Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper there are several instances in which the narrator, a women living with her husband and newborn child, is treated harshly and unfairly. She is locked away in a room on the top level of the building when she wishes to be near the bottom, she is separated from her newborn child who is cared for solely by a nanny, and her husband refuses to have company come to visit no matter how many times she asks him to invite people over. The Yellow Wallpaper takes place in the 1900’s, which is a time when Unfair treatment of women was a highly common occurrence. It was firmly believed in by society’s standards that women were strictly meant to be housewives and caregivers. The women had extremely stereotypical roles that, at least most of, have since been overcome in modern times. If a woman chose to marry, she would stay home to look after the children and do housework while the man went out and worked to bring in a wage. If she were not old enough to marry or had chosen not to marry, she would take on jobs that involved cooking and cleaning, most job opportunities were those that were considered to be a woman’s work and reflected the types of responsibilities that a woman would take on at home, such as waitressing (Science).

In the beginning of the story the narrator states that her husband is a physician. With this being stated it would be presumed that her husband, John, would be very fit to take good care of his wife. The narrator argues that she is sick, that she is not mentally well, however her husband refuses to believe this. Her brother who is also a physician of good standing agrees that there is nothing wrong with her. They both claim that she has temporary nervous depression and that she just needs to rest until she is well again. This is only the beginning of the unfair treatment throughout the book, and is one of many times that the needs of the narrator are downplayed and brushed off because she is a woman. The “rest cure” was a popular “treatment for hysteria, neurasthenia, and other nervous illnesses, prescribed more often for women than men.” (Science).  The rest cure lasted about 6 to 8 weeks. It involved isolation from family and friends, insisted on bed rest for the patient, a strict diet, and intensive care and supervision. Many patients, most of whom were women being cared for by a man, were restricted from writing, reading, talking, or even common activities that the patient would enjoy, such as sewing or gardening. The narrator mentions in the story that she secretly wishes that she could write and read but that she is forbidden to do so, and her husband insist that it is for her best interest that she does not. 

The rest cure is the approach that John used on the narrator. During the rest cure patients were often reduced to the dependency of an infant. They would be force fed a milk based diet, and nurses would bathe and feed them, much like the way a baby is taken care of when it is first born. Examples of this type of behavior can be seen in the way that John begins to treat the narrator progressively more like a she is a child as the story continues. In one instance the narrator states “John gathered me up in his arms, and carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head” (Gilman 305). The way that John picks her up as though she is a child and carries her to bed, and then reads her to sleep, can be seen as a method of the resting cure. John is acting as if she is incapable of taking care of her own basic needs, and seems to be convincing her that she truly cannot care for herself, thus making the narrator increasing dependent on John. This can also be seen as making her submissive to male dominance, just as the angry arguments made against the resting cure state. 

One of the main ideas of the resting cure was to remove the women from a potentially toxic social atmosphere that may be in her home. Patients would be moved out of his/her, most commonly her, safe and comfortable home environment. The patient would be moved elsewhere away from everything familiar to her and all her contact with home would be cut off. This was said to be for the patient’s own good. However, it later became argued that the idea behind the rest cure was to reinforce that women should submit unquestioningly to their male authorities because it was good for their health (Trueman). We see the idea of moving a patient from their home in The Yellow Wallpaper as John has moved the “family” to a mansion for the summer, away from their home and he refused to allow the narrator to visit her cousin Henry and his wife Julia, and he did not allow the couple to come and visit her. He also separates her from her new born child and does not allow her to see him, even though she states that she wishes she could. The rest cure was also thought to boost the patient’s weight and increase their blood supply, as referenced when John reassured the narrator that they must stay where they are until she has made a full recovery. As the narrator pleas to leave John tries to comfort her, “I am a doctor dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you.” (Gilman 306) This could arguably be johns attempt at convincing the narrator to submit to him and let him be in control of her. 

The unfair treatment of women spread beyond the resting cure. Overall women were not treated as equals to men in society. Most young women were expected to get married and have children, the women that did manage to get a job were mostly domestic servants and teachers and majority of the servants were poorly educated. The educated women who chose to take on the challenge of being a teacher, mostly taught early education; men taught secondary level schools because they were thought to be more intelligent and more capable of teaching higher level material. (Trueman) In addition to be looked down upon as being less educated and capable, and the unfair, discriminating job opportunities that were available to them, during the 1900’s women were commonly trapped in an unsatisfactory, miserable marriage. Because they were thought to be lesser of a person, and a woman’s wants and needs were put behind a man’s, a woman was not able to speak up for herself when she was unhappy with her partner or her life.  Divorces back in the 1900’s were few and far between and even if a woman wanted a divorce she most likely could not divorce her husband due to the fact that she was dependent on him. A women would not have been able to have the financial stability that was needed to survive on her own. In Gilman’s story, John has made himself the dominant half of the couple. He cut her off from the rest of the world, and even her own child. She was not allowed to write or read and most of the time could not leave the room with the yellow wallpaper. So, even if she wished to divorce him, she would have nowhere to go, no way to reach out to her family and friends, no money of her own, and would, quite possibly, have to choose to leave behind her child because she never has contact with him and would not know how to take care of him. 

The 1800s and 1900s were famously known as “the golden age of hysteria” (postpartum). Often women’s nervousness or anxieties would be classified and dismissed as hysteria, making the situation seem more dramatic than it truly may have been. In addition to that, the correct diagnosis may not have been made, so many women would continue to suffer through a mental illness with no help or guidance. Hysteria was classified as strictly a women’s illness, and was believed to be caused by her emotionality. Basically, a women’s feelings and emotions were significantly more fragile than a man’s emotions and thus women were much more likely to become hysterical (postpartum). Because postpartum depression was not diagnosed as a legitimate mental condition, it was most often classified as hysteria by a default diagnosis. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator never blatantly states that she is depressed. However, she does state that she is sure that she “never used to be so sensitive” and then that she thinks “it is due to this nervous condition” or in other words, before she had a baby she was not as nervous and sensitive as she presently is, and thus the nervousness could be highly likely to be linked to postpartum depression (Gilman 300). The narrator makes multiple references to not feeling well and being anxious or nervous. The fact that John separated her from their newborn child does not seem to help her nervous feelings and is probably causing them to be heightened. The narrator could be demonstrating signs of what we now know to be postpartum depression. Such as, poor eating habits, nervousness, and feelings of being insignificant. 

The narrator having postpartum depression can be recognized through her mopping, being disconnected from her child, loss of appetite and poor sleep habits. All of which John has dismissed as hysteria, just as the rest of the world would have done during this time period. A common symptom of postpartum depression is a mother not feeling bonded with her new baby. The narrator does not have the chance to be bonded with her baby because the baby is kept by a nanny and she rarely interacts with him. Women with postpartum depression will often skip the phase of “new mom bliss”, which the narrator has been forced to do (Postpartum). Instead of being joyful and celebrating the birth of her child, the narrator is locked in a room away from her baby. She mentions him briefly and expresses that she wishes she could see him. It is also mentioned that she has lost a good deal of weight and that her appetite is poor, which is also a notable symptom of postpartum. 

Unfair treatment of women and unequal standing of women to men in the 1900s plays a big part in aiding the storyline of The Yellow Wallpaper. The cultural beliefs and society stereotypes contribute greatly to the shaping of the story and the rather odd interactions that occur between the narrator and her husband John. The major key points of history in the story are unfair treatment of women during the 1900’s, the resting cure, and postpartum depression. The unfair treatment of women is seen in the way that John does not treat the narrator as if she is an equal person. The resting cure is the way that John choses to deal with her nervous, anxious feelings and a way that John tries to get the narrator to do what he wants and be submissive to him. Postpartum depression, which was common in the 1900’s and is still pretty common today, is seen in the actions of the author. 
