
By examining the cultural and historical context outlined by Elaine Showalter, Sarah Rutherford, Clare Hickman and Annie Hawton in their respective articles as it relates to the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader can see how the lady in the story is a common female victim of the mental asylum from the Victorian Era. She suffers from social isolation and loneliness and is influenced in some ways by the architecture of the asylum. Moreover, the landscape around the asylum also leads to hallucinations that she experiences and worsens her mentally unstable behavior. These articles together highlight the troubles faced by mentally unstable Victorian women in asylums and talk about how social isolation, along with asylum architecture and surroundings, play a role in the psychotic behavior of the patients who were treated at these asylums, similar to the situation of the mentally ill lady in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

As Elaine Showalter details in her article “Victorian Women and Insanity,” the lady who experiences depression and hallucinations in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is just one of the many women from that era who went through the same symptoms in mental asylums. According to Showalter, during the Victorian period women greatly outnumbered the amount of men in asylums and this was due in large part to the fact that at the time, families found it hard to send women to private hospitals for care, so they sent them to poor mental asylums similar to the one where the lady in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is cared for. The woman’s mental instability and psychotic behavior is a result from the fact that she does not have the ample opportunities to get outside and perform labor as well as interact with others. Due to this unused energy, Showalter says that women would go to bed mad sometimes. On top of being mentally unstable, a disgruntled asylum patient could easily lose their right mind and have hallucinations such as those had by the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As Showalter states, this was common for women admitted to mental asylums during the Victorian Era, in that men were allowed to get out and work while women were denied these opportunities. This led to extended isolation from others and justifies the neurotic behavior of the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Showalter notes how historically women have lacked mental stability more than men, although during the Victorian period this was a large misconception mostly held by men, and also have exhibited gentle emotions. This historical context backs the notion of how fleeting the woman’s emotions are in the story and how her hallucinations result from her lack of mental stability. The lady displays these fragile emotions at night while looking at the yellow wallpaper, “The front pattern does move-and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (Gilman 309). The imperative nature of this quote shows how the woman can be imagined as shouting these thoughts in her head, and maybe even out loud, while looking at the yellow wallpaper. Similar to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” women have been found to struggle mentally with the fact that they can no longer reproduce or bear children, according to Showalter. Although, this is not specified as the cause of the woman’s psychotic mental state it certainly may contribute to the mental depression that she goes through leading up to and during her stay in the asylum. 

On top of these hallucinations and the depression from knowing that she is unable to bear children, the woman’s health and well-being deteriorates and she continues to suffer due to her isolation from society. Annie Hawton, through her article “The Impact of Social Isolation on the Health Status and Health-Related Quality of Life of Older People,” shows how social and historical context points to older people suffering the most from being isolated from society with regards to their health and well-being. As proven by Hawton’s article, people like the woman from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” who have lived alone and been socially isolated for a period of time have been historically proven to suffer detriments to their health. Research mentioned in the article shows that restricted mobility along with limited daily activities have a negative effect on a person’s health. This helps to understand why the woman’s lack of recreation and outdoor activity while in the asylum further strains her mental state and affects her health and well-being. It has been proven over time that people’s lack of contact and communication with others over an extended period of time affects their perceptions of reality. This research helps to justify the strange visions and fantasies that the woman has while looking at the yellow wallpaper in the asylum.

The architecture of asylums in and around the time that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, as detailed in the article “Landscapers for the Mind: English Asylum Designers, 1845-1914” by Sarah Rutherford, also help the reader to relate the story to its historical and social context. Most asylums in the late 19th century, similar to the one in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” were built and constructed in rural settings. The rural settings were used to get mentally ill people away from society and into a somewhat peaceful setting. During the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, the landscape for most asylums included a large main house, or country house, as well as somewhat of a park with a garden. The lady describes the landscape surrounding the asylum in the story:

The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. (Gilman 300)

This description of the landscape surrounding the asylum in “The Yellow Wallpaper” closely resembles the landscape of most asylums during the 19th century, rural and picturesque. This natural layout of asylum grounds was meant for patients to be able to get outside and walk around the grounds to clear their minds and be at peace with nature. Rutherford mentions in her article how asylum properties were designed to have fences, gates and walls to enclose the property. This allowed for patients to look out at the grounds and enjoy the scenery without the asylum operators having to worry about them escaping. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” enjoys the view from inside the country house looking out onto the estate. In addition to the landscape and going back to Showalter’s article, the reader can infer that the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is in an asylum, because during the 19th century a lot of families could not afford to send the woman in the family to an expensive private hospital. This would make sense, because the place where the woman is housed in the story is falling apart and rough on the inside, and also cheap as stated at the beginning of the story. Also, it is noted in the article that male patients were encouraged to go out and work on the asylum grounds. This explains why the lady in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is limited to her daily outdoor activities strictly based on her gender, and shows how she is really unable to do work or get anything productive done. John, her doctor, will not let her go and visit relatives, because he sees her as lacking the strength to get out and travel. This causes the woman to be trapped in the house and allows her more time to hallucinate. Toward the end of the story, the narrator says, “I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to” (Gilman 311). The woman becomes adamant on staying inside and this shows how her mental instability has gotten the best of her, in that now she wants to stay indoors and observe the wallpaper among other things, which worsens her neurotic behavior. Since she was unable to spend time outside before then, she no longer feels a desire to leave the asylum, because she has not been in contact with others and the real world. This lack of doing meaningful work only worsens the lady’s mental condition and results in her spending more time inside having hallucinations and fantasies about the yellow wallpaper. 

Building off of the architectural aspects of 19th century asylums, the article “The Picturesque at Brislington House, Bristol: The Role of Landscape in Relation to the Treatment of Mental Illness in the Early Nineteenth-Century Asylum” by Clare Hickman talks about how 19th century asylums were perched on rural properties and designed in ways that allowed patients to be able to look out at the landscape as part of a therapeutic regimen. It was believed that allowing the mentally ill patients to peer out and view the landscape would be mentally beneficial for them. This can be seen in “The Yellow Wallpaper” as the lady enjoys the beautiful view of the bay and other surroundings from the mansion, allowing her a sense of peace and appreciation for the beauty of the natural landscape around her. These 19th century asylums also contained what were called airing courts, walled-in areas next to the asylum that allowed for patients to get fresh air while being confined in a controlled setting. These airing courts were elevated in areas so that patients could see out over the grounds, and this was also thought to be therapeutic for them. However, the absence of airing courts in “The Yellow Wallpaper” affects the woman’s ability to get fresh air while enjoying the landscape at the same time, and this can be attributed to her deteriorating mental condition. Patients were encouraged to engage both physically and visually with the landscape. This was difficult for the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” because her doctor John keeps a close eye on her and advises her to stay in her room and rest. The lady’s lack of interaction with the landscape is definitely a cause of her worsening mental stability as the story goes on. Furthermore, it was thought that patients who felt like they were in a familiar domestic setting and felt more at home were to heal and recover better. Unfortunately for the lady in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,” she is in a whole new place and does not feel a familiar sense of home in the asylum where she is a patient, as she constantly tries to make sense of the interior components of the house, specifically the wallpaper. The woman describes the wallpaper to be irritating and unappealing, “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide…” (Gilman 301). The yellow wallpaper really fascinates the woman and dwells on her mind constantly causing her to be obsessed with it in an unhealthy way. The yellow wallpaper, unlike the landscape, is not therapeutic and it only leads to more hallucinations and psychotic behavior by the woman.

Through a close examination of the historical and social context surrounding the common experience of a mentally ill Victorian woman in an asylum during the 19th century, the reader can see how the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is affected by not only her mental illness, but also the social isolation that she experiences while in the asylum, as well as the architecture/landscape that is unique to asylums at that time and in a way worsens her mental state.
