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‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ first appeared in the January 1892 issue of New Magazine. Written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, later to be known primarily as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the story was first received as a tale of horror, but Gilman later made it clear that she definitely had a more distinct purpose for the story. As she pointed out to William Dean Howells when he asked her permission to include it in a collection of fiction: ‘I was more than willing, but assured him that it was no more ‘literature’ than my other stuff, being definitely written ‘with a purpose.’ In my judgment it is a pretty poor thing to write, to talk, without a purpose’ (Gilman, 1992:65). Gilman had herself suffered from a nervous breakdown and depression sometime before she wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper:’ ‘This disorder involved a growing melancholia, and that, as those who have tasted it, consists of every painful mental sensation, shame, fear, remorse, a blind oppressive confusion, utter weakness, a steady brainache that fills the conscious mind with crowding images of distress’ (Gilman, 1992:59). After trying several remedies in order to defeat her mental illness, she finally sought help from the greatest nerve specialist of the time, Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell.
Gilman underwent a rest cure, and after apparent success, was sent home with firm orders to: ‘Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. – Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live (Gilman, 1992:62). Gilman did her very best to follow his commands, but after a few months it became evident that the cure only made her worse, and that she came ‘perilously near to losing my mind’ (Gilman, 1992:63). Consequently, she gave up following the doctor’s advice, and went to work again: ‘ultimately recovering some measure of power’ (Gilman, 1992:52). What Gilman saw as her purpose for writing ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ then, was to warn others of the perils of the rest cure and perhaps save others as she had saved herself.
Most importantly, however, she wanted to convince Weir Mitchell of the error of his ways. She writes in her autobiography that she received no response from Weir Mitchell after sending him the story, but that: ‘Many years later, I met someone who knew close friends of Dr. Mitchell’s who said he had told them that he had changed his treatment of nervous prostration since reading ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ If that is a fact, I have not lived in vain’ (Gilman, 1992:65). Apparently, the story was a success and had accomplished what it was meant to accomplish. However, a closer look at Weir Mitchell’s own writing may contradict this success.
Discussions of Mitchell’s career never mention Gilman, and none of his published letters and papers contain any indication that he altered his thinking about the rest cure. Furthermore: ‘as late as 1908 he defended his version of the rest treatment before the American Neurological Association, addressing the connections between his methods and the emerging field of psychotherapy’ (Dock, 1998:25). So Gilman’s hopes that she had reached the doctor himself might not have been so accurate. Nevertheless, Gilman’s success might have come in different ways. There is no doubt that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ raises questions concerning women and madness that are still relevant today, and that the story helped to bring awareness to several issues of feminism and psychology. In fact, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ may be one of the most well-known depictions of a ‘madwoman’, but it is definitely not the only one. Several other female authors wrote novels that concerned themselves with the female madwoman, and what difficulties and injustices women were met with throughout their struggle. Novels of this kind have been written ever since the Victorian era up until our own day and age. However, not only novels and short stories have dealt with such issues.
Several non-fiction works and authors have concerned themselves with explorations of the real biases and struggles met by women throughout the years in the early stages of a male-dominated field of psychology. On that note, it seems fitting to take a look back into the history of the female maladies
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