
“The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story about a woman named Jane who goes insane after being locked in a room by her husband, John. She is diagnosed with a temporary nervous depression and is given a “rest cure”, which involves bed rest and isolation while being forbidden to work. Not much was known about mental health in the late 19th century, so when Jane began hallucinating and exhibiting other symptoms of psychosis, there was a lack of effective treatment for her condition. The late 19th century was also a time of great oppression for women because they were seen as inferior to men. It was believed that women had smaller brains than men and were therefore less intelligent. Because John saw Jane as inferior, he denies her many opportunities to express herself and be free. Jane’s strange and erratic behavior in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a result of postpartum depression and her condition only worsens because of a lack of effective treatment and oppression from her husband. “The Yellow Wallpaper” makes a statement about the oppression of women and the status of medical science during the late 19th century.

Although Jane was diagnosed with a temporary nervous condition, her symptoms indicate that she actually has postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is defined as a type of depression that occurs after childbirth that lasts for longer than two weeks. According to Michelle Badash, who wrote “Postpartum Depression: Condition Inbrief”, signs and symptoms of postpartum depression include inability to sleep or excessive sleeping, changes in appetite, mood swings, and fear of harming, extreme concern and worry about the baby. Although Jane has recently given birth, she states “such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.” (Gilman 302) She doesn’t want to be anywhere close to her baby and cannot give a reason why. Jane also starts sleeping during the day and staying awake during the night to “watch developments” in the wallpaper (Gilman 308). 

Mental health was a subject that was relatively unexplored in the late 19th century. Many new ideas and advances were coming in fruition during this time, including the Germ Theory of Disease and the Theory of Evolution, but there wasn’t much known about mental health. The Germ Theory of Disease states that diseases are caused by microorganisms, but cannot be used to explain nervous diseases that affected women such as Jane. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution lead many people to believe that women’s main role was reproduction and taking care of children, so higher education for women was often overlooked. In her article “The Rest Cure: 1873-1925” Anne Stiles describes the most common form of treatment for women in the late 19th century: the rest cure. Created by Doctor Weir Mitchell, the rest cure discourages intellectually stimulating activities including reading and writing and involves “bed rest, isolation, and force-feeding” (Stiles). The rest cure was mainly prescribed to women and was also an effective way of enforcing stereotypical gender roles of that time period. Doctor Weir Mitchell believed that higher education for women was bad for a woman’s health because higher education was for men, and a desire to be equal to men as a woman could only lead to bad things. Jane was forced into receiving the rest cure by her husband but it doesn’t improve her condition at all. It actually continues to make it worse, resulting in her illness becoming a major problem. Ensuring that women stayed in their proper sphere was more important than actually curing them of their ailment during the late 19th century.

The oppression that Jane faced from her husband also contributed to her deteriorated mental state. At one point in the story, Jane tries to talk to John and convince him to let her visit her cousins because she can’t stand the isolation, but he responds that “she wouldn’t be able to go, nor able to stand it after she gets there” (Gilman 305). Jane continuously disagrees with John about her treatment, but John ignores almost everything she says, saying “bless her little heart! … she shall be as sick as she pleases! But now let’s improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!” (Gilman 306) John denies her the freedom to make her own decisions and she slowly begins to lose her sense of identity. Jane begins to hallucinate that “at night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.” (Gilman 307). Jane is obviously feeling trapped in her marriage and can only identify with the woman in the wallpaper who is locked away, trapped behind bars. As a woman, Jane feels as though she cannot talk back or even say what is on her mind to John due to her not wanting to go against his “treatment.” This sign of feeling lower to the masculinity of her husband just goes to show how oppression got to women of this time. She is getting taken out of her usual everyday life, sent into a room for an extended period of time, taken away from her newborn child and does not have the willingness or extreme want to tell her husband how and what she wants. 

“The Yellow Wallpaper” perfectly embodies the state of gender inequality during the late 19th century. Women were docile to men and men were the head of the household. John makes “a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from Jane” (Gilman 301). He takes control of almost every aspect of Jane’s life so all she can do is lay in bed. Jane states that she loves writing, but John thinks that it will be bad for her, so he forbids her from writing and she has to do it in secret or she will be met with “heavy opposition” (Gilman 300). Jane is symbolic for all women during the late 19th century. She is a prisoner to society and powerless; John makes all decisions for her and her opinions aren’t even considered when she vocalizes them to John. There is a repetition of the phrase “But what is one to do?”, showing how Jane believes she is helpless and has no power in her relationship. Her oppression leads to her being withdrawn from the world to the point of mental instability. Gilman is trying to show how oppressed women were feeling during the late 19th century. 

In conclusion, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s response to the state of inequality during the late 19th century. Jane is representative of all oppressed women during the 19th century and John is the stereotypical man of the 19th century: “Practical in the extreme, has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.” (Gilman 299) If this story was written in the 21st century, Jane would not go insane because we know how to properly treat her disorder. Jane’s oppression and eventual insanity comes from a lack of medical knowledge and stereotypical gender roles during the time period.
