The Yellow Wallpaper Research Paper

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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). Hysteria has been previously thought to be the condition that the narrator has in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, during the time it was written, because it was such a common diagnosis for symptoms such as these around that time. Personally,…show more content…
“She married Charles Stetson in 1884, later to have a child by the name of Katherine.” (bio.com) “Sometime after she gave birth she suffered a tragic depression” (Ball) in which actually gave her the motivation to write her story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Charlotte Perkins Gilman actually claimed to the public this, “I suffered from severe and ongoing nervous breakdown tending to melancholia- and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to “live as domestic a life as far as possible,” to “have but two hours’ intellectual life a day,” and “never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as I lived..” (Ball). I think she was able to put so much detail into this story…show more content…
Where in the story the narrator would say she would love to write more, “But I find I get pretty tired when I try” (Gilman 105). From just simple things as writing she would be exhausted which matches postpartum depression entirely. More symptoms of this disease include a “feeling of despair and depression” (Healthy Minds). The narrator in the story talks about her husband, “But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gillman 104). In this you can see an utterly muggy mind falling more and more into a state of depression as she claims to be suffering. Postpartum depression also includes “an irregular appetite and sleeping pattern” (Healthy Minds). In the story the narrator claims, “My appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away” (Gillman 109). The narrator also experienced crying, “Crying is another symptom related to this illness of postpartum depression” (Healthy Minds). During a time in the story where she was on the verge of losing complete control of her mind she states, “I cray at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I don’t when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone” (Gilman 107). Many people believe crying is a healthy reaction and is very natural
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