The Yellow Wallpaper: A Study Of Insanity Essay, Research Paper

For the adult females in the 20th century today, who have more freedom than earlier and have non experienced the depressive life that Gilman lived from1860 to 1935, it is hard to understand Gilman & # 8217 ; s state of affairs and understand the significance of & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; . Gilman & # 8217 ; s original intent of composing the narrative was to hold gained personal satisfaction if Dr. S. Weir Mitchell might alter his intervention after reading the narrative. However, as Ann L. Jane suggests, & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; is & # 8220 ; the best crafted of her fiction: a echt literary piece? the most straight, evidently, self-consciously autobiographical of all her narratives & # 8221 ; ( Introduction xvi ) . More significantly, Gilman says in her article in The Forerunner, & # 8220 ; It was non intended to drive people brainsick, but to salvage people from being driven loony, and it worked & # 8221 ; ( 20 ) . Therefore, & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; is a disclosure of Charlotte Perkins Gilman & # 8217 ; s ain emotions.

When the narrative foremost came out in 1892 the critics considered & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; as a portraiture of female insanity instead than a narrative that reveals an facet of society. In The Transcript, a doctor from Boston wrote, & # 8220 ; Such a narrative ought non to be written? it was plenty to drive anyone mad to read it & # 8221 ; ( Gilman 19 ) . This statement implies that any adult female that would compose something to demo resistance to the dominant societal values must hold been insane. In Gilman & # 8217 ; s clip puting & # 8220 ; The ideal adult female was non merely assigned a societal function that locked her into her place, but she was besides expected to wish it, to be cheerful and homosexual, smiling and good humored & # 8221 ;

( Lane, To Herland 109 ) . Those adult females who rejected this function and pursued rational enlightenment and freedom would be scoffed, alienated, and even punished. This is precisely what Gilman experienced when she tried to show her desire for independency.

Gilman expressed her emotional and psychological feelings of rejection from society for believing freely in & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper, & # 8221 ; which is a reaction to the fact that it was against the grain of society for adult females to prosecute rational freedom or a calling in the late1800 & # 8217 ; s. Her taking Dr. S. Weir Mitchell & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; rest remedy & # 8221 ; was the consequence of the force per unit areas of these prevailing societal values. As Gilman came from a household of good known women’s rightists and revolutionists, it is without a uncertainty that she grew up with the thought that she had the right to be treated as anyone, whether adult male or adult female. Not merely did this strong background affect her point of view about things, it besides affected her dealingss with her hubby and what function she would play in that relationship. From the beginning of her matrimony, she struggled with the thought of conforming to the domestic theoretical account for adult females. Upon repeated proposals from Stetson, her hubby, Gilman tried to & # 8220 ; lay bare her tortures and reserves & # 8221 ; about acquiring married ( Lane, To Herland 85 ) . She claimed that & # 8220 ; her ideas, her Acts of the Apostless, her whole life would be centered on hubby and kids. To make the work she needed to make, she must be free & # 8221 ; ( Lane, To Herland 85 ) . Gilman was so frightened of this thought because she loved her work and she loved freedom, though she besides loved her conserve really much.

& # 8220 ; After a long period of uncertainness and hesitation & # 8221 ; she married Charles Stetson at 24 ( Lane, Introduction x ) . Less than a twelvemonth subsequently, nevertheless, & # 8220 ; feelings of? nervous exhaustion & # 8217 ; instantly descended upon Gilman, and she became a? mental wreck & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ; ( Ceplair 17 ) . In that

period of clip, she wrote many articles on & # 8220 ; adult females caught between households and callings and the demand for adult females to hold work every bit good as love & # 8221 ; ( Ceplair 19 ) . The emphasis that Gilman was under of rejecting the & # 8220 ; domestic theoretical account & # 8221 ; of adult females led to her dislocation and caused her to run into Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. She attempted to show the tensenesss she felt her work, her hubby, and her kid in her authorship. She did her best to contend against the depression but eventually & # 8220 ; she collapsed absolutely in April 1886 & # 8243 ; ( Ceplair 19 ) , coercing her to turn to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, a nationally celebrated brain doctor in adult females & # 8217 ; s nervous diseases. He told Gilman that & # 8220 ; she was enduring from neurasthenia, or exhaustion of the nervousnesss & # 8221 ; the diagnosing required his celebrated & # 8220 ; rest remedy & # 8221 ; ( Lane, To Herland 115 ) . The intervention required for the remedy involved & # 8220 ; 1 ) extended and entire bed remainder ; 2 ) isolation from household and familiar milieus? & # 8221 ; ( Lane, To Herland 116 ) . The intervention was fundamentally a version of how to be submissive and domestic harmonizing to the dominant societal values outside of the sanatorium.

After being treated for a month Gilman Washington

s sent place and was told to “live as domestic a life as possible? and ne’er touch pen, coppice or pencil every bit long as you live” ( Lane, To Herland 121 ) . Having a strong love for her work and being a free mind and author, Gilman would of course see this manner of intervention a barbarous penalty. In her diary she wrote, “I went place, followed those waies stiffly for a month and came hazardously near to losing my mind” ( Lane, To Herland 121 ) .

In the late 1800 & # 8217 ; s adult females did non hold the chance to hold both a calling and their households. They have to give up their households if they waned to prosecute a calling. Despite the great

contention she created, Gilman decided to take her work over her household when she divorced her hubby in 1887 and moved to California. A few old ages subsequently, she gave her kid to her ex-husband in order to talk across the state. In1890 she wrote & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; in reaction to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; rest remedy & # 8221 ; . In her & # 8220 ; Why I wrote? The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8217 ; ? & # 8221 ; in The Forerunner, Gilman portrays the & # 8220 ; old ages I suffered from a terrible and uninterrupted nervous dislocation & # 8221 ; and goes on to speak about the physician who treated her and how in reaction to intervention had & # 8220 ; sent a transcript to the doctor who so about drove me huffy & # 8221 ; ( Gilman 19, 20 ) . And she says, & # 8220 ; the best consequence? old ages subsequently I was told the dainty specializer had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his intervention of neurasthenia since reading? The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ; ( Gilman 20 ) . Despite what Gilman said, we can feel a tone of this work being close to her emotional and psychological world.

Many surveies have been carried out to happen what Gilman & # 8217 ; s purpose was in composing & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; . Joanne Karpinski says, & # 8220 ; one subject that seems to run through all her plants? is a desire for order and coherency in lived experience & # 8221 ; ( 3 ) while Lane suggests, & # 8220 ; ( it ) is an intensely personal scrutiny of Gilman & # 8217 ; s private incubus & # 8221 ; ( To Herland 127 ) . This implies that she wrote this narrative to screen through her emotions and frights in her ain life. If her retaliation for Dr. Mitchell is portion of the ground in composing this work, it is besides true that her creative activity of this narrative allows her to uncover her emotional and psychological province of head. Although & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; is merely a narrative that is most likely fabricated, there are astonishing similarities between Gilman & # 8217 ; s existent life experience and what is depicted in the narrative. Lane describes one of Gilman & # 8217 ; s diary entry where she wrote, & # 8220 ; I made a shred babe? hung it on the doorhandle and played with it. I

would creep into distant cupboards and under beds to conceal from the crunching force per unit area of that profound hurt & # 8221 ; ( To Herland 121 ) . This is surprisingly similar to what is described of the storyteller in the narrative, who crawls and creeps in the corners of the room.

Gilman showed her emotions in the narrative and tried to detect & # 8220 ; what happens to our lives if we let others run them for us & # 8221 ; ( Lane, debut eighteen ) . The efforts to detect was difficult for her & # 8220 ; ( it ) must hold haunted Gilman all her life because it answered the inquiry: what if she had non fled her hubby and renounced the most beforehand psychiatric advice of her clip? & # 8221 ; ( Lane, Introduction xviii ) . & # 8220 ; The Yellow wallpaper & # 8221 ; is a testament to Gilman & # 8217 ; s ain life experience. We can experience the tough determinations she made and how those determinations affected her emotionally as Lane puts it, & # 8220 ; possibly the emotional truth and strength of? The xanthous Wallpaper & # 8217 ; drained her ; possibly it frightened her & # 8221 ; ( To Herland 127 ) . Gilman delved deep into her emotions and feelings in & # 8220 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8221 ; and that is why it is Gilman & # 8217 ; s best-know work today ( Charters 318 ) .

Bibliography

Berkin, Ruth Carol. & # 8220 ; Self-Images: Childhood and Adolescence. & # 8221 ; Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ed. Joanne Karpinski. New York: G.K. Hall, 1992.

Ceplair, Larry. & # 8220 ; The Early Years. & # 8221 ; Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Non-fiction Reader. New York: Columbia UP, 1991. 5-19.

Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction ( Compact Fifth Edition ) . Bedford/St. Martin & # 8217 ; s, Boston, 1999 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. & # 8220 ; Why I Wrote & # 8216 ; The Yellow Wallpaper & # 8217 ; ? & # 8221 ; The Forerunner ( Oct. 1913 ) : 19-20.

Karpinski, Joanne B. Introduction. Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman. New York: G.K. Hall, 1992.

Lane, Ann J. Introduction. & # 8220 ; The Fictional World of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. & # 8221 ; The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. X-xviii.

Lane, Ann J. To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. New York: Penguin, 1990.