4. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” criticized the 19th-century medical profession’s treatment of women’s mental illness after her failed “rest cure” brought her to the brink of insanity
In the nineteenth century, doctors and physicians didn’t understand mental illness, especially in women. Confined to the domestic sphere, women were expected to find fulfillment in marriage and motherhood, with little opportunities to explore careers or personal ambitions. Some women found happiness in their domestic lives; the ones who did not often suffered from symptoms of depression, anxiety, and heightened emotional displays. Diagnosed with hysteria, a blanket medical term for psychological conditions in women, many doctors prescribed the “rest cure,” which entailed restricted daily activities and very little intellectual or artistic exposure.
American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one of these women who felt overwhelmed by the domestic expectations of her. Prone to depression for most of her life, her 1884 marriage and the subsequent birth of her daughter made her condition worse. Her physician prescribed the rest cure, forbidding her from writing ever again. Months later, Gilman’s depression led her to thoughts of suicide. Disregarding her doctor’s orders, she started writing again, and her depression lifted. In response to her failed medical treatment, Gilman used her personal experiences with mental illness as inspiration for her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
The narrator, experiencing symptoms of depression, is isolated in an upstairs bedroom, where she becomes fascinated by its damaged yellow wallpaper. Without contact with the outside world, the narrator loses her grip on reality, and she slips into madness. Describing a woman’s mental decline during her rest cure, Gilman criticizes the nineteenth-century medical profession’s treatment of women’s mental health. Gilman sent a copy of her story to her doctor to convince him of the error of his methods; he never responded.