In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” it describes a woman in the early 1900’s who had just bore a child, and her confusing decent into insanity. Mental illnesses were a bit of a mystery to the medical world in the 1900’s some of the more common illnesses were understood on a small basis, but for the most part doctors had no clue what they were and how to go about treating them. The author of the story Charlotte Gilman makes it extremely clear that the readers know the women had just had a baby and that her husband, even though he was a psychologist seemed to just blatantly ignore his wife’s distress. After her husband ignores the women’s clear signs of depression and distress she is locked away in a room and after a while this was sure to drive anyone mad the women being no exception. The story is a bit odd in that the woman’s husband did not even attempt to help and thought that since she was depressed for “no reason” it was a clear sign the woman was actually insane. The reason why the woman was ignored is due to the fact that woman of that time were thought to have the same biological make up as men, thus the woman acting for a reason that a man would not was a clear sign of insanity. The two academic works and “Psychiatric consequences of trauma in women.” and “Historical perspectives: a snapshot of women admitted to psychiatric facilities with psychosis or mania after childbirth in the late Victorian and inter-war periods.”  Helped to explain the reasoning behind all the confusing aspects of the stories. After reading the two academic works, they allowed for a more complete and clear understanding of the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The first aspect that may be confusing is that readers of today would be quick to assume that the woman had Post-Pardon depression after birthing her child, however back in the early 1900’s the idea of depression from having a child was foolish. In “Psychiatric consequences of trauma in women” it gives a debrief on how the top medical professionals of the time believed that the men and women had the same biological makeup meaning they could only suffer from the same exact mental illnesses. The work continues on how this belief was not busted until the later 1900’s and the women of the early 1900’s who struggled with depression after having children, were then labeled insane, but in reality they were suffering from depression instead. The main focus of the work “Psychiatric consequences of trauma in women” outlines the unfortunate concept that back in the early 1900’s so little was known about the biological makeup as a woman that when men were tested it was assumed woman would be the exact same, this caused many issues during that time period. Knowing that these were the circumstances of the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” causes a reader to feel for her more because the lack of knowledge during the time period is quite literally what drove the woman insane. In the academic work it is also explained that woman were more common to some mental issues and clearly Post-Pardon depression is one, however the thought of that did not reach peoples mind at the time causing many pregnant woman to be labeled insane, when that was not the case at all. The scholarly work gives great insight into the huge confusion of biological makeup in the early 1900’s and helps greatly in letting a reader understand the story.

The other scholarly work that assists in better comprehending “The Yellow Wallpaper” was the “Historical perspectives: a snapshot of women admitted to psychiatric facilities with psychosis or mania after childbirth in the late Victorian and inter-war periods.”. Unlike the other scholarly work that looks into the 1900 time period of woman and their mental states, this work looks into the progression and research of the female mind, which assets the reader heavily in the comprehension of the book. One would assume that the only way an outside work could help a reader understand a specific story would be if it gave background on the subject matter that was being written about in the book. However, in this situation the “Historical perspectives: a snapshot of women admitted to psychiatric facilities with psychosis or mania after childbirth in the late Victorian and inter-war periods.” actually looks into how the analysis of woman and their mental state improved somewhat soon after the early 1900’s. After reading the scholarly work then going to read “The Yellow Wallpaper” it most likely caused the reader to grieve a little for the woman because nothing was wrong with her except for Post-Pardon depression, which is common then and now, but this depression caused her to be marked as a mental patient. Soon after being locked away the mind of the woman begins to fade and eventually she slips into real insanity. Without reading the “Historical perspectives: a snapshot of women admitted to psychiatric facilities with psychosis or mania after childbirth in the late Victorian and inter-war periods.”. beforehand a reader may miss a large part of the story on how large of a misunderstanding it was between the woman and her husband, because the wife was suffering from an extremely common mental illness, but at the time this was unknown causing her to be labeled as mentally insane. 

Both scholarly works look at different time period but focus on a similar thing and that is the biological makeup of woman. While each is separate in some of their thoughts they come together and help truly explain the and show the meaning behind the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In the first work “Psychiatric consequences of trauma in women.” it helps to explain the misunderstanding that occurred when dealing with the diagnosis of the woman’s condition this helps the reader to understand the whole background of the story, thus making the story much more clear. On the other hand the “Historical perspectives: a snapshot of women admitted to psychiatric facilities with psychosis or mania after childbirth in the late Victorian and inter-war periods.”  causes the reader to connect with the book “The Yellow Wallpaper” because the reader feels for the woman, due to the information that men and woman are different mentally came out less than 50 years later. Each work does a fantastic job in giving background or meaning to “The Yellow Wallpaper” which allow the reader to more easily comprehend the story as a whole.  
