Mental health always has, and always will be a topic of debate in our society. The main issue at the core of this argument is that no one really has a way to measure what is going on inside a person’s mind and even if they did, who are they to say what is normal and what isn’t? Due to the complexity of this issue, the standard of mental health treatment has been very dynamic in a short period of time. In the late 1800’s, there were many cultural and societal implications that effected the way people perceived mental illnesses and the people who were effected by them. The way that Charlotte Perkins Gilman illustrates a young mother’s descent in to insanity in “The Yellow Wallpaper” clearly demonstrates the harmful perceptions that were put on women with mental illness’ in the 1800s. The narrator’s forced plunge in to madness shows how in the late 1800s, there were serious patriarchal undertones that took away power from women, causing them to question their own self-perception, and be susceptible to the archaic medical practices of the time. 

In the late 1800s, women were essentially second class citizens according to social standards. They were confined to strict gender roles which were associated with weakness, innocence, and ignorance. Due to this, almost all of the influential roles in society were filled by men, including doctors and scientists. With such a large division of power between genders, there were many opportunities for doctors of the time to brush off, or misunderstand the issues that only women experience. In “The History of Mental Health”, there is evidence that women were institutionalized because they had issues with, “Menstruation-related anger”, “Fatigue” and even “Disobedience” (Bourneville & Régnard par. 3). These issues are usually minor problems that can be resolved with patience and understanding but instead they were all met with punishment. Punishment because they were misunderstood by people who were in a position of power who believed they knew the right diagnosis and there was no opposing voice that could be heard. In relation to the text, when the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” speaks about her husband’s diagnosis of her condition, she states, “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 92). In this case, the narrator’s husband John is using his position as a physician to undermine a serious issue. The narrator clearly believes that she has a condition more severe than “temporary nervous depression” but her husband’s word trumps hers due to the gender roles of the time period. Additionally, the fact that he is a doctor ends up being an issue for the narrator as well. John’s confidence in his own abilities causes him to be blind to the fact that his wife has a condition beyond his own comprehension. Misunderstanding of female specific conditions led to many women being branded as insane when they were not, or slightly debilitated when they had severe mental health issues. 

The remedies that doctors prescribed were in direct correlation with the perception of woman during the late 1800s. The medical community viewed women as weak and feeble, therefore they created cures that corresponded with that assessment. In the story, the narrator describes what John believes will cure her. She states, “I take phosphates or phosphites – whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.” (Gilman 92). More commonly known as the rest cure, this style of medication involved minimizing strenuous activity and maximizing down time. This may seem logical if you are looking at a physical illness but it is very clear that John is not listening to his wife or her requests. He makes her stay in her room and do nothing because he truly believes he knows what is better for his wife than she does. In truth, the remedies that John provided drove his wife to insanity. His constant assurance of care ended up being the narrators demise.

The way that people handled these issues is very constant across all forms of treatment. If one observes the rest cure, it is very focused on concealing any chance of communication or attention to the patient. This mindset of prescription is also apparent in the numerous mental institutions that were around during the late 1800s. In the article “The History of Mental Health” the state of mental health institutions is described. The article states, “In the early part of America’s history, people who had mental illnesses were placed in institutions that were quite similar to jails. Once inside these facilities, people simply weren’t given the opportunity to leave, no matter how much they might want to do so. In addition, some of these facilities had terrible procedural rules that allowed people with illnesses to be treated in ways that were unspeakably cruel.” (Bourneville and Régnard par. 10). Additionally, the article mentions that “Placing the mentally ill in facilities allowed members of the general public to ignore the problem. They didn’t see anyone who had a mental illness roaming the streets, and if they placed a person in an institution like this, they may not have come back to visit or shared stories of any visits they did make. The people just seemed to disappear.” (Bourneville and Régnard par. 5). Upon analyzing the way that people treated the mentally ill in the late 1800s, it is apparent that they did not know how to handle these ill people at all. The fact that the medical health field was essentially turning a blind eye to thousands of people is indicative of the societal implications of the time period. People’s lives were dictated by social norms and anything outside their sphere of comfort directly contradicted those norms. This mindset effected woman in an even more negative manner because they had a larger amount of pressure to act in a certain way. A woman was supposed to be very subservient. Her duty was to develop a safe place for the man to come home to (Gilman 93). The second a woman breached that societal expectation it was very apparent. Thus, when these boundaries were crossed, people did not know how to handle these people so they hid them, and turned a blind eye. In the story, John makes it seem like they are on vacation, but the fact that he keeps the narrator away from her own child and essentially locks her in a room all day is suspicious. It would not be outrageous to infer that the narrator was exhibiting behaviors categorized as strange in that time period and John did not want to have her in public. This mindset of sweeping issues under the rug only worsened the narrator’s issues and was one of the main reasons she ended up going insane.

Mental health care in the late 1800s was a very serious issue. Due to the societal implications of the time period, women’s opinions were not respected or even understood. The lack of knowledge and interest in women’s health issues drove the mental health field to establish a systematic cover up of these issues. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” does an excellent job of clearly illustrating the effects of gender roles on mental health during the time. The narrator is quite clearly mentally ill but because her husband is a physician and believes he knows the best cure for her, he ignores the real issue. The way that he overlooks her own opinion of herself perception is indicative of men’s views towards women in the time period. Women were expected to be ignorant and not understand what was best for them. John took the narrator to a faraway place and implemented what was known as the rest cure at the time. This clearly demonstrates the methods of curing mental health in that time period, ignore the real issues or institutionalize people. The story the “The Yellow Wallpaper” clearly demonstrates how mental health treatment in the late 1800s heavily influenced by gender stereotypes.
