The concept in which the process of healing takes place can have many different points of view.  Trying to fully understand the way it works and how to “heal” it is an ignorant thought.   There are several different ways in which a person can be healed that involve numerous amounts of treatments.  In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the treatment process in which Gilman is healed is not exactly the most practical.  Women during her time period were treated as second tier citizens when it came to the mentally ill.  The human mind is perhaps the most delicate part of the body and more complicated than most can even imagine.  The way in which women during this time period were “healed”, was not very effective. 

Insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill: madness.  In the 1900s there were therapy strategies used on women to try and fix cases of insanity that would be frowned upon today to say the least. “Patients were beaten and verbally abused on a daily basis with no ways to defend themselves” (Bly 295). A woman was considered “insane” if she simply spoke a different language than English.  Being put under house arrest in a sense was a common treatment for some women.  In Gilman’s writing, she said, “Complete isolation from the rest of the world with nothing to do, no one to talk to” (Gilman 303).  A woman named Charlotte Gilman had to undergo this process if isolation and the only thing that kept her sane throughout the process was keeping a personal journal.

Gilman was obsessed with the wallpaper that covered the walls of what seemed to be her very own prison.  This “prison” was on the second floor of her house and her husband stayed downstairs away from it most of the time.  Like in Gilman’s writing, Barbara Taylor said in her writing, “The sense of anxiety and powerlessness is daunting and seemingly unavoidable” (Taylor 110). The patterns and colors that the wallpaper was composed of never seemed to leave Gilman’s mind.  The repeating patterns served as a symbol of repetition as Gilman had to live every moment of every day trapped inside her room with nothing but her thoughts.  Like other patients during this time period, she was going insane because of the treatment that was supposed to cure her.

After a while Gilman began to see a woman trapped inside the walls of her room, the wallpaper housed a ghost that lived inside her imagination.  This ghost brought out Gilman’s sense of entrapment that lived inside of her.  “The torment that coexisted with the sense of anxiety has a continuous hold on your every thought and action” (Taylor 115).  Gilman’s personal journal was the one thing that made her feel safe in her world of anxiety.  Ironically, she was not allowed to have such an item according to her therapy treatment in the idea that being creative and having her own thoughts was frowned upon, but that journal symbolized everything that was still normal in her life and gave her an opportunity to speak her mind.

Living with the thought of hopelessness is no way someone should have to live.  There should be a sense of hope, even for someone deemed “mentally insane”. “The only thing that kept me going in my darkest times was the idea that the next day was going to be better than the last” (Taylor 96).  In order for Gilman to see beyond the wallpaper and overcome her obsession with it she had to, in her mind, realize that the person in the wallpaper was her all along.  She was trapped inside her room just as the woman was trapped inside the wallpaper. 

In Barbara Taylor’s book, “The Last Asylum”, the woman primarily focused on feels the constant need to break out of her shell that she has found herself trapped inside of.  Similar to Gilman, this woman on a daily basis is being reminded of how the outside world is looking at her in a different way than most individuals.  This did not prove to be a good treatment in this time period.  “I don’t think it is right to be treated as if my thoughts and actions are less important than others” (Taylor 114).  The time period in which these women lived suggested that these types of treatment proved to be successful, but at the same time it took a heavy mental toll on all the women participating.

After enough time passed, Gilman began to rely on the walls in which she was trapped inside of.  “I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anybody come in, not until John comes” (Gilman 311).  A sense of security was developed and the walls she once looked at like a prison, now became a safe haven.  Women during this time period became dependent on others, the very opposite of what the treatments were intended to accomplish.  History shows that being dependent on others leads to weakness, and that is all the treatments were making women, weak.  

Any treatment to cure a mental illness will more likely than not be taxing on that certain individual but it should in turn have some sort of payoff.  On the contrary, Gilman, at the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, becomes more insane and has more anxiety than in the beginning of her treatment.  She tears down the wallpaper that she, at this point, despises and worries her husband, John.  “I felt like there was no sign of me getting better even after months of treatment” (Taylor 124).  With no form of payoff and no sense of accomplishment Gilman is left with just an empty shell of what she once was.

When it’s all said, and done, Gilman was practically sentenced to lose herself in her own mind and imagination, which was the only thing she still had after being trapped inside of a room for an extensive amount of time.  At first, it seemed as if writing in her journal kept Gilman sane and would get her through the treatment.  “After a while it seemed as if nothing I could say or do would make me feel any better” (Taylor 65).  Just like the character from Taylor’s novel, Gilman did not know where to turn to when it came to keeping herself in check.

While reading Gilman’s story, there is the idea that it will be a success story and Gilman will in a way emerge victorious against her from of treatment.  But as the story progresses it is revealed that the ghost inside the wallpaper got the best of Gilman.  This rhetorical wallpaper in all of these women’s lives during this time period held them down like a ball and chain attached to their feet.  At this moment, the hope for these women fade and the illusion of insanity becomes reality. 
