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It was not at the moment ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ was written when it found an audience who could understand it. When Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this piece of literature work in 1892, she had no idea that her short story would become a classic feminist literature.
It was some decades ago when Gilman’s piece of work was considered an early expression of feminist criticism because of its subtle denounce against the repression and limited freedom women used to have during the Victorian era. It is difficult to identify which critical approach would fit the best when trying to analyze this story without taking into perspective the author’s personal experience. Gilman herself, as the narrator in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, had been prescribed the ‘rest cure’ after giving birth. This was an imposed treatment given to women who showed some signs of stress or nervousness break. This treatment, however, was more likely to drive women insane because of the period of inactivity, limited freedom, and self-expression.
The story is about how the narrator’s ‘nervous condition’ misdiagnosed by her husband, who is a physician, is misunderstood in such a way that drives the narrator into madness. Her husband is not willing to listen and or understand the narrator’s legit psyche and needs: “If a physician of high standing and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do?” (Gilman, 1980).
In the 19th century, the medical field had not enough information on how to treat women with mental health issues usually misdiagnosed as hysteria. The ‘rest cure’ was a way to gain control over women’s mental behavior. Little the medical field knew that these mental issues could be more about the postpartum effects a woman may experiment after giving birth. In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ the reader can assume that this is what the narrator may be suffering from, taken from the following remarks: “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” (Gilman, 1980) It is possible to understand that Gilman wrote this story to raise awareness upon her own experience about how, in a patronizing era, male doctors would dismiss a female patient’s words. Overall, males disregarding to listen and understand women’s own needs and words, in such a way that they are driven to real madness.
Gilman did express after writing ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ that she wrote this story to protest this treatment. The autobiographical details found in the story are persuasive and the symbolism which supports the feminist associations is evidence enough to discuss that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ cannot be analyzed from a simple gender approach, but from a biographical approach as well.
Work Cited
- Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader: ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Other Fiction. Ed. Ann J. Lane. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 3-20. Print.
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