Depression in "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman explores the desolate position of women in the nineteenth century. Specifically, it focuses on postpartum depression before it was recognized as a serious disease. The paper relates that the deterioration of the nameless narrator in this story is deprived of everything she needs, which make her condition worse. Her relationship with her husband, a doctor, is primarily responsible for her downturn. it explains that as a result of this, the theme of freedom and the use of symbolism become effective tools that Gilman uses to help us understand the narrator's debilitating disease.

From the Paper:

"The narrator's freedom is directly linked with her failing relationship with John because he is in control of practically every aspect of her life. He does not take her seriously, he treats her like a child, and even tries to manipulate her when he thinks it will get him what he wants. John does not think her illness is serious and insists on treating her like a little girl. John barely lets his wife move about without special direction having some sort of control over where she goes and what she does. He also offers no kind of support or compassion for his wife at all. An example of this can be seen when he tells her that her "imaginative power and habit of story-making . . . is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies" (Gilman 764). He laughs when she tries to discuss the paper with him and when he knows that different paper in the room might lift his wife's spirits, he declares, "nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies" (764). He indicates that she is making up all of her problems and then he refuses to do anything that might help her. John reinforces the insignificance of his wife's condition by working late most of the time."

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