Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Medical Misunderstandings and Gender:

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a brief psychological study of a woman slowly going mad over the course of an imposed rest cure, prescribed by her physician-husband. The story illustrates the extent to which limited knowledge of the female psyche and a refusal to treat women as intelligent, independent beings ironically produces the types of behaviors the psychological treatment of the era was supposed to prevent. Both women and men are guilty of limiting women’s voices when women attempt to escape the conventional confines of motherhood and domesticity. Although the main character’s love of reading and writing is a constant and sustaining force in her life, she is denied it when it is assumed her illness is due to her refusal to conform to conventional roles.

As noted by history professor Hilary Marland, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is very much a product of its historical era and contains specific references to what were seen as uniquely female complaints. “All women were seen by physicians as susceptible to ill health and mental breakdown by reason of their biological weakness and reproductive cycles. And those who were creative and ambitious were deemed even more at risk” (Marland). It is not simply that the heroine is suffering from a personal crisis or malady. She is living in a world where the very state of being female is regarded as a malady or a disease. Women were viewed as being innately less intelligent and this was not something which could be overcome. In fact, if women tried to engage in intellectual study, they were seen as attempting to be like men and were more rather than less vulnerable to illness. The woman in the story appears to be in an unhappy and unequal marriage but the idea that marital troubles might be at the source of her frustrations are never entertained, because marriage is seen as the natural life outcome for women.

Gilman openly based the short story on her own experiences with a so-called rest cure that was supposed to quiet her nervous agitation. But unlike her nameless heroine, Gillman was prescribed her cure by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, who gained fame for treating what was then called nervous exhaustion in Civil War veterans and today would likely be called PTSD (Marland). Gilman’s first husband was an artist but in her short story she alters the facts of her own life to make a point about the overwhelmingly male perspective of the medical profession (“Charlotte Perkins Gilman”). Her brother is also a physician. She is surrounded by uncomprehending men who view her only in terms of the common, medically-accepted diagnoses of the era. “John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” she says (Gilman). Even when surreptitiously writing on her own, she is afraid to criticize her husband, as the surveillance of patriarchal society is always observing her, including John’s sister.
Before the rest cure has fully begun, there are signs that the woman has a more adversarial rather than a loving relationship with her husband as one might expect. “If a physician of high standing, and 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?” she says (Gilman). Her husband insists on speaking for the two of them as a couple, even when his wife contradicting what he says. He has the authority medical knowledge and his gender.

The narrator regards the prospect of being discovered by her husband and violating his prescription as something fearful. “There comes John, and I must put this away,--he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman). The orders by the physician not to use her mind and her husband are conjoined in the story, suggesting that men exercise tyranny over women both through the medical profession and in marriage. Marriage as well as a medical prescription denies women the ability to write and pursue intellectual professions, particularly after they have given birth like the narrator.

A number of literary critics have attempted to provide a diagnosis for the central character. She has recently given birth, and the medical profession’s failure to understand postpartum depression may also be one of the reasons her treatment is so inappropriate. In the era in which Gilman was writing, “puerperal insanity, a severe form of mental illness labelled in the early 19th century and claimed by doctors to be triggered by the mental and physical strain of giving birth” was a common diagnosis (Gilman). Again, the fact that giving birth was viewed in pathological terms highlights the extent to which the simple act of being a woman was viewed as suspect in Gilman’s era. Childbirth was viewed as inevitably painful until well into the mid-19th century, and even for middle-class women, controlling fertility was difficult. Women often had many more children than they wanted or could raise and the feelings about the central character for motherhood are ambivalent (Anderson).

The main character seems less depressed due to biological reasons than she is conflicted about her role as a woman and mother with aspirations for a life outside of the home. Although the narrator occasionally mentions the existence of her baby, it is given relatively little importance in the story. Her attitude towards motherhood may be reflective of the fact that when Gilman was writing, it was still largely unavoidable for most married women, given that birth control methods other than abstinence were largely ineffective (Anderson). Although there were options for women who wished to have pain-free childbirth, giving birth was still a very risky proposition for many women and medical science was dominated by men who poorly understood women’s needs.

This is translated into John’s refusal to take his wife’s complaints seriously. When she expresses her fear and dread of the wallpaper in her room, he dismisses her concerns. He calls his own wife a child, rather than honors her concerns as a grown woman. “What is it, little girl?" John says, when she wakes disturbed in the middle of the night (Gilman). When she says she is not getting better, he denies her autonomy and her ability to determine if she is improving. He insists that because he perceives that she is getting physically better and putting on flesh, she must be mentally improved, too. In the eyes of the male physician and husband, the woman’s body and mind are the same, and if her body is well and he approves of it, her mind must be, too.
There is also a strong sense of ownership over the body of a woman, given that under the laws of the land men had control over their wives in a way that would be unthinkable today. Women were thought to be the weaker sex, mentally and physically. “He is instead the natural complement to the narrator’s madness and uncontrolled fancy: the character of John is control and ‘sanity’ as defined by Victorian culture and is therefore the narrator’s opposite” (Crowder). This is ironically reversed at the end of the story, however, when it is John who faints at the sight of his wife crawling on the floor, peeling the wallpaper off of the wall, after she has fallen into madness. His wife’s madness is proof that there are things he does not understand about her and which cannot be diagnosed by male, medical science.

The final, striking image of the story—the narrator’s madness—is frightening but also liberating. Despite the fact that her husband did not take her entreaties seriously, the woman becomes increasingly deranged and convinced that another woman is lurking behind the wallpaper. By the end of the story, she enthuses, “I've got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!” (Gilman). Her language shows an awareness that the woman behind the wallpaper is, in fact, herself, even though she has been reduced to creeping on the floor. The act is both pathetic and liberating. It is pathetic because it shows the extent to which the rest cure and the denial of her intellectual nature has reduced her to someone who is unable to function. But it is also liberating because it shows that she has broken from her husband and is acting in a free manner.

One of the most interesting aspects of the tale is the role of John’s sister. Although “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a feminist tale, the other woman in the story does not support the main character. Instead, John’s sister largely echoes what John says and supports his patriarchal notions of how women should behave. “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” While the narrator feels unity for the woman trapped behind the wallpaper, other women are not necessarily sympathetic to the idea of a woman writing or attempting to find liberation through words rather than motherhood.

Ultimately, this highlights the frustration inherent in the narrator’s attempt to eke out a life for herself that is complete. Because she cannot be respected as a woman, wife, and mother, her only outlet and form of self-expression is madness. Her nervous energy merely earns her more confinement. Gilman chooses not to end the story with revealing what happened to the woman, if she recovered, or if she was confined to a madhouse for the rest of her life. Although Gilman did recover from her own nervous breakdown, the short story’s ending ultimately suggests that madness is preferable to living a false life where one’s intellect is controlled by men.

Works Cited

Anderson, Margaret. “19th century Childbirth.” University of Adelaide. 26 May 2018. Web. http://adelaidia.sa.gov.au/subjects/19th-century-childbirth

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Biography.com. 26 May 2018. Web. https://www.biography.com/people/charlotte-perkins-gilman-9311669

Crowder, Sarah. “Feminist Gothic in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Lone Star College.
26 May 2018. Web. http://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1899. 26 May 2018. Web. https://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/history/files/lavender/wallpaper.html

Marland, Hilary. “’The Yellow Wallpaper’: A 19th-century Short Story of Nervous Exhaustion
and the Perils of Women’s ‘Rest Cures.’ The Conversation. 27 Feb 2018. 26 May 2018. Web. http://theconversation.com/the-yellow-wallpaper-a-19th-century- short-story-of-nervous-exhaustion-and-the-perils-of-womens-rest-cures-92302

Martin, Diana. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1 May 2007.
26 May 2018. Web https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.2007.164.5.736