Before reading “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it is important for the reader to understand the way mental health in women was viewed and treated during the 19th century when the story was written. In this story by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, a wife is placed into an asylum where her husband works as a physician. He forced her into this asylum due to her postpartum depression. As the story progresses, we can see that her admittance in the asylum only worsened her conditions and forced her into a more mentally ill state than before. We are lead to believe that at the end of the story her mental condition resulted in suicide. In order to gain more information about the history of women’s mental illnesses and their admittance in asylums in the late 19th century, I read two historical articles, “Diagnosing Difficult Women and Pathologising Femininity: Gender Bias in Psychiatric Nosology” and “Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women’s Admission to Asylums in United States of America”. The first historical article was written by Jane M Ussher from the University of Western Sydney, Australia. The purpose of the article is to classify the disorders of mental illness in women throughout the course of history, specifically in the 16th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. I focused on the section written about the diagnosis of hysteria and neurasthenia, two common names that physicians of the time gave these diseases. The second article, written by Katherine Pouba and Ashley Tianen, also gives information about the mental illnesses of women. However, this article focuses more on the lack of rights that women had on their own mental health and the symptoms that qualified them to be sent to these mental institutions. Both of these articles contain beneficial history of the diagnosis and admittance of women against their own will in the late 19th century as they relate to “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

The purpose of the article, “Diagnosing Difficult Women and Pathologising Femininity: Gender Bias in Psychiatric Nosology” is to classify the disorders of mental illness, known as “psychiatric nosology”, in women during this time. The author quotes several 19th century male physicians and their descriptions of two mental diseases, hysteria and neurasthenia. These are two names that physicians of the time gave these mental diseases. The author points out that mental illness was one of the most common diagnosis for women during this time and that men were rarely diagnosed with these conditions. Women are referred to as “difficult women” in the text by male physicians, showing us the gap between genders during this time (Ussher, 63). The first mental illness mentioned is hysteria, referred in the article as “the most commonly diagnosed ‘female malady’ of the 18th and 19th century” (Ussher, 64). Patients with this disorder are seen by physicians as “evil”, “manipulative”, overdramatic, and seeking attention (Ussher, 64). A physician of the time, named Silas Weir Mitchell, is quoted in the article when he compares a woman with hysteria to a “’vampire who sucks the blood of the healthy people around her’” (Ussher, 64). The second classified illness, neurasthenia, was used in a much lighter sense as compared with hysteria and given to those patients that they believed were not nearly as ill as those diagnosed as hysteric. Patients with neurasthenia exhibited some of the same symptoms of hysterics, however are “characterized by an ‘ill-defined set of symptoms-a form of nervous exhaustion’ (Busfield, 1996: 130)” (Ussher, 64). These descriptions of both hysteria and neurasthenia show how these mental illnesses were looked down upon and harshly categorized conditions by physicians.

This article gave me a better idea of how the wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was diagnosed by her husband who was a physician. Knowing the way physicians lacked the real understanding of mental health diseases during this time makes physician treatment plans, like John in Gillman’s story, much more understandable. John sees his wife’s condition as what he describes as “a temporary nervous depression,” which is a very common description of the disease neurasthenia (Gillman, 300). These “nervous” symptoms were just her depression after having her child. As the story progresses, we can see how the wife’s behavior changed from the beginning to end, going from exhibiting signs of postpartum depression to later developing signs of a mental illness which lead to her death. His course of treatment and outlook of mental health compares to the way the other physicians in “Diagnosing Difficult Women and Pathologising Femininity: Gender Bias in Psychiatric Nosology” did. The wife explains at the beginning that physicians like her husband and brother “assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency…” (Gillman, 300). This description is one that is very similar to that of neurasthenia. The woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” says, “John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell” (Gillman, 303). This doctor is the same one in the article who compared women with hysteria to vampires, allowing us to understand that the wife feared this doctor even more than her husband due to the way he viewed woman’s mental health and therefore diagnosed it. 

Along with placing the wife’s disease into a category we can also see that due to this diagnosis she was forced into an asylum against her will. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the wifes admittance into the mental hospital was not up to her and she was forced into it by her husband. The article, “Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women’s Admission to Asylums in United States of America”, describes how women held “dismal” positions in not only their work but their marriages and relationships as well. It points out that there were very few laws in place to protect womens rights, and that they were not often enforced. The article quotes one law that states, ““Whether man places her on a level with himself or estimates her merely as his slave still there must be legislation in respect of her, if not for her, still she must be protected”(Davis, 1854, p. 2)”” (Pouba, 97). Due to these lack of rights, men often took advantage of their wives’ mental health. The article includes medical files from the Mendota Medical Asylum from 26 women who were admitted by their husbands. It mentions that two of the most common reasons for admittance of women by their husbands was for disagreements in religion and mensturation. The author describes one admitted woman named Elizabeth Packyard, who was sent in by her husband against her own will. Since she was in disagreement with her husband’s religious beliefs, and the mother of six was sent out of the house and labeled as “crazy.” This article describes how many situations like this occurred during the late 19th century. The wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was sent by her husband as well and although she stated she wanted to leave, her opinion did not matter. Although we are not aware if there was an underlying reason to her admittance by her husband, we do know that it was against her own will just like Elizabeth Packyard. She was lied to by her husband about where they actually were several times and made to believe she would benefit from this “house” that he placed her in. After being in the house for a couple pf months she says to John, “…so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished her would take me away” (Gillman, 306). John replies to her that their “lease will be up in three weeks” and does not give her to option to do what she chooses (Gillman, 306). These women who were admitted to Mendota Medical Asylum were similarly mistreated by their husbands and forced into living in an asylum just as the wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was. 

The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” can be understood a lot easier by understanding the historical background of the time period. It is important for the reader to understand the “reasons” that women were sent to asylums by men as well as the common disgnosis that they were given by psychologist of the time. It is also important to see how psychologists classified different diseases. The wife in the story was diagnosed very similarly to one of the diseases mentioned in the article, and it gave me a better idea as to why they believed certain women needed to be admitted for these symptoms. Both of these articles can be very beneficial to the reader in understanding “The Yellow Wallpaper” as an article of this time period. 
