
   From before the Civil War until the mid-nineteen hundreds, women were seen to be mothers and wives and that was the end of that story. They were to get married, have children, and take care of the home. As time went on, women such as Gilman and many others began to receive an education, read, write, and have small jobs outside of the home. During this time medicine was not what it is today. Because of this, many mental illnesses were categorized into a hysteria or nervous depression. Women were thought to develop these mental illnesses after a lack of rest from working outside of the domestic home. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is put on bed rest, known as the rest cure, after being diagnosed with "temporary nervous depression," (Gilman 209) and it eventually led her to go insane. The rest cure, developed by Silas Weir Mitchell, at this time was used to treat nervous women across the country by isolating them in bed to rest for a period of time (Blackie 60-61). The narrator, like many women, is given the rest cure in hopes to cure her nervousness with an underlying goal to put her back in her place as a woman; it eventually made her go insane.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator is given Weir Mitchell's rest cure by her husband, a physician, to help with her nervous depression. She was put up in a nursery room in a house they rented for three months to lay in bed and rest, and nothing more than that (Gilman 208-209). The rest cure put women, like the narrator, on strict and absolute rest and isolation for six to eight weeks at a time to "cure" their nervous depression or mental illness (Blackie 60-61). These women were forced to eat foods that would make them gain weight and massaged to keep their muscles stimulated and blood flowing (Blackie 61). They were nonetheless prisoners desperate to escape. The narrator even describes the room as if it were a prison cell. She writes about how the windows are barred, and describes the wallpaper as " ... repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow ... " (Gilman 210). This shows how women were treated as prisoners while enduring Weir Mitchell's cure. Being sent to bed with no visitors, no means of escaping, and very strict rules is a lot like being stuck in a prison. 

The narrator, similar to Gilman, is a women who enjoyed activities outside of the domestic home; "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me some good" (Gilman 209). Due to this rest cure, she is not supposed to be writing or lifting a finger at all. While some women reacted well to the rest cure and came back from it a new and improved person, many women, like the narrator, were traumatized by the cure. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," she cannot do even the simplest of tasks such as going outside for a walk or taking care of her infant child. "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous" (Gilman 211). She is still so unsure about the resting part of it and that nervousness makes her incapable of everyday activities. 

Because she is not used to resting and the lack of activity in her life, the narrator secretly turns to writing; at first this writing is about her husband and how he treats her, but as she is in the room longer, the writing is more focused on a woman in the wallpaper trying to escape. As she focuses on the woman in the wallpaper, her sanity quickly declines (Gilman 216-221). For many women, the Weir Mitchell cure transformed them into healthy young women again (Poirier 18). While this was true for some women, others much like the narrator did not take well to the isolation of the rest cure; it became an imprisonment for these women like in "The Yellow Wallpaper." When these women did not listen to his therapeutic cure, he prescribed a much bitter medicine. Weir Mitchell himself described it as "the rest I like for them is not at all their notion of rest ...  When they are bidden to stay in bed a month, and neither to read, write, nor sew ...  the rest becomes for women a rather bitter medicine, and they are glad enough to accept the order to rise and go about"(Poirier 22-23). Meaning that when these women refused to or could not live out a domestic life as he ordered them to do, he prescribed them a more punitive rest to make them enjoy the domestic life. This type of the cure put working and educated women "back in their place." This made women, like Gilman and the narrator, who heard or experienced these types of stories terrified of being sent to Weir Mitchell. Gilman shows this fear through the narrator when she is not getting better as quickly as her husband would like. "John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!" (Gilman 213). The fear is shown in her voice as if this is a horrible ultimatum for her to recover faster. Gilman shows the expectations of men around women who were suffering from nervous depression through John's actions such as this threat.  

It was the general belief at the time that the way to restore women's health and cure their mental issue was to "reorient them to domestic life" (Poirier 19). Mitchell shared the belief that women were physically and emotionally inferior to men (Poirier 19). This belief is also shown through John, the narrator's husband, in "The Yellow Wallpaper." She tries over and over again to tell him about how she feels, but he would not hear any of it. She begs to move to a different room, but he dismisses the idea as if what she wants means nothing. "I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window ...  But John would not hear of it" (Gilman 210). This shows his superiority over her, as a woman. She could beg and plead all she wanted, but in the end it is what he wants because he is superior. Women were seen to be capable mothers and helpful wives, and the belief in education was such that it was necessary only if it made them better as wives and mothers. Weir Mitchell quotes on his belief on the women of the time: "I wish in the loftiest training helps to make her as mother more capable, as wife more helpful" (Poirier 19). Women wanted to be good wives, the narrator shows how she wanted to be a good wife and helpful to John in the story. "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!" (Gilman 211). Women still had the mindset that being a good wife was in the line of duties of being a woman, and by stating how she wanted to be a help, the narrator is showing exactly how she wanted to be if there was not something wrong with her. 

Some women at this time who were supposed to live out their domestic lives, but mentally could not without this nervous depression like the narrator were sent to Weir Mitchell to be "cured." Some allowed themselves to seem cured for everyone in their lives and their own good, but the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" only became much worse. Although, the women put through this and did not allow themselves to recover were seen as impossible to cure to physicians of the time and Weir Mitchell himself. "The Yellow Wallpaper" showed people, including Weir Mitchell that his cure was extremely harmful to some women and that it could potentially make them even worse. Gilman's story showed Weir Mitchell and other physicians the error in their ways and treatments. 

