john in the yellow wallpaper essay

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte perkins gilman, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Introduction

The yellow wallpaper: plot summary, the yellow wallpaper: detailed summary & analysis, the yellow wallpaper: themes, the yellow wallpaper: quotes, the yellow wallpaper: characters, the yellow wallpaper: symbols, the yellow wallpaper: literary devices, the yellow wallpaper: quizzes, the yellow wallpaper: theme wheel, brief biography of charlotte perkins gilman.

Historical Context of The Yellow Wallpaper

Other books related to the yellow wallpaper.

• Full Title: The Yellow Wallpaper
• When Written: June, 1890
• Where Written: California
• When Published: May, 1892
• Literary Period: Gothic
• Genre: Short story; Gothic horror; Feminist literature
• Setting: Late nineteenth century, in a colonial mansion that has been rented for the summer. Most of the story’s action takes place in a room at the top of the house that is referred to as the “nursery.”
• Climax: The narrator suffers a complete mental breakdown, identifying herself with the woman she has hallucinated as being trapped in the yellow wallpaper and clawing at the walls as she creeps in endless circles about the room and over her fainted husband.
• Antagonist: John, the narrator’s husband and doctor, could be considered an antagonist, although he is not a purely evil character.
• Point of View: First person narrator, in a series of diary entries.

Extra Credit for The Yellow Wallpaper

Self-funded. To finance her education at the Rhode Island School of Design, Charlotte Perkins Gilman painted advertisements (trade cards) for soap companies.

Utopian lit. In addition to critiques like The Yellow Wallpaper , Gilman wrote utopian fiction through which she imagined a world in which social conditions reflected equality for women.

The Symbolism of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Explained

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is an 1892 short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A powerful study of mental illness and the inhuman treatments administered in its name, the story succeeds largely because of its potent symbolism. Let’s take a look at some of the key symbols in the tale.

We have summarised the plot of the story and analysed it in detail in a separate post .

But let’s briefly summarise the plot of the story here, as a reminder: the narrator and her husband John, a doctor, have come to stay at a large country house. As the story develops, we realise that the woman’s husband has brought her to the house in order to try to cure her of her mental illness. His proposed (well, enforced ) treatment is to lock his wife away from everyone except him, and to withhold everything from her that might excite her.

It becomes clear, as the story develops, that depriving the female narrator of anything to occupy her mind is making her mental illness worse, not better. The narrator outlines to us how she sometimes sits for hours in her room, tracing the patterns in the yellow wallpaper on the walls of her room.

She then tells us she thinks she can see a woman ‘stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.’ She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper as her mental state deteriorates, before eventually locking herself within the room and crawling around on the floor.

The Mansion.

‘ The Yellow Wallpaper ’ begins with the idea that we are about to read a haunted house story, a Gothic tale, a piece of horror. Such stories were a staple of late nineteenth-century magazines and enjoyed huge popularity.

And why else, wonders the story’s female narrator, would the house be available so cheaply unless it was haunted? And why had it remained unoccupied for so long? This is how many haunted house tales begin, so we are deliberately placed on this track, but it will turn out to be the wrong track.

But as we read on, we realise that the ‘haunting’ is not supernatural but psychological: the narrator of Gilman’s story contains her own demons within her mind, and her husband’s ‘treatment’ actually accentuates and intensifies these.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ has the structure and style of a diary. This is in keeping with what the female narrator tells us: that she can only write down her experiences when her husband John is not around, because he forbids her to write because he thinks it will overexcite her. The whole story thus has the air of a secret text, with the narrator confiding in us – indeed, the reader is her only confidant.

But it also has the effect of shifting the narrative tense: from the usual past tense to the more unusual present tense. This has benefits in that it creates the sense of a continuous narrative, and events unfolding as we read them.

The Husband.

The narrator’s husband, John, is a doctor, but he is a world away from the ‘mad doctor’ trope found in Gothic texts, especially those influenced by Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde .

John’s greatest flaw is not his inherent evil but his dogged devotion to the prevailing scientific opinion of the day. His danger to his wife is not in being some eccentric or power-hungry outlier, but in holding too fast to the medical orthodoxy of the time. He believes that incarcerating his wife alone away from her family – even her own children – will make her better.

Gilman uses suggestive symbolism to dramatise the complex relationship between husband and wife in the story. Take that final dramatic scene where John is about to break down the door to his wife’s chamber with an axe. So far, so ‘mad axeman found in countless horror stories and fairy tales’, with shades of Bluebeard , that wife-killer from European folk history.

But this narrative is complicated by the fact that John has come to save his wife from herself, while she – having locked herself away in the room in order to protect her husband and family from the strange women she believes are behind the yellow wallpaper in the room – believes she is protecting him.

Of course, her madness has been made worse by John’s treatment of her in the first place, but he believes he is acting in her own interests. The symbolism of the axe here, and the husband being prepared to break down the door to his wife’s bedroom, is layered and complex.

The Nursery.

It is significant that the room in which the narrator is incarcerated is the old nursery in the large house. The narrator tells us that there are bars on the windows to protect little children from hurting themselves, although ‘bars’ here also symbolise the narrator’s de facto imprisonment in the room.

The fact that the room was once a nursery and then, the narrator deduces, a ‘gymnasium’ is loaded with significance. The room thus symbolises the narrator’s own childlike state as she is treated like a naughty child by her husband and locked away in her room. The reference to a gymnasium is ironic, since a gymnasium is a room for exercise, but the room actually worsens the narrator’s health.

The Yellow Wallpaper.

The most powerful symbol in the story is the yellow wallpaper itself. But it is also, perhaps, the most ambiguous symbol in the story, because it can invite at least two very different interpretations.

The first interpretation views the yellow wallpaper as an outward and visible symbol of the narrator’s own internal state of mind. Her disordered mental state leads her to see all manner of figures in the paper’s patterns. Human beings have evolved to look for patterns as a survival mechanism, but here the narrator’s pattern-hunting is her undoing.

At one point, she mentions a ‘particularly irritating’ pattern which ‘you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then’. This closely ties the paper’s patterns with the narrator’s shifting moods and highlights the subjective nature of what she sees (or thinks she sees) in the wallpaper.

However, given the kinds of shapes the narrator describes seeing in the wallpaper, a second interpretation is possible. This one is more firmly focused on the story’s feminist message, and sees the shapes in the wallpaper as symbols of female oppression at the time the story was written. For example, the narrator describes detecting a figure ‘like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.’

Indeed, the word ‘creeping’ (and its accompanying adjective, ‘creepy’, which seems doubly apt here) recurs numerous times throughout this short story. It implies that the narrator sees a version of herself – and all oppressed women – within the wallpaper, having to tread carefully around others, unable to be fully themselves. The verb ‘stooping’ also suggests bearing the weight of some kind of burden.

<script id=”mcjs”>!function(c,h,i,m,p){m=c.createElement(h),p=c.getElementsByTagName(h)[0],m.async=1,m.src=i,p.parentNode.insertBefore(m,p)}(document,”script”,”https://chimpstatic.com/mcjs-connected/js/users/af4361760bc02ab0eff6e60b8/c34d55e4130dd898cc3b7c759.js”);</script>

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

• Undergraduate
• High School
• Architecture
• American History
• Asian History
• Antique Literature
• American Literature
• Asian Literature
• Classic English Literature
• World Literature
• Creative Writing
• Linguistics
• Criminal Justice
• Legal Issues
• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Political Science
• World Affairs
• African-American Studies
• East European Studies
• Latin-American Studies
• Native-American Studies
• West European Studies
• Family and Consumer Science
• Social Issues
• Women and Gender Studies
• Social Work
• Natural Sciences
• Pharmacology
• Earth science
• Agriculture
• Agricultural Studies
• Computer Science
• IT Management
• Mathematics
• Investments
• Engineering and Technology
• Engineering
• Aeronautics
• Medicine and Health
• Alternative Medicine
• Communications and Media
• Advertising
• Communication Strategies
• Public Relations
• Educational Theories
• Teacher's Career
• Chicago/Turabian
• Company Analysis
• Education Theories
• Shakespeare
• Canadian Studies
• Food Safety
• Relation of Global Warming and Extreme Weather Condition
• Movie Review
• Admission Essay
• Annotated Bibliography
• Application Essay
• Article Critique

Article Review

• Article Writing
• Book Review
• Business Plan
• Business Proposal
• Capstone Project
• Cover Letter
• Creative Essay
• Dissertation
• Dissertation - Abstract
• Dissertation - Conclusion
• Dissertation - Discussion
• Dissertation - Hypothesis
• Dissertation - Introduction
• Dissertation - Literature
• Dissertation - Methodology
• Dissertation - Results
• GCSE Coursework
• Grant Proposal
• Marketing Plan
• Multiple Choice Quiz
• Personal Statement
• Power Point Presentation
• Power Point Presentation With Speaker Notes
• Questionnaire
• Reaction Paper
• Research Paper
• Research Proposal
• SWOT analysis
• Thesis Paper
• Online Quiz
• Literature Review
• Movie Analysis
• Statistics problem
• Math Problem
• All papers examples
• How It Works
• Money Back Policy
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• We Are Hiring

Literary Analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Essay Example

Pages: 7

Words: 1977

Hire a Writer for Custom Essay

Use 10% Off Discount: "custom10" in 1 Click 👇

You are free to use it as an inspiration or a source for your own work.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a seemingly personal account of female oppression during the 19 th century. At that time in history women were commonly seen as possessions or property, rather than an equal partner to their spouse. The story details the narrator’s journey as she explains many details about the people and places that surround her, which are very symbolic for a number of themes. Not only are relationships and society restrictive, but she also finds that her house and bedroom are particularly repressive to her physical being as well as her emotional growth. This paper will explore the various symbolic meanings found in Gilman’s story and also relate that to the oppressive nature of women during that time in history. The narrator identifies her feelings of oppression and imprisonment in her marriage just as the “woman behind the wallpaper” does; both women are looking for a way out, but unable to escape the physical restraints placed on them.

A Summer Retreat For Nervous Depression

The story begins with the account of both the house and grounds that the narrator and her husband will be staying at for a summer retreat. She is very expressive with her descriptions, but she spends much of her time explaining how she believes that there is something off or “queer” about the house and grounds. Once inside the house she begins to imagine and even describes the patterns in the wallpaper and walls of the home. The negative energy that she uses to explain could be from her being diagnosed with “nervous depression” by her husband, who is also a doctor. She states that she is prescribed “phosphates and tonics….and absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again (Gilman 1). In order to better understand the narrator and her feelings, one must understand the viewpoint and beliefs about women during this time. At this point in history, women that suffered from mood swings or other emotions were often to be said to be crazy or have depression that should be treated with rest and restricted activity. This is exactly what the narrator is supposed to do, rest, stay in her bedroom and is explicitly forbidden to write or express her thoughts. Her creative expression kept in her journal is considered badly John and she is forced to hide her journal from him as well as and others that enter the home.

One of the most symbolic meanings of the story is the restriction of the narrator’s ability to write in her journal or express her thoughts. This suggests that her thoughts and feelings are not important to her husband, John or anyone for that matter. She relates to the reader that John suggests that her writing is simply neurotic worry and that it is not good for her treatment. Her treatment of course is rest and staying out of the way of her husband for the most part, which causes her to see herself as a burden (Gilman 3). At this time in history mental illness was poorly understood and those afflicted were often locked away or isolated from others. It was believed, just like the narrator states that the afflicted individual must take control of their emotions and make the necessary changes. Women were often treated like children in the respect that they needed to be guided and were unable to make decisions for themselves. To further this train of thought, John commonly referred to his wife in the story as a “blessed little goose” and even a little girl (Gilman 7). While it seems that John is giving his wife pet names, these are more symbolic of a person that is unable to care for themselves or is childlike, which was consistent with the beliefs of the time.

Not only was he attempting to control his wife through their marriage, but he was also a doctor that could prescribe “treatment” for her, which further restricted her.

Bars on the Windows

The narrator was locked away on the second floor and her husband and sister in law, Jennie and a nanny were her caregivers. Her food is brought to her and the nanny tends to her child, while Jennie is said to be the perfect housekeeper. There is no reason for her to leave her room, as she is to rest and not engage in any work. The room that she is placed in is described as being lit by the sun and spacious, but she details that it may have been where children stayed.  The manner by which she describes leads the reader to believe that it is a nursery, as the windows are barred and there are rings and things in the wall (Gilman 2). She explains that there are bars on the windows, which likely were placed there because of the children that the room was used for. The symbolic bars on the window noted by the narrator represent the feeling of being held against her will with no escape. On one side she was faced with a repressive husband that refuses to hear her concerns and the only other way out was secured with bars. She sees her marriage and surroundings as a prison, bars on the windows and being confined to a room where her actions are dictated by others. She is not free to move about or engage in any activity under the pretext that it would worsen her condition. Ironically, depression is said to improve with a persons increased activity level, which is another form of symbolic oppression in the story and in society in general during that time period.

Women’s Oppression

At one point in the story she states that she likes to fantasize about people walking on the walkway or grounds of the estate, however is discouraged by her husband. This represents the disregard for her imagination or creative thought process. This can also be seen in his disregard for her writing as she states, “he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 2).  A woman’s ability or right to work is an expression of herself and this story represents the way that it was stunted. Instead the only job that a woman was capable of was taking care of her family, and in this story that had even been taken from the narrator. It was the woman’s job to engage in domestic care of both the children and spouse, not work outside the home or have income of her own. Society placed many restrictive beliefs on females, giving them little freedom or rights as a citizen. During this time in history, women that divorced their husbands or did not obey them were considered second class citizens. In some cases they were not allowed to engage in society as they had broken the sacred code of marriage. In a sense the narrators physical being is trapped in her room, however her emotional being is trapped through the inability to write, work, care for her children or even explain her medical condition.

The Patterned Wallpaper

The narrator describes the wallpaper as yellow with a revolting and hideous pattern (Gilman 2). She sees bulbous images and what she describes as broken necks in the papers design. She asks her husband to change rooms; however he says that it is the best room for her recovery. Drawing from the fact that it was a child’s nursery one could make the comparison again that she is being treated like a child. Some of the wallpaper according to the narrator is already been picked or torn. Through the story, she begins to see figures behind the wallpaper that she believes is a woman who is trapped. This shadow or trapped woman is described as, “dim shapes that get clearer every day” (Gilman 10).

In the beginning, the narrator, was only able to see odd patterns, however not the females that she believes to be trapped. She says that the woman stays behind the bars as they bind her. The woman is silent or still during the day, however when night comes the woman rattles the bars that entrap her inside the wall or behind the wallpaper itself. Her beliefs about this woman can be seen as her own mental illness or struggle with being oppressed by her husband and society as well. She claims that this woman creeps and greatly desires to be set free from the constraints of the wallpaper.

Just as the narrator is hiding her journal and inner thoughts from her husband, the woman behind the wallpaper hides in the sunlight, but moves under the moonlight. This signifies the hiding of the female presence, but only expressing herself when no one is looking. Throughout the story, the narrator becomes more obsessed with the wallpaper, the figures and movement of the pattern. This is her only source of entertainment and she begins to identify with the woman that is trapped. As the story moves along and she becomes even more depressed, she begins to make plans to free the woman. Her goal is to do so within two days, which is their scheduled departure date from the house. She begins picking and tearing at the wallpaper to not only free the woman she sees, but also as a source of taking her own control (Gilman 11). She is defying her husband, as he certainly would not approve of her actions or thoughts. As she tears the wallpaper she hears shrieks, but is intent on allowing the woman to go free. During the time that she is peeling the paper, she contemplates jumping out the window, but is unable to because there are bars on the windows. She also notes that she is afraid of all the other women creeping outside. Some may feel that the narrator has been driven mad by the wallpaper at this point, however it seems that the meaning is that of her final decision not to care what her husband thinks. She is following what she feels and standing up for her own freedom by releasing the woman behind the wallpaper. When her husband learns of her actions, he breaks his way into the room and then faints at the sight of what she has done. He, of course believes that she has gone completely mad and faints. The story ends with the narrator creeping around the perimeter of the room, even stepping over his body in the process (Gilman 12). Again her stepping over his body is symbolic that she is no longer under his control, even though she has likely suffered a nervous breakdown and has lost her mind.

In conclusion, Gilman’s story is that of a personal account from a female’s perspective. The narrator comes to identify with the women in the wallpaper that she imagines. Of course these delusions are due to her illness, which is most likely related to depression and post-partum, as there is a baby referenced in the story. Medical conditions were not understood and the general consensus of the time was to use natural remedies coupled with rest. Those that suffered from depression or other mental disorders would likely be separated from the general community as they simply didn’t know what else to do with them. Along with the narrator suffering from depression, she was also a victim of historical oppression. During this time, women were seen as less than equal and not allowed to express opinions or take an active role in decision making. Their place was in a domestic role and nothing more. While some might say that the wallpaper drove the narrator crazy, others might see it as an escape from an oppressive reality in the only manner that she could control; her own thoughts and bizarre actions!

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Yellow Wallpaper Page 1.” Page By Page Books. Read Classic Books Online, Free. . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://www.pagebypagebooks

Stuck with your Essay?

Get in touch with one of our experts for instant help!

Blog Posting: Us and Them, Essay Example

Emerging Technologies in Distance Learning, Article Review Example

Time is precious

don’t waste it!

Plagiarism-free guarantee

Privacy guarantee

Secure checkout

Money back guarantee

Related Essay Samples & Examples

Voting as a civic responsibility, essay example.

Pages: 1

Words: 287

Utilitarianism and Its Applications, Essay Example

Words: 356

The Age-Related Changes of the Older Person, Essay Example

Pages: 2

Words: 448

The Problems ESOL Teachers Face, Essay Example

Pages: 8

Words: 2293

Should English Be the Primary Language? Essay Example

Pages: 4

Words: 999

The Term “Social Construction of Reality”, Essay Example

Words: 371

Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Mental Health — The Yellow Wallpaper Setting Analysis

The Yellow Wallpaper Setting Analysis

• Categories: Mental Health

About this sample

Words: 880 |

Published: Mar 5, 2024

Words: 880 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Nursing & Health

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

7 pages / 3006 words

11 pages / 4859 words

5 pages / 2449 words

1 pages / 603 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Mental Health

The relationship between mental illness and homelessness is a deeply intertwined and complex issue that affects individuals and communities across the globe. This essay delves into the multifaceted connection between mental [...]

Mental illness within the criminal justice system is a complex and pressing issue that intersects legal, medical, and ethical considerations. This essay examines the challenges posed by mental illness among individuals in the [...]

Easterlin, M., Chung, P., & Leng, M. (2023). Association of Team Sports Participation With Long-term Mental Health Outcomes Among Individuals Exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences. JAMA Pediatrics.National Public Radio (NPR). [...]

Mental health stigma is a pervasive issue that has long hindered individuals from seeking the help they need and perpetuated damaging stereotypes and misconceptions. In this comprehensive essay, we will delve deeply into the [...]

Stress is commonly delineated as a sense of being tension, distressed or run-down. Stress will affect individuals of all ages, genders and may result in each physical and psychological health problems. Normal healthy people [...]

“Eat your vegetables! Exercise! Get a good night's sleep!” We’ve all known to take care of our bodies since grade school P. E. class. But what about our mental health, isn’t mental health just as important as physical health? [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Psychology in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” Essay

Introduction.

One of the reasons why Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper has traditionally been referred to as such that constitutes a high literary and philosophical value is that in it, the author succeeded in providing readers with an in-depth insight into what should be considered the emerging symptoms of one’s mental illness. Moreover, despite the fact that Gilman wrote this particular story at the time when psychology/psychiatry was remaining in an essentially embryonic state, in The Yellow Wallpaper she proved herself as a rather efficient psychologist, who never ceased being fully aware of what accounted for the conceptual deficiency of the late 19 th century’s psychiatric conventions (Quawas 36). In my paper, I will aim to explore the validity of this thesis at length.

Psychological aspects of the short story

The reading of Gilman story’s few initial lines suggests that the reason why the narrator and her husband John decided to spend the summer in a secluded mansion is that this was supposed to help improving the narrator’s mental condition, as she would be spared of socialization-related distresses. According to Treichler, “Her (narrator’s) physical isolation was in part designed to remove her from the possibility of over-stimulating intellectual discussion” (61).

Nevertheless, even though that John was aware of the fact that there was a certain abnormality to his wife’s behavior, he continued denying that her mental anxieties had to be taken seriously, “You see he (John) does not believe I am sick!” (Gilman 1). Partially, the narrator herself provides an explanation as to why, despite having been an accomplished physician, John nevertheless continued referring to his wife’s pleas for help in a thoroughly arrogant manner, “John does not know how much I really suffer.

He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (2). This narrator’s remark helps us to understand the essence of John’s failure to prescribe his wife with the conceptually appropriate therapy, which in turn created objective preconditions for her to keep descending into madness. Apparently, just as it used to be the case with the majority of physicians at the end of the 19 th century, John believed that the reason why some people tend to act in a clearly neurotic manner is that they simply do not apply enough conscious effort, while trying to suppress their visually observable mental angst.

The explanation for this is quite apparent – during the course of a given historical period, it never occurred to physicians that it is specifically the unconscious aspects of an individual psyche’s functioning that define his or her conscious stance in life, and not vice versa. Partially, this had to do with the fact that, throughout the course of this period, the discursive influence of Christianity remained comparatively strong. And, as we are being well aware of, Christianity promotes the assumption that there is a structural unity to one’s soul (psyche), which is why it cannot consist of mutually incompatible elements.

Therefore, there is nothing particularly odd about the fact in the late 19 th century, the majority of physicians still continued to regard the emanations of one’s mental instability as being of an essentially physiological nature, “(In 19 th century) Psychical factors came to be regarded merely as the products of certain yet-to-be determined neuro-physiological processes” (Caplan 7). This is why, even though that throughout the course of her stay at the mansion, the narrator was exhibiting more and more indications of her mental state’s continual deterioration, John could not come up with anything better but to prescribe his wife to lead a socially withdrawn lifestyle, as it was supposed to calm her down.

Apparently, John could never bring himself to consider the possibility that the worsening of his wife’s mental condition had nothing to do with purely environmental factors, which is why he continued insisting that the key to her rehabilitation was a plenty of food and sleep, “John says I mustn’t lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat” (4). It appears that it simply never occurred to John that the reason why his wife was feeling progressively more disturbed is that she has been deliberately spared of an opportunity to lead a normal life.

The reading of Gilman’s story also suggests that there was another reason why John proved himself unable to properly diagnose his wife and to intervene the process of his loved one succumbing to insanity. This is because, while acting as a physician, who should have been trying to expand of his intellectual horizons, John never made even a single attempt to reconsider the legitimacy of his male-chauvinistic prejudices towards women.

In its turn, this explains why, despite the fact that he continued observing more and more signs that there was something definitely wrong with his wife; he refused to consider these signs’ possible significance. It simply could not be otherwise – in John’s mind, the narrator’s mental anxieties were simply confirming the validity of a male-chauvinistic presumption that, just as it being the case with all women, his wife was naturally predisposed to grow hysterical from time to time, “If… one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do?” (1).

In other words, John thought of his wife having been less human, as compared to what he believed was the case with himself, because she experienced a hard time, while trying to keep her irrational impulses under control (Cutter 153).

Hence, the ‘therapy’, with which the narrator was prescribed by her husband, “He (John) says no one but myself can help me out of it (depression), that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me” (5). It is needless to say, of course, that the application of this kind of ‘therapy’ could hardly produce any positive results, because it was based on a thoroughly fallacious assumption that the unconscious workings of one’s psyche can be subjected to a conscious control. Yet, contemporary psychoanalysts know that this is far from being the case. Quite on the contrary – one’s conscious attempts to suppress the unconscious workings of his or her psyche can only result in the worsening of the concerned individual’s overall mental condition.

This is exactly the reason why, as time went on, the narrator was becoming ever more delirious – the mere fact that, in full accordance with John’s advice, she tried to disregard the symptoms of depression, caused her mental despair to continue becoming even more acute. This is because, apart from experiencing depression, on the account of her inability to lead a socially productive lifestyle, she started to grow progressively worried about her self-presumed inability to live up to John’s expectations.

Predictably enough, it created yet additional precondition for the narrator to continue losing her grip on things, because without being able to articulate her own unconscious fears, she allowed them to accumulate deep inside her sub-consciousness – hence, making it only the matter of time before they would break out of their psychic confinement into the realm of the main character’s consciousness. After it happened, the narrator’s ability to indulge in a rationale-based reasoning sustained an irreparable damage, because at the end of Gilman’s story she started to behave as a maniacally obsessed schizophrenic, endowed with the fictitious sense of self-identity (Bak 44).

Thus, it will not be much of an exaggeration to suggest that The Yellow Wallpaper can be referred to as a particularly powerful indictment of what used to account for the 19 th century’s approaches to the treatment of mental illnesses in America. Apparently, besides having been scientifically illegitimate, these approaches were also perceptually arrogant. The fact that such an accomplished physician as John allowed his wife’s mild depression to develop into a full-scaled schizophrenia validates the appropriateness of this statement.

I believe that the earlier deployed line of argumentation, as to the fact that the story’s main character may be well considered a victim of the 19 th century’s healthcare conventions, is being fully consistent with the paper’s initial thesis. In its turn, this explains why, despite having been written in 1892, Gilman’s story continues to emanate an undermined literary appeal. This simply could not be otherwise, because in The Yellow Wallpaper, the author succeeded in outlining the discursive principles of what will later become known as the methodology of psychoanalysis, based upon the assumption that people’s behavior reflects the essence of their unconscious anxieties.

Treichler, Paula. “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 3.1/2 (1984): 61-77. Print.

The main idea that is being explored throughout the course of Treichler article’s entirety can be conceptualized as follows: the reason why John proved himself incapable of properly diagnosing the essence of his wife’s mental inadequateness is that, while assessing the significance of her depression-symptoms, he relied upon his rationale-driven masculine logic. Author attests that the very concept of ‘diagnosis’, in the traditional sense of this word, is by definition discursively arrogant, “(Diagnosis) is a male voice that privileges the rational, the practical, and the observable” (65).

In its turn, this has led Treichler to suggest that there is a symbolic meaning to John’s attempts to help the narrator to attain an emotional comfortableness with the room, in which she was confined – apparently, he wanted to make sure that his wife would never be in a position to challenge his patriarchal authority. Therefore, according to Treichler, John’s diagnosis of his wife’s mental condition can be discussed in terms of a ‘sentence’ – by prescribing her with the ‘therapy’ of bellyful idleness, John was unconsciously trying to deny the narrator her basic humanity.

I think that in her article, Treichler came up with a number of discursively relevant observations. The author also needs to be given a credit for making the line of her reasoning logically substantiated. At the same time, however, Treichler’s argumentation, in regards to the discussed subject matter, cannot be referred to as such that represents an undeniable truth-value. This is because in her article, the author made a deliberate point in representing herself as a hard-core feminist, which I believe undermined the extent of this article’s objectiveness.

Works Cited

Bak, John. “Escaping the Jaundiced Eye: Foucauldian Panopticism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Studies in Short Fiction 31.1 (1994), 39-46. Print.

Caplan, Eric. Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Print.

Cutter, M. “The Writer as Doctor: New Models of Medical Discourse in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Later Fiction.” Literature and Medicine 20.2 (2001): 151-182. Print.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper . Web.

Quawas, Rula. “A New Woman’s Journey into Insanity: Descent and Return in The Yellow Wallpaper.” AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language Association 105 (2006): 35-53. Print.

• Summary & Analysis
• Themes & Symbols
• Quotes Explained
• Essay Topics
• Essay Examples
• Questions & Answers
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Biography
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, August 8). Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper". https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychology-in-gilmans-the-yellow-wallpaper/

"Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"." IvyPanda , 8 Aug. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/psychology-in-gilmans-the-yellow-wallpaper/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"'. 8 August.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"." August 8, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychology-in-gilmans-the-yellow-wallpaper/.

1. IvyPanda . "Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"." August 8, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychology-in-gilmans-the-yellow-wallpaper/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Psychology in Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"." August 8, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychology-in-gilmans-the-yellow-wallpaper/.

• Narrator’s Experience: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman
• Symbols in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by C. P. Gilman
• Conflict in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by C. Perkins Gilman
• Charlotte Gilman’s Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper”
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Gilman and "My Last Duchess" by Browning
• Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: Point of View
• Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” Story Analysis
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” a Story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Symbolism in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Narrator in “The Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
• Symbols in Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"
• Point of View in Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"
• 9/11 in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Foer
• Unreliable Narrator in "The Black Cat" by Poe