
Film adaptations of texts can be just as effective as written texts. They portray a clear theme and convey a message to the audience. The importance of mental illness is evident in Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper as well as the film Silver Linings Playbook. Both of these stories tell of people coping with mental illness and how they interact with people in their worlds. Both the film and the short story by Charlotte Gilman provide different perspectives and analyses of mental illness. By looking at The Silver Linings Playbook and The Yellow Wallpaper, two different perspectives highlight the importance of mental illness and treatment. This insight is important because mental illness is a very real issue that many people might not fully understand. Comparison of the two works lends understanding to the effect of mental illness on an individual, how mental illness affects the way one interacts with others and the world, and the importance of the treatment of mental illness.

Most are unaware of the impact that mental illness has on those that it affects. Some believe that mental illness is not comparable to physical illness, such as a broken bone or a disease. However, these two texts can help illustrate that mental illness is just as, if not more, significant as physical illness or injury and should be treated as such. In The Yellow Wallpaper, a new mother is forced to cope with her mental illness. This text takes place in a time period in which men were regarded as superior to women. This particular woman is submissive to her husband, who insists that there is nothing wrong with his wife. The woman secretly keeps a journal which she hides from her husband. The story is written in the form of a journal, so readers are able to see the woman’s thoughts and therefore gain her perceptive. It is clear that the woman is suffering from post-partum depression, as she has just had a child. Her inferiority to her husband also clearly contributes to her suffering. The woman’s mental illness ultimately drives her insane, as she begins to hallucinate at the end of the story. The woman even physically reacts to her hallucinations by ripping the wallpaper off the wall. It is clear that the woman’s mental illness has a great effect on her. Similarly, Pat Solitano also suffers from mental illness in the film, Silver Linings Playbook. He is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Pat also physically reacted to a situation due to his mental illness. Pat assaulted his wife’s other lover and is sent to a mental health institution. Due to the assault, Pat’s wife files a restraining order against Pat and makes it clear that she does not want anything to do with him. Ultimately, Pat’s mental illness significantly impacts him because he becomes obsessed with the idea of reconciling with his wife. There are similarities as well as differences as to how mental illness affects characters in both The Yellow Wallpaper and Silver Linings Playbook. Both Pat and the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper experience isolation and loneliness. They both have an episode in the text in which they physically lash out due to their mental illnesses. While the woman begins to hallucinate a woman on the walls and begins to strip the wallpaper from the wall, Pat nearly kills a man by assaulting him. They also both experience emotional absence from their partners. However, Pat is reluctant to accept his mental illness while the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper wants others to believe that she does. She is convinced that she is mentally ill and wanted others to recognize it.

These two texts also depict and clarify how mental illness affects the way that these characters interact with the people and society around them. Both of the characters start out as having normal relationships with their partners in their marriages. However, their respective mental illnesses effectively destroy these relationships. Pat’s bipolar disorder causes him to nearly kill the man with whom his wife was committing adultery. After his episode, his wife moves away and files a restraining order against him. The woman’s relationship with her husband obviously deteriorates. He insists that nothing is wrong with his wife and generally ignores her. This causes the woman to resent her husband and results in insolation, which ultimately drives her insane. Both of the characters are isolated from society in their respective texts. Pat spends months in a mental institution while the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper spends most of her time by herself in a room. Both characters are separated from their families for some time, which contributes to their mental illnesses as well. Additionally, both of these characters develop social issues that inhibit them from communicating normally with others. In The Yellow Wallpaper, readers can see the woman’s anxiety in her thoughts written her journal. In Silver Linings Playbook, the audience can visually see the struggles that Pat has with communicating with other people. The text allows the audience to understand what the woman is thinking and feeling, which is a clear advantage. However, the audience of Silver Linings Playbook actually view how other characters respond to Pat, which creates another interesting perspective.

After viewing and analyzing the two narratives, it is clear that the treatment of mental illness is also important. These two texts provide different perspectives from different time periods in which mental illness can be analyzed. The Yellow Wallpaper was written in 1892. During this time, mental illness was generally not understood or accepted as real illness. It was not treated properly. Additionally, women were inferior to men and were not seen as equal. In the story, the woman was submissive to her husband who generally ignored her illness. He responded by using “rest cure”, a common treatment used during this time period that was not at all effective. Rest cure involves isolation from others by spending hours in a separate room, essentially on bed rest. As she was alone, she was forced to deal with the illness on her own. The journal makes it clear that her “treatment” ultimately led to disaster. The woman was driven insane, and it is clear that she needed legitimate treatment. Silver Linings Playbook documents a much more recent case of mental illness. Pat was treated in a mental facility. After comparing both texts, it can be concluded that Pat’s mental state was handled better than that of the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper. Pat’s condition is more under control due to treatment and medication. He is able to turn his life around by the end of the movie as he finds a new relationship with Tiffany. The woman, however, ultimately is destroyed by her mental illness and lack of treatment. 

These two texts illustrate the importance of understanding and properly treating mental illness. The two stories take place during different time periods in which mental illness was viewed differently. While mental illness used to be ignored and generally disregarded, it is now recognized as a serious and important issue. There are several advantages and disadvantages when comparing a written text to a visual text. The Yellow Wallpaper allows readers to access the woman’s exact thoughts, which helped to better understand her mental state and feelings regarding her illness. However, the visual text Silver Linings Playbook allows the audience to visualize the story as well as read body language. The audience visualizes the characters’ interactions with each other to understand how characters with mental illness act differently. These thoughts and actions contribute to the importance of recognizing and treating mental illness. The two works do a phenomenal job of highlighting the seriousness of understanding and properly treating mental illness.