Literary Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story of a woman's gradual descent to insanity from her depression that initiates after the birth of her child. The story brings up so many points. How does Gilman's personal experience influence the story? Is the narrator unbalanced? Is her husband doing the right thing by forcing complete rest upon her?

After reading "The Yellow Wallpaper", one might think the narrator is unbalanced. She is forbidden from writing, socializing, or any other activity that, according to modern day treatment for depression, may help her mental state. "I believe she (John's sister) think it is the writing which makes me sick!" (1282). Even the narrator knows that the "rest" cure, as it is referred several times, is not the best method to treat her nervousness. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good" (1279). At first, she simply does not like the wallpaper: "I'm really quite fond of this big room, all but the horrid paper" (1281). As her confinement to the room increases, her need for human companionship becomes more evident. The narrator begins to obsess over the patterns she sees within the wallpaper, because this is the only means of amusement she has all day. "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down" (1281).

She begins to see a woman in the pattern of the wallpaper, a woman she is convinced is watching her and making the pattern shake. "Behind that outside pattern the dim shades get clearer every day. It is the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit" (1284). "I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was…but now I am quite sure it is a woman. By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour" (1285).Eventually, the narrator has been secluded for so long without companionship or stimulation that she practically loses her mind. "As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of paper" (Perkins 1288). One might think the narrator's seeing all these images means she is emotionally unbalanced. In actuality, it is probably the absurd "treatment" she is receiving from her husband that is causing her to lose her mind.

The narrator's husband, a physician, may have thought he was doing only "the best thing" for her. She states that her husband assures her there is nothing wrong with her but a temporary nervous depression. Her condition can be interpreted as postpartum depression. Women with postpartum depression "have such feelings of sadness, anxiety or despair that they have trouble coping with their daily tasks. Without treatment, postpartum depression may become worse or last longer." For a doctor of such high upstanding, he seems a bit unknowledgeable. It is rather if he is holding her back from recovery. At one point, the narrator asks her husband to move her out of the room, because it felt a prison, but he does not find it necessary. Perhaps, if he listened to his wife instead of ignoring her pleas, she may have improved.

The story is based upon true events in Ms. Gilman's life. According to "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'", Perkins herself states, "For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia-and beyond" (1913). Melancholia is a mental illness characterized by extreme depression and feelings of extreme hopelessness. Gilman was seen by a doctor by the name of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, who ineffectively treated her. "He informed her that the illness was 'hysteria' and confined her to bed without reading material or even her sketchpad. Upon her departure, he instructed her to 'Live as domesticated a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. Lie down for an hour after each meal. Have but two hours' intellectual life each day. And never touch a pen, brush or pencil for as long as you live" (1911). Gilman herself states that, "I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over" (1913).

Gilman did not obey Dr. Mitchell's instructions long. "Then, using remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and went to work again-work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is pauper and a parasite-ultimately recovering some measure of power" (1913). She did not see her writing, or her "work," as something that caused mental anguish. Her work was her refuge, her happiness ("…work, in which joy and growth and service…")

Gilman said about her story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked" (1913). This can be interpreted in many ways. Gilman knew that the treatment Dr. Mitchell had given her was unhealthy for her mental state. She needed her writing for therapy. She wrote the story in hopes that Dr. Mitchell, as well as other doctors, would read the story and see that the "rest" treatment is not the most effective way to treat depression. According to Psychology Information Online, several ways to treat depression include, "Try to be with other people; it is better than being alone, Force yourself to participate in activities that make you feel better, Try exercising in mild activities" (Medical Library). Those recommendations by modern day psychiatrists are completely the opposite of those Dr. Mitchell prescribed for Gilman. Gilman even acknowledged that her own first hand experience helped others in her situation that were prescribed to "rest". "It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate-so terrifying her family that they let hour out into normal activity and she recovered" (1913). Even the narrator in the story knows she should not be on bed rest. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, should do me good" (1279)

Was Charlotte Perkins Gilman's character in the story unbalanced? Perhaps she was. Was the narrator's husband, the "respectable physician," right in sentencing his wife to her forced rest, descending her into insanity? More than likely, yes. Gilman's own personal experiences with her battle with depression make the story all the more real.

Works Cited Page

"Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Women's voices: Quotations by Women." www.womenshistory.about.com

"Postpartum Depression." Medical Library. htp://www.medem.com/medlb/article_detailb.

"The Yellow Wallpaper." American Traditions in Literature. 10th edition: 2002.

"Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper." As It Appeared In the October Issue of The Forerunner, 1913. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/wallpaper/whywrote.html.