to stay in her house with little activity as a part of her treatment.  Her husband John is a doctor who degrades her illness, forces her to stay home and prohibits her from seeing her baby, adding to her psychosis.  Her solitude increases her insanity as she becomes obsessed with a yellow wallpaper in her room and starts hallucinating as her mind starts seeing images of a trapped woman inside it and starts making up stories about it.  The story’s depressing tone and the harsh treatment of the woman can be further explained through the understanding of mental illness and treatments during her time period, as well as through the understanding of feminism and the subordination of women during her time period.

The article “History of Mental Health Treatment” describes illness in the 1800s and how it was looked at as a burden and very negatively.  It explains how mentally ill patients used to be placed in institutions that were like jails and how they were treated cruelly like prisoners.  The patients were locked up and unable to leave.  The article goes on to describe a writer named Nelly Bly, a journalist who posed as a mental health patient in an effort to document the harsh treatments imposed on patients.  She goes on to describe the harsh treatments she endured including “solitary confinement” and “hair pulling” and how the facility “didn’t seem to help anyone get better.”  Her documented experience exposed the horrific nature of mental health facilities of the 1800s and helped spark some reform in mental health treatments.

This article relates to “The Yellow Wallpaper” because it explains why the narrator in the story is treated like a prisoner in her own home and not allowed to leave her house and perform any activities.  Mental patients in the 1800s often became more insane as a result of the mental institutions and this is evident in the story as the narrator in the story becomes more insane as she begins hallucinating and obsessing about the yellow wallpaper in front of her.  The narrator lives in a very hostile environment, which intensifies her insanity and does nothing to help her out.  It is ironic that the treatment set up by the narrator’s husband, John, who is a doctor, does nothing to help her and instead, makes her condition worse.  The fact that she is forbidden from working and writing further portrays her lack of freedom, which is related to prisoners in prison.

The article “Anxiety and Depression Together” describes how anxiety and depression often coexist together and how “60-70% of those with depression also have anxiety.”  These two conditions increase the risk of suicide and impair relationships.  The article also provides information about scientific research that concludes that “people with anxiety and depression show an overreactivity of the stress response system, sending into overdrive emotional centers of the brain, including the “fear center” in the amygdala.”  The fear center of the narrator’s brain (the amygdala) had been overstimulated, leading to her increasing anxiety and depression. 

This previous article helps explains how the narrator is suffering from both depression and anxiety and helps us understand why she lives in fear.  Her anxiety adds to her depression and the two combined with her isolation fuels her psychosis.  Her psychosis includes seeing a desperate woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper, struggling to escape from behind the main pattern, which resembles the bars of a cage.  It is clearly evident that the desperate woman trapped inside the wallpaper represents the narrator and her desire to escape her insanity.

The article “Postpartum depression” explains how the birth of a baby can sometimes trigger emotions such as fear, anxiety and depression.  The symptoms of postpartum depression include “mood swings, crying spells, anxiety and difficulty sleeping.”  This is all evident in the narrator of the story.

The narrator of the story previously suffered from postpartum depression.  She exhibits all the symptoms such as mood swings, anxiety and she has difficulty sleeping.  She is also not allowed to see her baby, adding to her postpartum depression.

The article “What is a Rest Cure” describes a treatment used in the 19th century for women with mental illness.  It is used particularly with women with depression, anxiety and postpartum depression.  Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell developed the rest cure.  His treatment required him to imprison women for up to two months, giving them little contact to the outside world.  His patients were not allowed to perform any activity and were forced to stay in bed paralyzed.  They weren’t even allowed to move around.  This treatment was later deemed inhumane as women began speaking up against it.

The narrator of the story was prescribed the rest cure treatment by her husband.  She endured all of the horrific treatments of rest cure, including imprisonment, lack of activity, and lack of contact with the outside world.  She was also the perfect patient to undergo rest cure in the 1800s since she suffered from depression, anxiety and postpartum depression.

SparkNotes discusses the theme of the subordination of women in marriage evident in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”  In the 1800s, men were seen as dominant and possessing authority while women were seen as submissive and second-class citizens.  In the 19th century, there was a rigid distinction between the “domestic functions of the female and the active functions of the male.”  The family structure of the 19th century was very different from the family structure today.  Women were expected to stay home and provide for her husband and kids through domestic functions such as cooking and cleaning, while men went to work the entire day and made money for the family.  The article published by Britannica on Feminism explains what feminism is and how it has changed over time.  According to the article, feminism is “the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes” and is evident in women’s rights.  The feminist movement didn’t gain momentum until the 20th century in the United States with amendments such as the  Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), banning discrimination based on sex, and the 19th Amendment, giving women suffrage, or the right to vote.

This information on the subordination of women in marriage, along with information on the distinction in feminism between the 19th century and today helps explain the woman’s submissive attitude in the story.  She ignorantly accepts her husband’s treatment of rest cure, despite how cruel it is, because she viewed her husband as superior and authoritative over her.  He was not only a man but a doctor, giving him complete control over her.  She was also mentally ill, making her more vulnerable to her husband’s controlling personality.  Finally, feminism and women’s rights movements weren’t very influential in the 19th century, contributing to the narrator’s lack of motivation to confront her husband.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a very influential story that provides a lot of information about the historical time period in which it was written.  It was written in the 19th century, a time period where feminism and women’s rights weren’t evident and mentally insane people were viewed as prisoners instead of as patients.  Research into those elements of that specific time period reveal an abundant of reasons about specific aspects of the story, such as the controlling attitude by her husband, the cruel treatment of her mental illness and her lack of motivation to stand up against him.
