Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, to challenge the traditional female role in the late 1800s and early 1900s, specifically through her main character’s descent into insanity. The main character, named Jane, suffers from neurasthenia, a disease that was prominent at the end of the nineteenth century. Her husband, and doctor, John, tells her to stay in bed and does not allow her to have any company. This begins Jane’s fascination with the wallpaper hanging in her room. She becomes obsessed with it, and tries to free the woman she believes is trapped behind it. Jane slowly goes insane, and becomes the woman trapped behind the wallpaper. Gilman uses Jane as a representation of all women who are controlled by men, as Jane in controlled by John. Gilman employs her story as a warning to women, to break out of their assigned gender role, being a wife and a mother, or else risk insanity. 

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a common disease found in women was hysteria. While a few men were affected by it, hysteria was “primarily a female disease” (Meek 3). Richard Blackmore, a physician in the 1700s, describes violent ways of treating his patients affected with hysteria, “when a Vein is speedily opened…the Disease is usually removed” (Meek 4). Another noted physician, Nicholas Robinson, recommends the same treatment, “let Leeches be apply’d to the Veins” (Meek 4).  While these treatments for hysteria might or might not have worked, they served an entirely different purpose to doctors. The violent treatment of bloodletting was a way to enforce gender roles during this time period. Males generally had total control of women, but men did not know how to truly treat and cure hysteria, so they could not totally control women afflicted with hysteria. Thus, they produced these violent treatments, as “a means of silencing or punishing patients” (Meek 4) as well as attempting to show their mastery of hysteria. While hysteria and neurasthenia share common traits, they are not the same disease; however, some scholars believe that the treatment for neurasthenia was based off common treatments for hysteria, especially the diet part. Over time, the violent treatments for women, since they were largely contested by women, such as Elizabeth Carter and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, fell out of fashion and new treatments were adopted. Specifically, doctors advised women in “balance and moderation” (Meek 7) and to have “simply, innocent Diet upon white Meats…without laying any great Stress upon the Digestions” (Meek 7). This treatment of hysteria was widely accepted, as it was painless and easy to manage. The treatment of hysteria reflects the treatment of neurasthenia, a similar disease that appeared in the late 1800s. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was perhaps one of the most famous women to have neurasthenia, alongside Jane Addams, the first woman to receive the Nobel Pease Prize, and Virginia Woolf, an English writer. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is most famous for her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, which was published in 1892, in response to Weir Mitchell trying to cure her using the rest cure. S. Weir Mitchell was a doctor who, most notably, developed the west cure and the rest cure for patients afflicted with neurasthenia. Neurasthenia was described as a nervous condition that affected both males and females, but for different reasons. For men, it was a result of “overwork” in the workplace (Poirier 17). On the other hand, women got it from ‘studying school lessons too intently during a time of important hormonal activity” or ‘staying out too late at social events” (Poirier 18). Even in the cause of the disease, the gender roles of men and women had a lot to do with the interpretation of the disease itself. Moreover, Mitchell believed the best cure for these women “was to reorient them to domestic life” (Poirier 19). His cure served only to reinforce women’s role in society. Mitchell wanted to do whatever “’helps to make her as a mother more capable, as a wife more helpful’” (Poirier 19). 

Mitchell’s rest cure had five main components: rest, seclusion, food, massage, and electricity. The main character in The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane, is forced to endure three of the five components: rest, seclusion, and food. John, Jane’s husband, does not let Jane “stir without special direction. [She has] a schedule prescription for each hour” (Gilman 301). As for the seclusion, John says to Jane “he would as soon put fireworks in [her] pillowcase as to let [her] have those stimulating people about” (Gilman 302). He also controls her diet, making her eat cod liver oil and tonics, while not letting her eat any rare meat or drink any alcohol. This tactic is similar to that used in the treatment of hysteria, especially because he does not let her eat rare meat. Jane’s treatment directly reflects the rest cure, demonstrating Gilman’s personal influence on the story, making it more realistic. 

Another aspect of this short story that makes it more realistic to a reader in the 1890s is the unmistakable resemblance of John to Weir Mitchell. Both fulfill the traditional male gender role in their stories: Mitchell in real life and John in the story. Mitchell represents the traditional male in many ways, but most significantly because of his control over women’s lives. Because he is a doctor, his word is pretty much taken for the law and women obey him. However, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does not, because she does not believe that his rest cure works. 

Similarly, John is the traditional male character in The Yellow Wallpaper. Just like Mitchell, John is a doctor, only his patient is his wife, Jane. Throughout the story, John acts not only like her doctor and husband, but on many occasions like her father. John first shows his dominance over her by not allowing his wife to question him, “if a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures…there is nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression…what is one to do?” (Gilman 300). Not only can she not question him because he is her doctor, but also because he is her husband. He also does not allow her to have her own opinion about her health, instead telling her, “you really are better, dear…I am a doctor and I know…Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you?” (Gilman 306). John tries to control every aspect of her life, because that is what men back then did. John is a typical male during the 1890s, providing for his family and controlling them, and Gilman writes his character like that for a purpose. Even though Jane goes insane, Gilman wants her audience to be able to relate to the story. Because gender roles were so rigid then, almost every female who reads the short story would have been able to relate to Jane because of John’s control of her life. Another aspect that makes the reader sympathize with Jane is that John acts like her father as well, calling her “little girl” (Gilman 306). Gilman is appealing not only to married women, but to any female who is under the control of a man. 

When talking about the similarities between Mitchell and John, it is impossible to ignore the similarities between Gilman and Jane. Both women are being treated for neurasthenia by men who fit the male stereotype during the 1890s. Additionally, both women are writers. When Mitchell attempts to use the rest cure on Gilman, he says she is not allowed to write or even pick up a pen. However, she disobeys him and continues to write, as evidenced by her short story that she wrote during that time. Likewise, Jane is also forbidden to write by John, but disobeys him as well and writes in secret. However, it is crucial to note that while Mitchell and John fulfill the traditional male role, neither Gilman nor Jane fulfill the traditional female role. During this time, a woman’s role was in the domestic sphere. She was supposed to be a mother and a wife, as well as take care of the home. 

For the first role, that of being a mother, Gilman and Jane both suffered from post-partum depression. Gilman, as Jane, describes it as “I cannot be with [the baby], it makes me so nervous” (Gilman 302). Neither woman wishes to be round their babies, so they do not fulfill the mother role. As for the wife role, Gilman accuses her husband of her “entrapment” (Hume 10). Jane fulfill the wife role in some ways, but in other she does not. The bed nailed down to the floor in the middle of the nursery represents both the women’s role: to be a mother but to share the bed of her husband. For Jane, both her and John share the bed in the nursery, although Jane says, “I wish he would take another room!” (Gilman 309).  Jane says this because she wishes to keep a secret from him, which is hard for her to do when he is sleeping right next to her. However, Jane is not able to take care of her home, “Of course I didn’t do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now” (Gilman 303). Instead of Jane and Gilman, Mary and Jennie are the characters who fulfill the female role in the household, by taking care of the baby and keep the household running. Jane and Gilman cannot function within the traditional feminine roles, and this is perhaps what the doctors are trying to cure, instead of the disease itself.

The point that Gilman is trying to make with her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is that the rest cure is not effective at treating neurasthenia. Jane Addams and Virginia Woolf agree with her, citing social work, and writing as the reason for their improvement, not bed rest and special diets. Gilman and Woolf, both writers, begin to feel better after they write, which was something that Mitchell, in his rest cure, did not allow them to do. Jane feels the same way about writing; John forbade her to do it, “he hates to have [Jane] write a word” (Gilman 301) but she does anyway, “I must not let her find me writing” (Gilman 303). Jane, along with Gilman and Woolf, knows what best for herself, but cannot do what she wants because of a strong male figure, in this case John. 

Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper and the main character’s descent into madness to exemplify the consequences of participating in the rest cure. Jane, while she writes in spite of John, follows his other orders, such as to be secluded and to have a specific diet. The reason she becomes so infatuated with the yellow wallpaper is because she has nothing to do all day except for staring at it, “[the wallpaper] dwells on my mind so!” (Gilman 304). In fact, at the beginning of the story, Jane mentions that John was originally going to wallpaper the room, but “he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient to give way to such fancies” (Gilman 302). Once John knows that the wallpaper bothers her, he decides to keep it up instead of taking it down, because he believes he knows what is best for his wife. However, if he had simply listened to his wife, her insanity could have been avoided. This is another example of the traditional gender roles during that time, whatever the husband/doctor said was law. 

This short story is a direct dig at Weir Mitchell, and his cure for female neurasthenia. Charlotte Perkins Gilman asserts that his cure is not effective, and, through Jane’s insanity, implies that it could be the reason a woman goes insane. This was a bold story for her to write, because Mitchell was a well-respected doctor, while she was just a woman. However, it did work in her favor. At the time she published this story, neurasthenia was not a popular disease. However, beginning in the late 1890s and early 1900s, neurasthenia grew in popularity, with many people being affected by it. As more and more people got affected, the disease became public discussion, which allowed people other than doctors to provide their opinions on how to treat it. Women used this opportunity to challenge the stereotypical feminine roles that Mitchell’s cure put them in. 

Women used neurasthenia to become more than what society wanted them to be. Instead of being locked into the domestic role, women could be professions such as writers, which before was a primarily male profession. They also could voice their opinions about treatment for neurasthenia, which they could not do before. This is where Gilman’s short story comes in. her story provided a new opinion, that of a woman who went through the rest cure and how it caused her to go insane. Jane represents all women, in that many can relate to her position. When she attempts to free the woman, who is trapped behind the yellow wallpaper, she becomes her. Being trapped by the wallpaper and creeping around the room represents how John was trapping her in the house. She could never escape, and now she cannot either, because the woman is still stuck creeping around the room. It also locks Jane and the woman into a constant domestic role because they cannot leave the bedroom. Gilman asserts through her story that if women do not stand up for themselves against the men that control them, the same could happen to them. 

Gilman wants women to challenge the roles that society has assigned to them. Women, per society, are supposed to be wives and mothers. Men, however, are supposed to be the head of the household and provide for their families. Gilman argues, through Jane, that unless women break out of their role, they could end up going insane like Jane. Through neurasthenia, Gilman is giving examples of how women have been forced into their feminine roles, even through medicine. Causes and treatments were different for men and women, and they reflected the gender roles at the time. Treatments for women reinforced their gender roles, and Gilman wants women to challenge this. 
