Mental illness has been swept under the rug for decades, especially when it came to women. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in 1890 zeros in on exactly that. The story itself is from the point of view of a woman who has just delivered a baby and is most likely suffering from postnatal depression but, due to the lack of mental health information had at the time she is misdiagnosed as having “nervousness.” She is locked away in a single room by her husband in hopes that this will cure her but instead makes matters worse. “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays the gender roles of the 19th century in combination with the treatment of mental illness through the narrator’s slow release into madness via the yellow wallpaper. 

For centuries, women have been told what they must do and who they must be; they must be submissive and obedience, domestic and silent, and above all they must be mother and wife. This meaning they are to take care of their husbands, raise the children (after all most of a child’s time is spent with its mother), and run the house enough that their husband can focus on what is happening in the outside world. (The Experience American Housekeeper). An example of this would be one day while the narrator is studying her surroundings and Jennie, her husband’s sister, comes in. “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession.” (Gilman 303). In this instance Jennie embodies the ideal woman. This which throws into sharp perspective how opposite the narrator is of this ideal. She is unable to do any sort of work, housework or otherwise besides writing, and is being babied by her husband. Even then her knack for writing is frowned upon by both her husband and his sister. “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (Gilman 300). If she is even caught writing she is met with disdain. Such is proof of the lower place of a woman in the house. Her husband’s sister even goes so far as to think that writing is the cause of her illness. “Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing…. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” (Gilman 303). 

The narrator’s sickness is diagnosed as “…temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” by her husband John who is “a physician of high standing” as well as by her brother who is “also of high standing.” (Gilman 300). Nervousness was quite a common diagnosis and was also only ever given to females. This is because is blamed on the one true thing that sets a woman apart from a man, her uterus. (Wood 28). Symptoms of this condition ranged from irritability, hysterical fits of crying and insomnia to constipation, indigestion, headaches, and backache.” (Wood 29). At one point the narrator herself admitted “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.” (Gilman 300). She is also subject to fits of crying, saying “I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.” (Gilman 304). Along with these symptoms she also indicates that she is suffering from insomnia. The unusual thing about these symptoms is that they appear and escalate while she is being treated. Her treatment is the “rest cure.” Created by S. Weir Mitchell as a way to treat the nervousness without the help of a doctor. It is a “combination of entire rest and of excessive feeding, made possible by passive exercise obtained through steady use of massage and electricity. When he said "entire rest," he meant it. For some six weeks, the patient was removed from her home, and allowed to see no one except the doctor and a hired nurse. Confined to her bed flat on her back, she was permitted neither to read, nor, in some cases, even to rise to urinate.” (Wood 31). This was a common treatment for women suffering from this condition, although some parts were reserved for the more severe cases, such as the confinement to bed. The narrator does not experience every part of the treatment but does experience some. For example, she is take from her home and is confined to one room, at least for majority of the story, this leads her to gradually confine herself to her bed, and she generally does not come in contact with anyone but her husband and her husband’s sister. 

While being confined in her room, with little interaction she has nothing other to do than to stare at the wallpaper surrounding her, this eventually leads her into a deeper madness. In the room that she is confined to is described as “…the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” (Gilman 301). Although the windows are barred for little children it is also that they are barred for her specifically. That she is not meant to get out, that she truly is trapped. The second thing she notices is “the paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off –the paper- in great patches all around the head of my bed…I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the ye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide- plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions.” (Gilman 301). Already the narrator senses a dark meaning behind the wallpaper when describing it as “committing suicide.” This sets the tone for the rest of the story. The final thing she notices is that “the color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly Sulphur tint in others.” (Gilman 301). The color, itself, plays but a small role in the description but a much larger role in her decent into madness. After all the story is called “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As a result of her diagnosis she is confined to this horrid room leaving her with nothing to do but write and stare at the wallpaper. This drives her to the brink of insanity. As time goes on she begins to imagine the wallpaper coming to life. At one point saying that “sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over…And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern- it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads. They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off…If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.” (Gilman 309). She begins to focus on this woman. She becomes the object of her delusions. The narrator believes that the woman escapes the wallpaper and is always creeping about. After many days of dealing with these delusions, she reaches the depth of her insanity saying “‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (Gilman 312). The worst of it is that all of this, which has led up to this final state could have been avoided if she had been diagnosed properly. 

The narrator is diagnosed as having “nervousness” but now, due to the advances made in the mental health field, it is clear that she is in fact suffering from postnatal depression. Postnatal depression really became recognized in the mid to late 1900s and is considered challenging to diagnose despite it being common. Postnatal depression is considered as the onset of major depressive episodes after childbirth. This includes the mother’s suffering, the mother’s concern with the burden placed on her family, and her inability to want to be around her child. (Hendrick 1003). The narrator has already exhibited symptoms of depression, such as irritability, the inability to want to do anything, and fits of crying. And since her depression was more heavily presented, as with postnatal depression it often is, the actual condition remained hidden. Although she could still have been diagnosed properly by her doctor looking at her overall actions. This would include her lack of time spent with her child and her lack of wanting to spend time with her child. At one point, she says “I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.” (Gilman 302). Her treatment didn’t help her condition either. By isolating her from her child adverse effects occur. These can take the form of the deterioration of the mother’s mental state as well as the child growing up isolated. Despite this condition being difficult to diagnose it is relatively easy to treat and can be treated by a variety of things, such as antidepressants and therapy sessions.

Throughout the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman raises a variety of issues. The first of which being the gender roles that women were forced to fit into. When the narrator was unable to fit into said gender roles she grew upset. This did not help her recovery, which brings about the second issue which is the treatment of mental illnesses, especially in women. The final issue that Gilman brings up is how despite the narrator’s treatment she progressively gets worse, eventually leading her to go insane. Overall, Gilman’s story exemplified how a woman would be treated during the 19th century.
