Charlotte Gillman received a rather test of a new cure for mental illness which was, S. Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure.” She wrote a story called, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which entails her experiences and lifestyle while in an asylum which people tried to cure her of postpartum depression. The “rest cure” is why Gilman’s story is written but it also gives an analysis of what all women went through during their treatment and the discrimination that anyone showed against women with this disease.

The “rest cure” treatment had initially been designed to cure mental emotions which were not psychotic disorders just like the one which Gilman had to suffer through. The procedure they used to cure this disease was used mainly on women and was a very in depth, confusing process which involved: 

…Three core elements: isolation, rest, and feeding, with electrotherapy and massage added to counteract muscle atrophy… The patient was instructed to lie in bed for 24 hours each day, sometimes for months at a time, with a special nurse who would sleep on a cot in the room, feed her, and keep her mind from morbid thoughts by reading aloud or discussing soothing topics. Visits from family and friends were forbidden. The day was punctuated by electrotherapy and massage, sponge baths with a “rough rub” using wet sheets, and frequent feedings. The diet consisted of milk alone for the first week, or, if milk was not tolerated, 18 or more raw eggs per day. Detailed dietary instructions were also provided for the obese patient, in those days the exception rather than the rule. The patient would pass into a state of placid contentment. (Martin)

After all this took place and could see improvement in the patient, doctors would then begin to slowly begin to allow the patient to communicate with friends and family until she felt as if she was normal and could return back to a normal lifestyle. This cure came into practice because Mitchell believed women who used to much thinking began to get distracted from what they really were to be doing. At the time, if a woman was not managing the household, she was not doing her job. What Gilman went through and the treatment which she endured, is an example which makes it easy for people to believe today, drove women to that mental state which they should not have been involved in.

Gillman was active feminist and she strove to create an equal lifestyle for men and women. The three months that she spent in the asylum with Mitchell drove her to a state of insanity. The treatment which she received while in the asylum not only did not fit her because the cure was meant to confine the patient while Gilman was active women but also made her state worse which drove her to write “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which shows that the techniques can be unsettling and not accurate for some women.

Mitchell knew the manipulation of women that was involved in this “cure.” His success he from this practicing came from deceiving patients into doing this without them really understanding the treatment. He was a very charming man, which allowed him to use harsh and dominating procedures which never actually helped the women. He received many letters from women which drove him even more to continue this practice. Some of the treatments he used on women were very strange and nothing that could have actually helped. Some of the measures he went to in his practice were things such as, dropping women off far from home to walk back and promote exercise, and making women get up out of bed by threatening them with the thought of getting in bed with them. These tactics included “promoting” exercise by driving women far from home and drop them off, forcing them to walk back and getting patients out of bed by threatening to get in with them. Other doctors that practiced this cure stated that not all women do well with these ideas and makes matters worse. This may have been why Gilman saw her treatment unsuccessful, because the treatment shown on her just did not fit her. Another thing which Gilman did not agree with in this treatment is how her doctor talked down to her like she was a child which obviously did not work either. Mitchell calls her names like darling and dear all through the story and he avoids many questions she asks such as, when they are going home. Examples of this not only show the unfair treatment of the mental women but also the unfair treatment of women as a whole during this time. 

Gilman made the doctor and her husband the same person throughout this story. She believed that both the doctor and her husband lessened her artistic ability while she was in treatment and drove her even more to the mental state they believed she was in.  “John is a physician, and perhaps—I wouldn’t say it to a living soul of course, but this dead paper, and a great relief to my mind—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.” (Writing on Women Writers) They talk down toward Gilman which is something she did not accept nor agree with. Gilman does not like the room she has to stay in from the way she describes it and wishes to be in another room, “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 chitz hangings; but John wouldn’t hear of it,” which John is in charge of the situation so she does have a say in her room. She describes the room she has to stay in as, “…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.” (WOWW) When she describes the room she has to stay in, she explains and shows that it that of a child and a room not fit for a grown woman to stay in. 

The “rest cure” showed to be a key way to influence the traditional gender roles. When Mitchell placed the patients in a resting state and limited physical and mental state he realized in put women in their proper place. He believed that women should not be smart because it was bad for reproduction and their overall health. He also tried to make women that jobs and long amounts of studying were not for women. He states, “She (woman) is physiologically other than the man (Stiles).” Anyone that state man is any different from woman is someone that Gilman would not agree with.

The rest cure which Mitchell began started something in Mrs. Gilman that made her want to expose Mitchell and end this idea of unfair treatment of women in any state. All the hardships Gilman went through can show and identify that this so called cure could have easily drove her to insanity and never showed an intent to cure her. She took her experience in an asylum and while going through rehabilitation to show she a major supporter in feminism and wrote a story which showed the wrongs created from this cure and how unfair women were treated in this period.
