 “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by women author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about the treatment process of women with mental disorder. This story tells us about a woman who has depression which is progressively getting worse through the reading. “The Yellow Wallpaper” might seem to be a usual horror story about a crazy woman who became insane because of the yellow wallpaper in the room where she was kept, however, to better understand the story, I researched about this time period in terms of psychology and mental heath treatment. It turned out that Gilman had experienced mental health problems in her life. By supplementing this reading with scholarly journal articles, it became apparent that in the story Gilman tried to reflect how 19th century society looked at people’s mental health problems and mistreatment, and how second wave feminism is related to hysteria mistreatment at that time.

In the article “Muscles, Nerves, and Sex: The Contradictions of the Medical Approach to Female Bodies in Movement in France, 1847–1914” written by Gregory Quinn and Ana ̈ıs Bohuon, the author describes the beginning of studying on hysteria in the middle of 19th century, when hysteria was related to disease like epileptic and hysteria was treated by physical activities. Dr. Laisne, psychiatrist, established course of gymnastic in the “Hospital des Enfants Malades”. “Laisne  would play a major role in the application of ‘movement’ in the medical environment and specifically in the treatment of tuberculosis, chorea and other forms of hysteria” (Quinn 173). Diseases like tuberculosis pneumonia and chorea were treated as a forms of hysteria. Sometimes hysteria was interpreted as a disability of a patient to control their body because of lack of physical education. Also scientists overlooked the fact that a female organism is different than a male and there was not any adjustment towards the reproductive system of female. By the end of 19th century doctors stopped make hysteria diagnosis and formulation as hysteria had vanished from hospitals. “It seemed to be drowned out by other ‘nervous disorders’ and medical discourse adopted terms such as, ‘nervous system’, ‘nervosas’, ‘nervous problems’, ‘neuroses’, ‘neuropathy’ or ‘neurasthenia’” (Quinn 180). Another definition of hysteria was the overwhelming of education and intellectual activities and hysteria illness was interrelated as lack of self-control and power, rebelliousness, which leads to emotional instability and desire of power, so psychiatrists’ solution for hysteria at this time were to take control over a sick person and use methods of submission in order to tame and discourage a patient. The patient was forced to take the “rest curing” and once should be isolated from the society. This article also described causes of hysteria related to systematic oppression of women because of the type of job they held. Also psychiatrists were practicing violence treatment tools like electroshock or hypnosis at this time. All that tells us about a lot of concerns and misunderstanding of treatment at this time. Society didn’t know a lot about hysteria and mental disorder.  Information about historical background and methods of treatment of hysteria helps better understand “The Yellow Wallpaper”. 

The main character had a small mental disorder that today we call “postpartum syndrome”, when women experiences post delivery emotional stress. She was brought to the house by her husband for “resting cure”, which means that she couldn’t do any physical and intellectual activities, which is completely the opposite of what the studying on treatment suggested. The author also, describing room with yellow wallpaper, mentioned the two rings on the wall which might symbolize the methods of submission used as a treatment for hysteria at this time, beaten might symbolize peoples suffering in an asylum. Because of her mistreatment we can watch the progression of her mental disorder which by the end of the story transformed to insanity. By understanding historical and social background of the timeline we could see that Gilman raise important social problem about social view on hysteria. 

In the article "The Relation Between Emotion Work and Hysteria: A Feminist Reinterpretation of Freud's Studies On Hysteria”, written by Jennifer L. Pierce, author tells us about how female discrimination and men’s superiority in 19th century. A lot of women had no rights to work at this time and their main mission was being a housewife and mother. This was the time of the second wave feminism, while females were struggling against female discrimination in society, they were struggling for rights to have equal education and equal opportunity for getting jobs. Revolution, desire to have power and control all this describe hysteria as well as the purpose of the second wave feminism. The main causes of female hysteria at this time were emotional and intellectual overwhelming, which caused stress for a psychologically weak female. Second wave feminism was interpreted by psychiatrists as an epidemic of hysteria and methods of treatment included opposite methods of hysteria treatment. Understanding of the historical background from this article helps the reader to see “The Yellow Wallpaper” from another angle. 

It might be implied from the reading that the woman is trying to struggle for her rights to be mentally treated and we can see the significant superstition of her husband, that he has control over her. He keeps her closed in the room which might symbolize how females at this time spend most of their time closed in the home. The woman doesn’t even have the right to chose room she would like to sleep in.  Gilman tried to project every discriminated female in the lady inside the yellow wallpaper. She described her as a sad lady, closed behind the grid. There is a similarity between Gilman and the woman from “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman tried to be a hero in her writing, where she could liberate all discriminated woman from the yellow wallpaper, that’s why the main character tears the wallpaper. By the end of the story, she is convinced that the wallpaper is moving, as a woman trapped inside attempts to break free. We can ascertain the narrator’s listlessness as she lies in bed and follows the pattern of the wallpaper. As her delusions increase and she becomes more convinced that a woman is trapped within the paper, the prose becomes more urgent and more secretive. Over the course of the story, we can see the woman gradually losing her mind. In the beginning, she can offer calm and logical descriptions of her surroundings. Soon, however, she attempts to have a rational conversation with John but ends up crying and pleading. In the final scene the woman has stripped off all the wallpaper in her room and is creeping around when John shows up at the door. She tells him that she’s free and that she’s liberated herself. He faints and she continues to creep around the room. She steps over his body every time she makes a circle in the room, which symbolize her superiority over him. By John’s loss of conscious the author shows the feminization of John and lines the equality of them.

Historical background describing social problems and political circumstances described in the articles "Hysteria, Feminism, And Gender Revisited: The Case Of The Second Wave" and "Muscles, Nerves, And Sex: The Contradictions Of The Medical Approach To Female Bodies In Movement In France, 1847-1914", helps to understand the social meaning of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The author shows the problem of female rights discrimination and calls all women to struggle for a “second wave feminism”. We could see that politics towards woman at this time caused their mental problems and women’s lack of rights affected their treatment and underestimation of the problem lead to female hysteria, which psychiatrists at this time considered to be a female disability to self-control and was treated by submission which again discriminated their rights. Author through the story tried to advocate women to struggle for freedom and equal care. 
