During the nineteenth century, a woman was not treated as an individual. First, they were a part of their father and, then, they were married off to be a part of their husband’s family. This controlling way of life lead to many problems including physical and psychological damage due to doctors taking unnecessary and outright wrong measures because the woman’s feelings and opinions were not taken into consideration. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkin Gilman shows a realistic example of why this controlling tactic can lead to more harm than good. In this story the narrator, who is never named, is diagnosed with a nervous disorder by her doctor, and husband, after she gives birth to their child. Her treatment includes the ideas of S. Mitchell Weir known as “the rest cure”. Over a period of time the complete rest and inability to do anything except lay in bed and stare at the wall causes the narrator’s mental health to decline further and ultimately causes her insanity. By looking at the ideas and social norms behind “the rest cure” and the information now known about postpartum depression the reader is able to better understand the narrator’s actions towards the wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and how this harmful action could have been avoided. This argument is important because it shows how a misdiagnosis and mistreatment of a patient can lead to more suffering than the patient had initially endured. 

The narrator explains that her husband has diagnosed her with temporary nervous depression because of the symptoms she has shown since their child was born. She goes on to say that her husband does not believe that she is actually sick and that he has no doubt “the rest cure” treatment will fix her mental problems. On the other hand, she believes that because he does not listen to what she says about how she feels that it is going to take her longer to get better than it would take other people. The narrator explains, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do? (Gilman 300).” The narrator feels she is unable to disagree with what he husband is say because not only is he a doctor, but also during the Victorian era a husband’s thoughts and opinions were the only ones that mattered. The narrators husband knows that if she has a mental illness it will make the family look weak.

 Women of the Victorian time period were moved to isolated places when they were going to face treatments like the rest cure (Bassuk 246). The Narrator was moved to an isolated plantation outside of the city. Not only was she moved to isolation to be removed from the distractions of her daily life, but she was also moved, to insure her husband’s reputation stayed in good standings in society. Women during the Victorian era were not allowed to make decisions for themselves. Instead they were looked at by a doctor, or in this case the narrators husband, and the decision of treatment and diagnosis would be made without any input from the patient. For women who seem to be suffering from a mental illness, during this time period, the rest cure was a common treatment (Bassuk 248). Because of the odd way of diagnosis, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” was most likely misdiagnosed and therefore given the wrong treatment. 

With the information known about medicine today, a doctor would have taken the patients information, own thoughts, and own feelings into consideration when making a diagnosis of the narrator. Because there would have been further exploration, a more likely diagnosis would have been Postpartum Depression. The narrator has just had a child. She believes she is unable to care for her child because she fears it. She describes, “But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him (Gilman 301).” The narrator is unable to tell her husband how she feels about her child. If her thoughts were taken into consideration Postpartum Depression could be a more accurate diagnosis. There are three type of Postpartum Depression. One type is described as a woman who is unable to take care of their child or themselves. This is considered a severe case in which mothers may start to see hallucinations; which the narrator does with the women she believes is in the wall paper of her room (Bateman 58). If a correct diagnosis was made in the narrator’s situation she may have received a better suited treatment and could have overcome her mental struggle. 

The narrator’s treatment is complete rest for 6 to 8 weeks, which includes bed rest and excessive feeding. She was supposed to spend her time in her bed and only focus on getting well. The narrator was of course not supposed to write; but she kept a journal where she was able to express her feelings. To offset the harm that could come from bed confinement a patient may endure massage therapy, electricity therapy, and hydrotherapy. To ensure that a patient would not be distracted and to insure complete rest a patient could be moved from their comfortable environment to a place that is unfamiliar (Bassuk 248). The narrator’s husband and the narrator moved to a plantation outside of the city for the summer. She was unable to stay in the room she chose on the first floor. She instead stayed in a room on the second floor where she was unable to go outside. The narrator describes the room: “It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with the windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things on the walls (Gilman 301).” The description of the room suggests that someone has experienced a similar treatment in the room before her. All of these are things that the narrator could have endured during her rest cure treatment. Although research shows some women did benefit from this treatment, in some cases, like the narrator’s, the rest cure caused more psychological damage to the patient only making the severity of the situation worse. 

Throughout the development of the story the narrators condition only gets worse. The narrator is forced to hide her journal from the people treating her because expressing one’s feelings and writing in a journal is not part of the “rest cure” protocol. This hidden activity leads to paranoia and further mental health problems. Also, the narrator is stuck in the same room for weeks which leads her to overthink and over analyze the wallpaper in the room. Her obsession with the wallpaper leads to hallucinations that have caused her to think a woman is stuck behind the wallpaper. By the end of the story the narrator’s insanity has reached a new level and she starts to mistake herself as the woman who is stuck behind the wallpaper. The way she is being treated makes her feel trapped like the woman behind the wallpaper. Because the narrator’s husband is not around most of the time, he is unable to see that the narrator is not benefitting from the treatment. Even if the narrator’s husband was around more her condition may not have improved because the narrator’s thoughts and feelings would not have been taken into consideration.  At the end of the story the narrator has become insane. Her insanity is outed when her husband walks into the narrator’s bedroom to see she is pulling the wallpaper off the wall freeing the woman behind the wallpaper and ultimately freeing what she believes is herself (Gilman 311). The psychological pain the narrator suffering from was much worse at the end of the story than it was at the start of the story. The narrator was already suffering from a serious condition, which today would be diagnosed as postpartum depression, at the beginning of the story, and the misdiagnosis and mistreatment, due to poor communication and unjust social standards, only caused more harm than good to the patient. 

“The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays a common treatment of women suffering from mental illness during the Victorian era. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was a victim of the “rest cure” and did not benefit from the treatment. Because Gilman experienced a similar situation of the narrator, one is able to infer that the short story gives an accurate idea of the Victorian time period and the culture of society during this time. Although in some cases woman benefited from Victorian medicine treatments, like the “rest cure”, because of the obscure ideas of society and the culture of the time period, often women suffered from Victorian medicine. As time has passed and medicine has developed, women do not have to worry about the negative outcomes of the “rest cure”, or misdiagnosis because their thoughts and opinions are always taken into consideration by doctors. 
