Depression or Oppression in The Yellow Wallpaper

Depression or Oppression: The Yellow Wallpaper "The Yellow Wallpaper" is an amazing piece about Charlotte’s descent into mental impairment. Presented in diary form, the text recounts the experiences of Charlotte who is diagnosed with a nervous condition (i.e. hysteria) and is advised by her physician husband that she ought to be exposed to minimal mental stimulation in her path to recovery. Towards this end, she is essentially barricaded in her bedroom – a room wrapped in yellow wallpaper.

While Charlotte is at first diagnosed with depression and supposedly put on treatment for the same, what informs her descent into further mental impairment is oppression, as opposed to depression. It is important to note that human beings happen to be social creatures. What this means is that they thrive on constant interactions with each other. Charlotte is isolated and the only persons she has access to are the nurse and her husband.

At some point, she points out that she has nobody to seek “advice and companionship” from. She lacks a social system that she could actively use to share her tribulations, vent her frustrations, or simply converse meaningfully with. This actively denies her an essential component of human nature. It should also be noted that Charlotte’s freedom of movement is curtailed.

The ‘yellow wallpapered’ room could symbolically be viewed as her detention facility effectively meaning she is more or less a ‘prisoner’ whose right to both association and movement has been truncated. The short-story also alludes to the treatment of women as the weaker sex and paints a picture of an extremely obedient and submissive woman. Charlotte’s husband is in this case the dominant figure – a fact proclaimed by his male gender.

Charlotte, on the other hand presents a typical 19th century woman disposition of passivity and meekness. She even hides that fact that she is keeping a diary from John so as not to upset him. As she points out at some point, in reference to her diary, “I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word.” It should be noted that towards this end, Charlotte is not allowed to make and exercise her decisions.

Human beings desire and crave a certain level of autonomy or right to self-determination. When an individual is denied these, oppression can be said to have taken place. Charlotte, for instance, does not favor the yellow wallpaper wrapped room.

As she points out, she desired a room “downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window… but John would not hear of it.” By virtue of her opinions being stifled, Charlotte can voice her needs and wants but these have to be ratified by someone else – she has no power to implement or pursue her needs. Charlotte also has facts and the true state of affairs distorted or hidden from her view.

This is particularly the case when it comes to her husband’s assurance that her condition is improving while to the contrary, it I actually deteriorating. She is in essence forced to a point whereby she blindly trusts her husband’s untrue assertions regarding her wellbeing and recovery. At.