“The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the few stories that I
remember being assigned to read in high school that everyone seemed to have a
similar reaction to, and that reaction can be summed up in one word that
appears several times throughout the text: creepy. On the surface this story is
about a mentally ill woman who finds both fear and comfort in the wallpaper of
the room in which her physician husband has her confined. She says that she
sees women “creeping” around her garden and outside of her windows, and she
even sees a woman creeping inside her own room behind the yellow wallpaper. I
think this story is commenting on the mental health of women and how it was
once assumed that they needed to comply with certain social norms to be happy
and healthy. Even the narrator feels that she should be a mother, be more
social, and be a better wife to her husband because she feels that those things
will make her better; but it is those things that cause her exhaustion. It’s
not until she feels the freedom of being able to creep about the gardens and
wallpaper that she feels better mentally. When she is able to experience and
write about the things she wants outside of the room, even if it’s all in her
head, she has a better outlook on her own health.
This story’s handling of mental illness is important to
note. The narrator’s husband is a physician, and even he cannot see that
something is seriously wrong with his wife. He thinks she’s just being an
irrational woman and babies her like she’s not an adult herself. She has no say
in the way she’s treated for her sickness even though she tries to make it
clear she is not well. Mental health is a complex topic that’s not even
understood today as well as we’d like it to be. It wasn’t even until the late
20th century that lobotomies stopped being common practice for
simple disorders that we understand so much better today. It is relevant that
this story was published in 1892. People had so little grasp on what to do with
mentally ill individuals. It’s just not something that was understood. If the
story was written more from the husband’s perspective I could probably see him
having a different side to the story. Maybe he just didn’t want his wife committed
to an asylum where she’d probably be abused, neglected, and experimented upon.
Maybe that’s why he took her out to the house away from society and hoped she’d
get better, but that could also be a stretch on my part.
I really like this story.
I thought about that same perspective when I read the story as you did Rufus: that of John, the husband and physician. I think the fact that he fainted at the sight of his wife creeping around on all fours was a sign that he truly cared about her well-being. I think it's an attempt by Gilman to lend some credibility to the character. Perhaps it's a character who resembles someone who aided her throughout her issues in her life?
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to note how incredible the mind is. It was definitely frustrating for me to see narrator's husband have no regard for the narrators health status. However, I also feel like it is a natural tendency to beat up on the husband for neglecting his wife. Like you commented on, it was common practice to prescribe rest in the late 1800's. Once I thought about it more, I figured maybe the narrators situation was a result of lack of understanding instead of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteTo be locked, isolated in a room with crappy yellow wallpaper. Ain't nobody go time for that!
ReplyDeleteThis was my second time reading "The Yellow Wall-Paper" as well, and it is definitely creepy to ride along as a reader as the main character, Jane, descends into madness. I agree with your thoughts about mental illness pertaining to the story and the time period in which it was written. I think the narrator is suffering from post-partum depression, but her controlling husband seems to think she is just being a nervous woman. Her treatment is a rest treatment, popular at the time, but obviously unsuccessful, since the story ends with Jane's psychotic break. Luckily, as you said, the treatment of mental illness' has come a long way since then.
ReplyDelete