Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who is most known for her writing of The Yellow Wallpaper, was a powerful woman writer during her time. Charlotte Perkins Gilman creates a horrifying image of entrapment in The Yellow Wallpaper. She tells the story of a young woman undergoing the rest cure treatment by her husband, who is also her psychiatrist. She is stuck between trying to beat and overcome her illness, the way she wishes to overcome it, in a healthy way and also trying to please her husband as he thinks he knows what is best for his wife. This causes an even greater deal of mental strain and insanity that adds on to the woman’s already existing symptoms of mental illness. Throughout the entire story, Gilman exposes the rest cure for how dangerous it can be, and to inform other women of the harmful effects of this treatment.   

The Rest Cure was developed in the late 1800’s by Silas Weir Mitchell, who was an American neurologist (Poirier). The rest cure was widely used throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. It was prescribed more often for women than it was for men. This treatment usually lasted about six to eight weeks and was known to keep some patients alive and others out of asylums, though some patients and doctors considered the cure worse than the disease because of tedious conditions that patients had to sometimes go through such as refraining from talking, reading, writing and even sewing. The rest cure involved isolation from friends and family and enforced bed rest.

One of the sources I acquired information from on the rest cure was exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu which is a website that explores the culture of nervous exhaustion. This website is relevant to the topic of the rest cure, which was used for the treatment of hysteria, neurasthenia and other nervous illnesses. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the topic of the rest cure is used to cure the narrator. The narrator of the story, without realizing it is suffering from a mental illness herself, and is therefore taken to an old abandoned “house” to help cure her mental illness using the rest cure. This is seen all throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” as the narrator is put into isolation throughout the whole story. She is away from her husband and is restricted from talking and writing, even though she still does in secret. Silas Weir Mitchell believed the point of the rest cure was physical and moral (The Neurasthenia Rest Cure), which is seen towards the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper” when the narrator finds herself again. 

From reading this story, one can see the harmful and damaging effects of John’s treatment of the narrator just by analyzing her response to the rest cure. The narrator, at first tries to battle against the growing fatigue and dullness that overcomes her. The narrator even argues with John about his treatment for her and tries to challenge it, but with no luck. But interestingly, part of her believes that John is wrong, but another part the narrator has assumed the discouraging definitions of womanhood and she believes that since he is the man, the physiatrist, the husband, and therefore the authority figure, then he may be correct in knowing what is best for her. Because the narrator and John hold unequal power positions in their marriage and in society, she lacks the nerve and self-esteem to stand up for herself and her will over his even though she knows that his “treatment” of the rest cure is doing more harm for her than it is good. Since the narrator is withdrawn from any fun and meaningful actives, and loses sight of herself and who she is as a woman, she becomes perplexed and ironically becomes childlike with her fascination for the shadows in the wallpaper.

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator says, “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs, that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the windows, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings; but John wouldn’t hear of it” (300). Although she despised the room, she was confined by her husband and had no way of escaping. Gilman continues to express how much the narrator hated the room by saying, “It is a big airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunlight galore. It was nursery first, and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge, for the windows are barred for little children and there are rings and things in the walls” (301). The narrator was babied and pampered as if she were a child; however, John was not present to her when she needed him. Actually, John rarely was present to her. Instead of giving her attention she deserved, he left her alone in a nursery with barred windows. When John was around, he treated her as if she were a baby, not a full grown woman. The rest cure treatment reflects the statements he says to her throughout the story about the room. Throughout the entire story, Gilman illustrates the disrespect both her husband who is also her psychiatrist, had for the narrator. 

One can clearly see that the author of this story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, felt passionately about women suffrage. She made clear in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that gender does not play any role in the mental capacities of men and women. “The Yellow Wallpaper” also shows all that women had to go through to be heard and listened to. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a notable and influential story in terms of history because of the positive effects that it helped to bring for women. Gilman wrote this story during a time when women suffrage was rarely spoken of and women were seen as inferior to men and also treated inferior to men. It is important to look back and remember how far women have come since Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” Since she wrote the story, women have gained many of the rights that men had for a while before women prior to the writing of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. There has been improvement for women in rights and how they are viewed in society but there are still many more miles to go before women and men are completely equal.
