Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is often herald as an insightful early look into mental illness as it plagued middle and upper class women of the 19th century. In undertaking such a topic, one that Gilman herself suffered from, she discusses the medical treatments available and it’s unique consideration of women. As much as “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a case study of a woman’s decent into madness, it is also a feminist critique of the century’s role of women, the dominance of men, and the time’s medical bias and cruelty towards women. The text’s undertaking of the narrator’s illness—“nervous depression,” and its physician prescribed treatment—the rest cure, is a metaphoric representation of social oppression and marriage
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But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished…
And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head (Baym 797).
In the above passage, you see the narrator attempts to discuss with her husband what she desires; to visit familiar faces, but her husband is absolutely against it because of her illness and the treatment which prohibits too much excitement. The rest cure restricts visitation from friends and loved ones and in a way that marriage asks people to forsake all others. Both marriage and the rest cure serve to isolate the main character from people, places, and things that might help give her a sense of self or that may show her a different possibly for life as a woman, mother, and wife than the role she is currently confined …show more content…
She is waited on by Jennie, given medicine hourly and confined to her room for most of the day. In marriage, a woman dependent on the husband much like the children are and with little social distinctions between the two. We see examples her being treated like a child in her marriage when John calls her “little goose” (Baym 794) and “little girl” (798). John does not acknowledge her as a fully functioning adult while ill which is representative of his outlook on her and her role as his wife.
In so much as the rest cure is symbolic of marriage, John as husband is a symbolic representation of thephysician Weir Mitchell. The narrator says of the men when recalling John’s threatening to send her to the physician’s, “I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!” (Baym 796). Though all three men are doctors, they are similar in their sexist thoughts regarding women and illness and in the maintaining of their place in
But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished…
And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head (Baym 797).
In the above passage, you see the narrator attempts to discuss with her husband what she desires; to visit familiar faces, but her husband is absolutely against it because of her illness and the treatment which prohibits too much excitement. The rest cure restricts visitation from friends and loved ones and in a way that marriage asks people to forsake all others. Both marriage and the rest cure serve to isolate the main character from people, places, and things that might help give her a sense of self or that may show her a different possibly for life as a woman, mother, and wife than the role she is currently confined …show more content…
She is waited on by Jennie, given medicine hourly and confined to her room for most of the day. In marriage, a woman dependent on the husband much like the children are and with little social distinctions between the two. We see examples her being treated like a child in her marriage when John calls her “little goose” (Baym 794) and “little girl” (798). John does not acknowledge her as a fully functioning adult while ill which is representative of his outlook on her and her role as his wife.
In so much as the rest cure is symbolic of marriage, John as husband is a symbolic representation of thephysician Weir Mitchell. The narrator says of the men when recalling John’s threatening to send her to the physician’s, “I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!” (Baym 796). Though all three men are doctors, they are similar in their sexist thoughts regarding women and illness and in the maintaining of their place in