From medicine to equipment, the health industry has undergone extreme enhancement over the years. In today’s world, there are vaccines for diseases that nearly always ended in death a hundred years ago and newer medical equipment has allowed for quicker procedures and recoveries. While the medicine and equipment aspect of the health industry has undergone an obvious modernization, the way people view certain diseases has also drastically changed. The greatest example of this would be mental health. Mental illnesses are treated and viewed extremely different today than they were nearly a hundred years ago. Today, a person diagnosed with a mental illness will be prescribed a certain medicine and sent to receive psychiatric help from a professional, but it has not always been this way. Nearly a hundred years ago, any sort of mental illness meant isolation and excommunication. Practices such as these are described in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In this story the main character is a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. This particular type of depression occurs after a woman has given birth to her baby and makes her feel tired, melancholy, and hopeless. In most cases this condition will only last between a few days to a week or to, but in more dramatic cases it can last months (mayoclinic.org).  In order to be cured of this condition, she is sent to stay in a house away from society. Although her husband is there at times, she spends a majority of her time alone in a cramped yellow room and is slowly driven insane. The Rest Cure was clearly a huge influence for this story. Gilman uses this narrative to show just how women and mental illnesses were treated before today’s modernized treatments. 

Gilman wrote this story in order to bring attention to the damaging effects of the Rest Cure. This cure was initiated by an American neurologist named Silas Weir Mitchell. He created the treatment during the 19th century in an attempt to cure hysteria, neurasthenia, anorexia nervosa, and other mental illnesses. Although this treatment was intended to care for both men and women, the Rest Cure was administered to mostly women. This treatment was an attempt to keep people from being admitted to an asylum, yet many patients claimed that this treatment was far worse than their impaired mental health. This is due to the brutal isolation and stern treatment that the patients received. This particular cure required the patient to remain in isolation for up to eight weeks. During this time the patient was forced to be dependent on the nurses and staff. An admitted patient would experience bed rest followed by a “fatty, milk-based diet” which was often force fed to them. The patient was forced to be so dependent that the nurses had to turn each patient over in their bed as well as bathe them and massage their muscles. Mitchell believed that by forcing the patients into a dependent isolation, they would have an increase in weight and blood supply. He also believed that by keeping them away from potentially toxic social situations their mental health would improve.  Although Mitchell may have had good intentions, his cure ultimately broke a patient’s will rather than improve their mental health. 

It is interesting to think about how a neurologist could come up with something so callous in an attempt to help those with a mental illness. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this cure is that nearly all of Mitchell’s patients were women. To no surprise, women were not pleased with this treatment and believed it was merely Mitchell’s way of reinforcing oppression on women. Many women who psychologically survived the treatment argued that this cure was a sexist strategy to ensure women remain submissive to the male population by claiming that it was beneficial for their health. Gilman strongly believed that the Rest Cure was more detrimental than constructive. Her story reflects the culture of the 19th century and how women and mentally ill people were treated. During the 19th century, women were expected to be more submissive than they are today. A majority of women during that time remained at home while the men pursued a career. “The Yellow Wallpaper” reflects these attitudes towards women by showing the dramatic steps taken to cure the woman of her postpartum depression. Not only does this story show how women were treated, but also how mental illness in general was dealt with. In today’s society, a person is only sent to a mental health institution if their condition is extreme. However, in the 19th century a person with any kind of mental instability was admitted into an asylum. Anyone admitted into an asylum at that time was an automatically considered an outcast and was often times unable to return to society without a tainted reputation. Gilman’s story shows just how dramatic the procedures were for treating mental illnesses. For example, if a woman today was diagnosed with postpartum depression she would be prescribed medicine and expected to spend her daily life as she normally would. However, in the 19th century, as Gilman shows, a woman with this condition was sent into isolation and forced to be dependent on others. In the story, the woman is kept in the house and is not allowed to go outside. Her gradual obsession with the yellow wallpaper drives her from being depressed to being mentally unstable. Gilman demonstrates how isolation and forced dependency can lead a person into insanity despite his or her original condition. 

What would have happened if the woman in the story was not sent into isolation, but rather continued to live her life as she normally would? It is most likely that she would not have gone insane, but would have eventually healed on her own. Mitchell’s theory was that a woman’s mental health would improve when she was removed from toxic social situations. This is why the Rest Cure forces women to endure isolation. Clearly, as seen in the story, this theory was unsuccessful. For typical postpartum depression, a woman will feel ashamed and hopeless for a number of days, weeks, or even months. Typically, it is treated with prescriptions or therapeutic measures, but there are also instances where simply time is needed. (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). These treatments have proven to be far more beneficial for a woman suffering from postpartum depression than sending her away into isolation for several weeks. Had the woman from “The Yellow Wallpaper” been provided with therapy or given a particular prescription, she most likely would not have gone insane. Her descent into insanity is first seen in the story when she starts talking about the woman that lives in the yellow wallpaper (page 307 Carolina Reader). She claims that this woman would move the pattern on the wallpaper and that she “creeps” around during the day (page 309 Carolina Reader). Her obsession with the horrid yellow wallpaper led her to believe that there was an actual woman living in it. Although crazy, it is understandable. She had been locked in a single room with a dull, yellow wallpaper for weeks with nothing to do. It is understandable that her mind would wonder and eventually lose sight of sanity. Had she not been sent to this room, there would be no reason for her mind to wonder as it did. Most women suffering postpartum depression today force themselves to live their daily lives as they normally would. This helps them move past their poor mental state and return to a healthy state of mind. Locking a woman with a minor mental illness away for long periods of time will only increase the damaging effects of the mental illness. For this reason, it is easy to understand that if the woman had simply moved forward with her life rather than be forced to abandon her child and endure constant isolation, she most likely would have recovered from her postpartum depression. 

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” successfully illustrates the damaging effects of the Rest Cure. She uses the narrator of the story to show the gradual descent from being depressed to being completely mentally unstable. In the beginning of the story, the woman showed no signs of insanity. She simply believed that since her husband suggested this treatment, it would work best for her. Mitchell believed that his Rest Cure would be successful by taking patients away from potentially toxic situations and forcing them to be reliant on others during their isolation. To no surprise, many women including Gilman became furious with this treatment and argued that it was oppressive and detrimental (sciencemuseum.org.uk). Today’s advanced medicine and treatments clearly prove to be a better solution to mental illnesses such as postpartum depression. Rather than locking a depressed woman away for a number of weeks and forcing dependency on her, today’s procedure merely requires a simply prescription and therapeutic treatments. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a clear representation of how both women and mental illnesses were managed during the 19th century and why modern treatments are much more beneficial. 
