While many of us have had an illness that got multiple diagnoses from different professional opinions from multiple sources of specialized doctors, we usually always get a clear and concise answer with a treatment to help the symptoms go away. These doctors that we give our trust to, in order to answer our own questions, must go through an extensive educational process to give them the authority to tell us what’s wrong with our bodies. This, unfortunately, wasn’t always the case. Doctors in the time of, and prior to, the text, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” were mere mortals compared to doctors today. They went through a very inclusive, and misleading educational process in which they were not taught any more than today’s first year nursing student. An early critic of our system, from 1500 on was Oliver Cromwell, “nature can do more than physicians.” We needed to change the way our physicians were taught to diagnose and treat a disease, especially the ones they couldn’t physically see. 

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. The text starts with the narrator arriving in awe to her summer vacation home picked out by her husband. She describes the estate as a haunted house and consciously questions the fiscal setback caused by the property. She feels uneasy about the situation and blames her “nervous depression.” The narrator also belittles her own marriage with her husband, John. John isn’t only the narrator’s husband, but her doctor as well. She complains that he criticizes not only her and their marriage, but her illness that he was treating with little care. Her treatment consisted of just about nothing; no active exercises, reading, or writing although she felt that exercising her mind and freedom would improve her condition. The narrator confined in to the audience and reveals a secret journal, a diary of sorts, in order to exercise her mind and feel at ease. As her first attempt to channel the inner workings of her tangled mind, the narrator starts describing the house. Her description is generally happy with interesting interludes of scary scenes of “rings and things” and “bars on the doors” (Gilman 301). As the description progresses, the narrator keens in on the yellow wallpaper with a strange pattern. As the summer progressed, the narrator became impressive at hiding her journal, and in turn, hiding her thoughts from John. All of her writings refer back to the yellow wallpaper in the room. As she continues, the narrator’s imagination expands and she writes that she has now seen people around the house and enjoys the scene, although John discourages it. As time passes and the months go by, the narrator becomes fixated on the wallpaper. John mistakes the obsession for tranquility and believes the narrator is improving and leaves her alone. Yet, her mental health only gets worse and worse. She becomes so fixed on the wallpaper that she envisions a woman in the paper, behind bars, trying to fight her way out. Once she’s alone, the narrator goes into frenzy, shredding the wallpaper off the wall and tearing it to bits. By the end of the text, the narrator is insane and realizes that she herself is the trapped woman. 

“The Yellow Wallpaper” brought forth the idea of a disease that came and went within 1800 and 1900. The disease went by the name neurasthenia, characterized as, “an ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance” (Dictionary.com). George Beard first diagnosed the disease, neurasthenia in 1869 and within years it was the most prevalent diagnosis within the rich, women, and medical personnel themselves. The disorder was associated with many different diseases as a symptom of major mental health disorders and diseases of the day. Yet as symptoms progressed, doctors took notice and created its own symptom cluster which included mental and physical fatigue. The most common symptoms of the disease were described by EG Gosling in his book, “Before Freud” which followed 307 cases of neurasthenia and documented their symptoms and feelings toward their diagnosis. In it he states that the common symptoms included “insomnia, lack of concentration, depression, fears, and irritability” (Gosling). The disease grew in popularity and by the late 1800s it was a “fashionable disease” (Gosling). As neurasthenia became more of a phenomenon rather than a genuine disease, myths circulated causing research to be done at the end of the nineteenth century to conclude what the disease actually consisted of. 

Ruth Taylor outlined many myths in a collection of papers titled Death of neurasthenia and its psychological reincarnation. Researchers concluded that neurasthenia was a disease that was not diagnosed to the poor and the diagnosis was more prevalent in women (Taylor).  Of those diagnosed with neurasthenia many whom were affiliated with the luxuries of life and the “vices of modern society” (Taylor 1), this was stated by George Beard himself.  Those considered intellectuals, with a refined nervous system, were more prone to the disease, including physicians and authors. Alongside this consensus of neurasthenia effecting people of a higher class, conclusions were made upon gender. Elaine Showalter presented the feminist view of the topic, stating that the disease was a way to protest their empty lives, overrun by men (Showalter 27). This poses as a relatively commercial topic of discussion. There has been much debate on whether the refinement of the mind has altered any pieces of literature. In the case of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself suffered from neurasthenia, and it attacked her mind. Gilman, a woman and author, was the prototypical patient to be treated with the disease, although the treatments were done by those far too little qualified to make a call on a patient’s mental health. (Taylor). “Many women that were successful writers such as Virginia Wolfe and Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered from the disease, describing the myth outlined by gender and social standing very prevalent” (Taylor 3). 

As a disease was distinguished within “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the audience’s attention can quickly avert from it, and quickly turn toward the oppressive treatment received by the narrator from her husband and doctor. Doctoral education in the United States gained traction around 1700 when clergyman Cotton Mather brought forth healing arts via herbal remedies and folk practices. The medicine did not work all too well, and by 1800 the life expectancy of someone was, at average, twenty-five years. As medicine grew, practitioners became common place. This caused a dilemma because they had had no real medical education, for it was reserved for the few that could afford it. Multiple medical schools began to take shape around the early nineteenth century; twenty-six colleges for medicine were instituted, rivaling the four that were previously erected for the same purpose. By 1876, there were seventy-seven total medical schools in the United States. Yet, there were issues within the system causing apprenticeship to take off as a form, a very common form, of medical education. This proved disastrous for experience and qualitative analysis. The apprenticeships were merely internships, where no medical gain was received, only perceived. The quality of the schools was terribly horrendous that entry requirements were nonexistent other than the monetary value of tuition. They only had four lectures, and seven classes to cover to get their medical work. Many doctors of the time were not qualified to deal with any type of illness from the common cold to the mentally ill. This seems to be a very primitive topic development in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As her husband treats her, the narrator leaves much unknown about her actual wellbeing-in retrospect to history (Britannica). The lack of qualifications is incredibly and beautifully portrayed by Gilman, as she emphasizes the lack of logical treatments of the narrator in order to help her remain at peace and sane. John treats the narrator as if she is inferior although she complies with his every command, “At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient that to give way to such fantasies” (Gilman 302). This not only shows the ego of John, but his lack of actual knowledge of the patients condition. 

The text “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a “semi-autobiographical tale that Gilman described as ‘a description of a case of nervous breakdown beginning as mine did, and treated as Dr. S. Weir Mitchell treated me with what I considered the inevitable result, progressive insanity” (Carolina Reader 299). This quote parallels everything that was wrong with neurasthenia and the qualifications of the doctors whom made this not only a disease but phenomenon. The history behind not only the doctoral process and the disease, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself shapes the text in a way that a reader won’t see in today’s era. As stated before, this piece was written as a semi-autobiographical piece to parallel Gilman’s experience and fight with neurasthenia. Gilman was an upper middle class, wealthy woman whom had become a very extravagant and celebrated author. With this lifestyle and all the luxuries that came with it, Gilman still felt a need for fulfillment, to better her own legacy. This caused a nervousness that evolved into what had been diagnosed as neurasthenia. As she tried to battle the inner workings of her tangled and obsessive mind, Gilman noticed that it was apparent that she seek help, and she found that in Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Much to her dismay, the treatments that were given to her to ease her mind were inadequate in Gilman’s opinion. This shapes the framework of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The narrator’s husband, and doctor, prescribes treatments that seem ludicrous and unhelpful; proving to be just that. This story is a way to criticize the doctorial qualifications of the doctors of their day. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own history shapes this text; it makes this text. Yet, it can also be seen as a cry for help. Help for the readers to make a stand for women’s rights, and make a protest against the education the doctors were receiving; to make the education level higher and more competitive. Yet, what makes the story so clearly effected by her own history, and history of the disease she was diagnosed with, is that the text seems like a cry for personal help.    

After reading the troubling tale, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it is apparent that help was needed and change was to be had as soon as possible. The work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman highlighted what was wrong with the society of the day. Doctoral qualifications were set so low that they created a disease that was abolished after the development of advanced medical education.  As well, doctors did not know how to treat those who were mentally inept. It was crucial for people to see that change was needed in order to improve these things. Although a cry for help, Gilman’s work set forth an ongoing precedent of qualification and certainty in the medical field that is still held to a high standard today. 
