Jaqueline Martinez
Professor Andrea Glenn
College Composition II
19 February 2016
The Narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Mental State
Confinement is well -known as a punishment that affects the victim’s psychological state of mind noticeably, but being a woman in a society with staggeringly high social ideals has a far greater impact on mental health. The complexity of the narrator’s mental status in “The Yellow Wallpaper” provides a situation where it is difficult to tell when the narrator began to become mentally impaired. Many readers believe that the confinement the narrator endures throughout the story leads to her mental illness, but she is and was mentally ill well before her husband gave her a rest treatment because her “temporary …show more content…
Due to after effects the punishment gives its victim, laws were placed to limit the punishment to “a so-called maximum limit of three months”(Smith 446). This type of punishment often leads to a person’s mental stability detoraiting to the point it would be incredibly hard to be inserted back into society. In one case in Copenhagen, Denmark an inmate “had become insane (paranoid psychotic) during his [one year] stay in solitary”(Smith 447), which lead to investigations of the effects of confinement. Though evidence from investigations provides some symptoms and side-effects that the narrator suffers through her stay in new “urban surroundings”(Scott). It doesn’t add up to how quickly the narrator changes while she heals. Inmates who suffer confinement change drastically like the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper”, but they change at a slower pace. The narrator displays this process through her erratic journal entries, obsessive attitude, and insane thought …show more content…
These small hints: impatient, fury, anxiety, disconnected, confusion. These are the starting symptoms of postpartum depression (The). Other symptoms are how the narrator is unable to connect with the baby, her thoughts of running away, her sleeping pattern that includes her sleeping all day and not sleeping during the night. Confinement is able to give its victim these symptoms, but she was already experiencing these things before her husband prescribes her a rest cure. These symptoms became the reason for her new surroundings, so these symptoms have an origin before the confinement. Postpartum depression occurs when the hormones in women become unstable after she gives childbirth, which Gilman hints that the narrator went through previous to the beginning of the story. This mental illness cure is rest, psychotherapy, and hormone medication. The husband does provide the narrator an environment where she can rest, but he doesn’t talk about her situation anymore with her. This treatment and not being able to return to a normal healthy lifestyle makes the symptoms worsen as the story goes on to the point she becomes medically
Professor Andrea Glenn
College Composition II
19 February 2016
The Narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Mental State
Confinement is well -known as a punishment that affects the victim’s psychological state of mind noticeably, but being a woman in a society with staggeringly high social ideals has a far greater impact on mental health. The complexity of the narrator’s mental status in “The Yellow Wallpaper” provides a situation where it is difficult to tell when the narrator began to become mentally impaired. Many readers believe that the confinement the narrator endures throughout the story leads to her mental illness, but she is and was mentally ill well before her husband gave her a rest treatment because her “temporary …show more content…
Due to after effects the punishment gives its victim, laws were placed to limit the punishment to “a so-called maximum limit of three months”(Smith 446). This type of punishment often leads to a person’s mental stability detoraiting to the point it would be incredibly hard to be inserted back into society. In one case in Copenhagen, Denmark an inmate “had become insane (paranoid psychotic) during his [one year] stay in solitary”(Smith 447), which lead to investigations of the effects of confinement. Though evidence from investigations provides some symptoms and side-effects that the narrator suffers through her stay in new “urban surroundings”(Scott). It doesn’t add up to how quickly the narrator changes while she heals. Inmates who suffer confinement change drastically like the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper”, but they change at a slower pace. The narrator displays this process through her erratic journal entries, obsessive attitude, and insane thought …show more content…
These small hints: impatient, fury, anxiety, disconnected, confusion. These are the starting symptoms of postpartum depression (The). Other symptoms are how the narrator is unable to connect with the baby, her thoughts of running away, her sleeping pattern that includes her sleeping all day and not sleeping during the night. Confinement is able to give its victim these symptoms, but she was already experiencing these things before her husband prescribes her a rest cure. These symptoms became the reason for her new surroundings, so these symptoms have an origin before the confinement. Postpartum depression occurs when the hormones in women become unstable after she gives childbirth, which Gilman hints that the narrator went through previous to the beginning of the story. This mental illness cure is rest, psychotherapy, and hormone medication. The husband does provide the narrator an environment where she can rest, but he doesn’t talk about her situation anymore with her. This treatment and not being able to return to a normal healthy lifestyle makes the symptoms worsen as the story goes on to the point she becomes medically