
In any time period, literature will always be influenced by its surrounding environment. Anything from a society's culture to important world events can work their way into a text, and sometimes find themselves illustrated in a completely new light. Historical context is also necessary to fully understand a text, as many elements may reflect on specific events or circumstances known only to a certain setting. A major example of this is how the treatment known as the rest cure is depicted in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman's first-hand experience with the rest cure influenced her to right the story, making it a subjective piece of literature that must be read in context of the era it came from. 

To fully understand the use of the rest cure in the story, it is important to take a look at the history behind it. According to the Science Museum of London, the rest cure was developed by Silas Weir Mitchell in the late 1800s to treat nervous illnesses such as neurasthenia, hysteria, and depression (Rest Cure). The technique was used predominately in the US and UK and was primarily prescribed to women. It was thought to work better on women because at the time it was used, women were believed to have inferior minds. The treatment consisted of keeping the patient in a single room for up to six to eight weeks. Patients were isolated from friends and family, forced to stay in bed and not do anything physically straining or even stimulating to the brain. The patients were fed a very fatty diet that primarily consisted of milk. It was accepted by the public because it kept people with mental disorders out of asylums, and even saved the lives of people who would have otherwise been killed (Rest Cure). Although it was controversial, Mitchell believed that the treatment was morally sound, claiming that it "boosted the patient's weight and increased blood supply while keeping them out of potentially toxic social environments" (Rest Cure). However, the outcomes were inconsistent and some doctors and patients even considered the treatment to be worse than the disease. These circumstances directly reflect what Gilman endured doing her treatment. 

 Several years after surviving the rest cure, Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in reaction to Mitchell's prescribed treatment. Her story is considered to be semi-autobiographical as it depicts a new mother suffering from depression. The narrator has a controlling husband, John, who keeps her in a nursery hoping that the "perfect rest" will restore her to health (Gilman 215). When no improvement is seen, John threatens a more drastic treatment as the narrator says "if I don't pick up faster he will send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all" (Gilman 218). The treatment that the narrator fears is the rest cure. The story depicts Mitchell as a medical villain, and the rest cure as "Gothic torture" (Stiles). Gilman's story illustrates vivid examples of how the rest cure may have effected many nineteenth-century women. 

"The Yellow Wallpaper" reflects Gilman's life through context, relating characters and important things to her own experiences. The story visualizes Gilman's husband and physician as the same person, to show the relationship between the two men and how both impacted her life. During her treatment, both men imprisoned her and treated her cruelly. They manipulated her and forced her to be dependent of them. In the story, Gilman depicts this by having the narrator say, "John is a physician, and perhaps -- I wouldn't say it to a living soul of course, but this dead paper, and a great relief to my mind -- perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster" (Gilman 209). This also reflects the fact that neither Gilman's husband nor physician listened to her when she told them how she felt about the treatment. Later in the story the narrator says, "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so" (215). This statement expresses Gilman's feelings about both men over the course of her treatment. This section of the story goes on to reflect the nineteenth century's view of women with John silencing the narrator because he had no respect for her. When the narrator attempts to make a plea for her husband to take her home, John only responds with, "What is it little girl?" and then states that "The repairs are not done at home" (215). This conflict in the story parallels Gilman's own struggle to reason with her husband and physician and how they did not consider her opinion to matter.  

Before writing her story, Gilman was severely depressed and unable to cope with her atmosphere at home. On a quest to find an answer to her nervous exhaustion, Gilman sought after Weir Mitchell in Philadelphia to perform his treatment on her (Poirier 1). Her husband helped enforce the cure even when it was upsetting her and she wanted it to end. In her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1935, Gilman describes her experiences:

I was put to bed, and kept there. I was fed, bathed, rubbed, and responded with the vigorous body of twenty-six. As far as he could see there was nothing the matter with me, so after a month of this agreeable treatment he sent me home with this prescription: "Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time ... Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours' intellectual life a day. And never touch a pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live." (Gilman The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman 96)

After leaving Mitchell's care, Gilman followed his prescription for months and stated in her autobiography that she "came perilously near to losing my mind. The mental agony grew so unbearable that I would sit blankly moving my head from side to side" (96). At this point, Gilman was not only unsatisfied with her physician, but with her husband too. 

Gilman's experience with the rest cure are reflected in her story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Many specific elements of her encounters with Weir Mitchell and the treatment as a whole can be identified in the story within context of her past and of the nineteenth century. It is clear the Gilman's experience with the rest cure are what ultimately drove the creation of "The Yellow Wallpaper," however, she was not the only woman writer to live through the treatment. By the time Mitchell had died in 1914, the "Weir Mitchell Rest Cure had been translated into four other languages and had committed disciples around the world, despite the growing reputation of Sigmund Freud" (Stiles). Although she was not unique in her experiences, Gilman was able to illustrate her personal struggle with the treatment through the narrator's situation in the story. She used her frustration with her husband and doctor to fuel the production of her story. Gilman also strived to make the story as realistic as possible to make others aware of the issues that the treatment hold. To further enhance her hatred of the rest cure, she sent a detailed letter to Mitchell expressing her feelings. After never receiving a reply to this message, she created the essay entitled, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" in order to support her story and the truth that it holds about the treatment. Ultimately, Gilman's first-hand experience with the rest cure and Weir Mitchell are what truly created "The Yellow Wallpaper" with its inclusion of specific occurrences from Gilman that show a clear relationship to her own life.

