
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s disturbing short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, a woman, is told to adhere to the rest cure; she must stay in a quiet and eerie room with very little to no contact at all with people or the outside world in a secluded house miles away from civilization in order to recover from her case of hysteria. Gilman’s main character in the short story’s condition of hysteria actually begins to worsen rather than improve the longer she remains in this closed off living space, and no one believes her when she pleads to move around, be active, and talk to real life people. The rest cure was not just placed upon the main character in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Instead, hysteria affected many women, especially during the Victorian era, but many doctors and men did not believe there was anything more wrong with the affected women other than just another emotional breakdown they tend to be prone to. Little to no research was conducted back in the day to be able to see the detrimental effects on these affected women with the rest cure, but perhaps after Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written and published, more people, both men and women, began looking into it and discovering that indeed there was a better solution than closing the women off from the rest of the world. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” brought about many controversial topics to be discussed such as whether the rest cure was helpful or not, the unequal treatment of women, and how the environments in which the patients were placed in were designed to help the patients, but just like the rest cure itself, the design actually drove the women more insane than a normal or perhaps more active environment. By using outside sources such as “Reading the Rest Cure” written by Michael Blackie and Beverly A. Hume’s article “Managing Madness in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we can analyze why the rest cure was not helpful.

In “Reading the Rest Cure” written by Michael Blackie, the idea of the rest cure, which was the main form of “medicine” for people, especially women, was to heal themselves from depression or many types of mental illnesses. Depression in women was seen as a cry for help or attention to men. People, especially men, had thought women had more emotions than men, and this is why they didn’t see the need for actual treatments to cure the victims of such real mental illnesses. Women in the Victorian Era were seen only as domestic figures who were to stay at their home and take care of the family. This shows just how higher up in the rankings men were seen than women, and how the two sexes were treated unequally and perhaps unfairly. The idea of the rest cure was that the patient would be put into a simple room, with no distractions, no people to talk to, and no books to write into; it was essentially a room much like an insane asylum or a prison cell, so that there would be no outside influence on the patient so they could get better on their own. However, it was seen that many of these patients’ illnesses got worse instead of getting better or going away completely, and the writing of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman made clear the inaccuracy of the rest cure. As history continued, it became apparent that perhaps the rest cure wasn't any help at all, but rather the opposite treatment, one where the patient would talk about their thoughts and move around with others to occupy their minds, would do the trick.

Michael Blackie’s article “Reading the Rest Cure” is a perfect source to go more in depth about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” because the narrator of the story is under this same treatment- a treatment where the patient is told to lay in bed for several months, or at least until the patient returns to normal, and not do anything, including talk to people, go outside, write or read books, or be distracted in any way. As the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” continues to write in her journal as the days and months pass on, it is apparent just how much worse she gets. The story begins with the narrator expressing her seemingly normal thoughts about how even though the house is a bit “alone” and “colonial,” it does still seem like “the most beautiful place!” (Gilman 300). However, as the story progresses, she begins to hallucinate so much that the walls in her bedroom with the yellow wallpaper smell “gross” and even begin to change colors during the night (Gilman 302). She even begins to imagine that these yellow walls “looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!” (Gilman 302). These moments of creepy hallucinations directly correlate to her mental illness in that as time passes, her mind becomes more unhealthy, just as time passes her hallucinations and thoughts get worse and more vivid. Thankfully, however, as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” became more read and more well known, more research went into finding out whether or not the rest cure was actually a good method of treatment or not, which led people to discover new and improved ways in actually aiding these patients.

In Beverly A. Hume’s article “Managing Madness in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,”” she explains how the different genders, like the roles of the women versus the roles of the men, were treated in different ways and perhaps those different treatments were unfair. The Victorian Era saw a time where the woman of a household would only be seen as domestic, which meant that they were to stay at the house, clean the house, and take care of their husband and children. Women did not have the right to own property, sue, divorce, or even vote during this time period. Men during this time, however, were able to vote, divorce, work (high paying jobs), and they pretty much had complete control over their wives. Beverly A. Hume goes on to discuss in her article that the women in these situations during the Victorian Era were actually quite unaware of how this affected them, and how it would soon drive them hysterical, much like the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." It was a general belief that women experienced much more emotional pain than men, and because men didn't go through these similar experiences, especially postpartum depression (which still existed but was unknown until later in history), the women's declarations of depression and psychological suffering were tossed aside and not given much thought. However, as history progressed and more and more cases of not only women's emotional suffering but also men's emotional suffering occurred as well, more research happened and mental illness, depression, postpartum depression, and more finally became a recognized illness and better treatments became available.

In Beverly A. Hume’s article “Managing Madness in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Hume discusses how women were treated unfairly during the Victorian Era, which was the era in which Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper." Mental illnesses, like the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" has, were not seen as real illnesses, and, therefore, no real medications or treatments were given to the people who requested help. The people, mainly women, who were affected by these mental illnesses had their symptoms worsen because no one seemed to believe what they were describing was real, and this led them to believe their illness was completely their fault, and that drove them even more hysteric than before. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator explains how, towards the end of the story, she began thinking the woman who was behind the yellow wallpaper (even though it was a figment of her imagination and hallucinations) was actually herself, and she was the one who was actually violently ripping the wallpaper apart. It was because of the doctors and men who did not believe the narrator, or anyone else for that matter, was telling the truth that the victims of these hallucinations became even more mentally ill to the point of no return to normalcy. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman explains how the narrator felt like she would get extremely nervous around her husband, and towards the end of the story she didn't even refer to him as her husband or even John (his name), but rather just "that man" (Gilman 311). The Victorian Era hosted too many detrimental episodes of women being taken advantage of, but thanks to writers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, history progressed and women, along with mental illnesses, are now seen as important as they actually are!

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman who gets locked up in a room in order to be healed from her hysteria but instead becomes even more insane than before due to the rest cure. As the story became more and more read and well known as time passed, more research and studies were conducted and it was discovered that perhaps the rest cure actually was not helpful at all and quite the opposite treatment was needed to produce improved results. Through accredited outside sources like Beverly A. Hume’s article “Managing Madness in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Michael Blackie’s article “Reading the Rest Cure,” readers are able to analyze the effects the rest cure had on women in the Victorian era, as well as the design of the rooms and the unequal treatment of women.
