The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by American author Charlotte Perkin Gilman and was first published in The New England Magazine in 1892. (Wikipedia, n.d.) The story follows the mental breakdown of a young woman, a wife, and new mother, and is told through a series of nine journal entries. One of the underlying themes of the story revolves around the likelihood that the main character's neurosis is resulting from what we would today consider postpartum depression. This is a condition that, during the time period, was miscomprehended and used by the medical field to further emphasize the fragility of the female gender ideology.
Gilman begins her story with the main character describing a magnificent summer house her husband has rented for them to stay at. While the woman seems jovial, and for the most part impressed by her surroundings, she hints to something about her situation being out of …show more content…
Most physicians also recommended that patients be restrained or watched closely and that family and friends be kept away." (Theriot, 74) This was the exact prescription the narrator's husband had for his wife. The narrator mentions often throughout the story that her husband, John, forbids her to write or work. She talks about wanting to visit relatives, but he denies her request for fear of exasperating her delicate condition.
Nancy Theriot, Professor and Chairperson of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville, writes in her text, Diagnosing Unnatural Motherhood, Nineteenth-Century Physicians and 'Puerperal Insanity', physicians were very clear that the woman's insanity was brought on by her situation, and that the puerperal (post childbirth) state simply lowered the woman's strength so that she could no longer deal with the adverse environmental conditions. Kindness, rest and reassurance was the best treatment. (Theriot,
Gilman begins her story with the main character describing a magnificent summer house her husband has rented for them to stay at. While the woman seems jovial, and for the most part impressed by her surroundings, she hints to something about her situation being out of …show more content…
Most physicians also recommended that patients be restrained or watched closely and that family and friends be kept away." (Theriot, 74) This was the exact prescription the narrator's husband had for his wife. The narrator mentions often throughout the story that her husband, John, forbids her to write or work. She talks about wanting to visit relatives, but he denies her request for fear of exasperating her delicate condition.
Nancy Theriot, Professor and Chairperson of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville, writes in her text, Diagnosing Unnatural Motherhood, Nineteenth-Century Physicians and 'Puerperal Insanity', physicians were very clear that the woman's insanity was brought on by her situation, and that the puerperal (post childbirth) state simply lowered the woman's strength so that she could no longer deal with the adverse environmental conditions. Kindness, rest and reassurance was the best treatment. (Theriot,