Gone Creeping
Treatment for mental illness in the nineteenth century was misguided and misinformed. The narrator in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, lets the reader in the mind of a middle aged woman and how her mental illness was merely “contained” rather than be treated. The story begins with a couple, the narrator and her husband, moving into a house just outside of town to help with her “temporary nervous depression”(131). She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in her room where she begins to see a woman creep inside of it at night. This only made her condition escalate until finally the illness took over. Mental illness is severe to the human brain without proper treatment, for example the narrator is affected without anyone noticing but herself as the story is told from a first person point of view.
The central idea of the story is that mental illness is not treated correctly in this time. The narrator is isolated to resting …show more content…
This allows the reader to understand why she does the things she does and sees the woman behind the wallpaper. “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern”(139). We know she see this because her illness is getting worse. The reader may also believe that she suffers from postpartum depression being that the baby is only mentioned twice. “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby. And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous”(134). She talks about her past as a child. “I used to lie awake as a child…”(135), showing more evidence of first person point of view. She becomes “tired” a majority of the time(136). These examples help support the main idea because it shows how the illness is slowly overpowering her and causing her to lose herself. If the story was told through a different point of view the narrator would seem an ordinary lady gone
Treatment for mental illness in the nineteenth century was misguided and misinformed. The narrator in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, lets the reader in the mind of a middle aged woman and how her mental illness was merely “contained” rather than be treated. The story begins with a couple, the narrator and her husband, moving into a house just outside of town to help with her “temporary nervous depression”(131). She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in her room where she begins to see a woman creep inside of it at night. This only made her condition escalate until finally the illness took over. Mental illness is severe to the human brain without proper treatment, for example the narrator is affected without anyone noticing but herself as the story is told from a first person point of view.
The central idea of the story is that mental illness is not treated correctly in this time. The narrator is isolated to resting …show more content…
This allows the reader to understand why she does the things she does and sees the woman behind the wallpaper. “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern”(139). We know she see this because her illness is getting worse. The reader may also believe that she suffers from postpartum depression being that the baby is only mentioned twice. “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby. And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous”(134). She talks about her past as a child. “I used to lie awake as a child…”(135), showing more evidence of first person point of view. She becomes “tired” a majority of the time(136). These examples help support the main idea because it shows how the illness is slowly overpowering her and causing her to lose herself. If the story was told through a different point of view the narrator would seem an ordinary lady gone