Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a haunting story of a woman suffering from temporary nervous depression attempting to better herself using the rest cure. However, instead of helping with her nervousness, this treatment drives her to madness as she begins to see a figure in the wallpaper. Gilman uses instances from her own life as inspiration from this story. She underwent the rest cure as a solution for her neurasthenia, where she was isolated, closely monitored, and not allowed to write. For Gilman, this treatment also resulted in progressive insanity. Understanding Gilman's experience is crucial to fully comprehend "The Yellow Wallpaper" because it gives a better insight on her mental state during the rest cure and what led to her eventual breakdown. By examining Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz's Wild Unrest, you can examine Gilman's own personal letters and diaries that document her mental heath before and after experiencing the rest cure, as well as more information regarding the treatment. By better understanding the rest cure and its effects, the true reason for the narrator's behavior "The Yellow Wallpaper" can be better understood. 

"The Yellow Wallpaper" begins with the narrator and her physician husband, John, moving into a summer estate where she will spend almost everyday in isolation, forced to sleep and prohibited from writing. She suffers from temporary nervous depression, though her husband does not take this diagnosis seriously (Gilman, 209.) She is to spend all her time in a room with barred windows, gymnasium rings, and peeling, yellow wallpaper, which she despised. As she spent everyday locked up in her bedroom with nothing to do, she began to suffer terribly, yet she was unable to express her depressed feelings with her husband because she did not want to burden him (Gilman, 210-211.) The added stress of keeping her feelings of loneliness, depression, and nervousness inside eventually caused her to experience delirium. With nothing to do in her bedroom alone, she spent her time examining the wallpaper that she hated, becoming more and more intrigued by it. She becomes consumed by it when one day she hallucinates, seeing a woman trapped behind it (Gilman, 216.) She continued to obsess over this woman in the walls as their days in the estate dwindled down. On the final day, she could not control herself any longer, and began ripping the yellow wallpaper off the walls in order to free the woman trapped inside. She becomes so enraged she attempt to throw herself out the window, but is stopped by the bars (220.) As her husband arrives home she throws the key down the stairs and continues attacking the wallpaper. John opens the door, so horrified by the scene that he fainted.  The narrator then says, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't put me back!" (Gilman. 221.) It then becomes obvious that the woman trapped in the wallpaper is a symbolic representation of the narrator, who is acting out due to the progressive insanity resulting from the rest cure. While the treatment of isolation, a fat-rich diet, and limited activity was meant to clear the patient's nervous mind, it actually resulted in paranoia, hallucinations, and worsening of  her original symptoms. The rest cure, overall, was a failed experiment, but what was going on in the narrators mind that caused this mental breakdown? By examining Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz's Wild Unrest, you can gain a better understanding of the mental process of a person experiencing the rest cure by viewing Charlotte Perkins Gilman's recollection of her own experience. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was sent to neurologist, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell in 1887 to treat her nervous prostration, which she suffered from for years, especially following her marriage. She had recently had a baby and had been hysterical ever since (Horowitz, 117.) Charlotte feared that her issue went deeper than nervousness and that she was suffering from brain disease, which she somewhat hoped for due to the unhappiness she felt within her marriage (Horowitz, 121.) Upon Gilman's arrival to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's care, Mitchell warned Gilman's husband that her case was very severe, and that she should be under his watch immediately (122.) During her time in seclusion, she was on a high-fat diet, prohibited from leaving her bed for more than two hours, and she was forced to stop writing against her will. These factors resulted in what Gilman described as "progressive insanity" (Gilman, 208.)  After a month in treatment, Mitchell documented that Gilman's "erotic tendency was at a maximum" (Horowitz, 139.) However, at the end of the month she was released, sent home, told to live a humble, traditional domestic life and to cease her writing indefinitely. It was these instructions that led Gilman to psychosis (Horowitz, 140.) Months after her release she continued on a downward slope according to her husband's diary entries recording her behavior. She rarely left the house and even contemplated suicide by rope or pistol. It was not until she rejected Mitchell's instructions and left her husband that she showed signs of improvement (Horowitz, 143.) Three years after experiencing the rest cure under the watch of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Gilman wrote a semi-autobiographical story documenting her mental health during this treatment, completing it within two days (Horowitz, 176.) Using a first person, diary-entry style of writing allowed her to act as if she were the main character in the story. Despite the severe toll the rest cure took on Gilman's mental health, she was able to write "The Yellow Wallpaper" not only to document her experience with Dr. Mitchell but also to warn readers of the harmful effects resulting from the rest cure.

By reading Horowitz's Wild Unrest and learning about Gilman's personal experience with the rest cure, readers can gain a better insight as to why the narrator's mental health in "The Yellow Wallpaper" deteriorated instead of improving while enduring this treatment for nervousness. During the late 1880's neurasthenia was very common so it was mot taken as seriously. Charlotte Perkins Gilman feared for her mental health, thinking she was experiencing brain disease, but her concern was belittled by her husband and Dr. Mitchell. She translates this in "The Yellow Wallpaper" with the narrator's husband John, who often treats her as if she's being dramatic and simply needs to calm down. To be experiencing severe depression and nervousness issues and having them be belittled by your husband and doctor are bound to take a toll on your mental heath. Both Gilman and the narrator are also prohibited to write and in isolation, so they have no outlet for their thoughts. With a tendency to overthink due to nervousness, having to be alone and trapped inside their own minds for most hours of the day will often lead to a breakdown. As the treatment progresses, these women continue to grow more unstable. As Gilman reached the end of her treatment, Mitchell claimed she was even worse than before. While in "The Yellow Wallpaper" after spending her summer enduring the rest cure, she became infatuated with a hallucination of a woman trapped behind hideous yellow wallpaper. By the end of the summer she was ripping the paper off of the walls and creeping like an animal throughout the room. In both of these situations the lack of social interaction, limited activity, and no mental stimulation other than their nervous thoughts, eventually drove these women to insanity. 

By reading both Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz's Wild Unrest, you can gain a better understanding on the mental progression of a woman in the nineteenth century experiencing the rest cure.  Wild Unrest documents the mental state the woman is in before treatment. It tells of Gilman's experiences with depression, nervousness, and hysteria before her undergoing treatment with Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. During this time, she was prohibited to write, so she could not keep a diary, so she wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" to tell her story instead. Through the narrator's diary entries, the reader watches the narrator become less and less in touch with reality. Though Gilman admits the story contains "embellishments and additions" she still was able to use this story to represent those negatively affected by the rest cure (Gilman, 208.)

