“THE YELLOW WALLPAPER”: MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS TREATMENTS Postpartum depression is defined as, “a mood disorder that can affect women after childbirth… [and can cause] feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that may make it difficult for them to complete daily care activities for themselves or for others.” Today postpartum depression is a mental illness that is widely known, but in the late 1800’s when Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” postpartum depression was
The Yellow Wallpaper. Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is her emotional account of having postpartum depression in the late 1800's. This will be proven in the four following paragraphs. One paragraph will summarize The Yellow Wallpaper and then will give a definition of this postpartum depression. The next paragraph will contain a short biography of Charlotte Gilman and what the scientists in the 1800's didn't know. The last part will connect what
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a clear vision of how women in the 1800’s to early 1900’s were treated and misdiagnosed before the discovery and acknowledgment of postpartum depression. Jane, the narrator, wife of John, and sister-in-law to Jennie, battles postpartum depression and mental illness isolated and alone. The psychological outbursts take place during a three week stay at a hereditary estate that is meant to serve as a place for Jane to rest and get well, but also
Losing My Mind “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was written in the late nineteenth century. In the time of the late nineteenth century, hysteria, “which is a psychological disorder when the persons symptoms covert from psychological stress into physical symptoms, selective amnesia, shallow volatile emotions, and overdramatic or attention-seeking behavior.” (Hysteria biography) Has also been defined as, “a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excess” (Hysteria biography)
being driven crazy, and it worked” (Gilman P). Charlotte Perkins Gilman said this as to why she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” There has been debate among scholars whether Gilman should be considered a feminist or not. The definition of feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. Whether Charlotte Perkins Gilman intended to or not, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a feminist piece of literature because of its message regarding women’s healthcare, the issue with women’s
Katie Wesson Professor Festus Ndeh English 1102-TEAB 9 September 2014 The True Confinement of a Nineteenth Century Woman In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she uses the setting to explain the development of the narrator’s insanity through the actions of the narrator. The nameless narrator suffers from postpartum disease which causes depression, and lack of joy in life. Throughout the story, the narrator’s condition worsens, because of the isolation and lack of power due to
"The Yellow Wallpaper" “The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. The plot of the story is the medical treatment of a woman with a nervous disorder, a.k.a. depression (including postpartum depression). The protagonist is an unnamed woman with a submissive, almost child-like faith and obedience to the supremacy of her husband, John. John is a renowned doctor and is treating her illness. This paper will focus on feminism in three areas; the medical diagnosis
Mental illnesses, Repression and Women in Nineteenth Century The greater part of the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about women’s repression. This story is set in the nineteenth century, which was a time that marked great changes in the world. Search for knowledge heightened, new inventions were being made and the industrial revolution triggered a great surge towards development, but the women in that era were still struggling to gain their own identity. The plot
The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes the way of life in the past and how women were treated unfairly. Not knowing much about contemporary medicine and ways of helping people with depression, John (her husband) locks her in a room to deal with her nervous depression. She suffers from postpartum depression, and throughout the time of her being isolated for the three months the room makes her slowly descend into insanity from “seeing people behind the wall” to
In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both talk about how two women are undergoing the same emotional circumstances. Both short stories express the physical and emotional pain each character experiences every day. Both characters find themselves in lives which are so brutal that it becomes intolerable. They both share common ground, they are strongly overpowered by men and are not permitted their own opinions. Both stories possess many similarities