In the short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, the circumstances surrounding the protagonist's recent birthing of a
baby, and her ensuing post-partum depression, affect her mental, physical and social
well-being.
First, the unnamed protagonist is brought by
her husband, along with her sister-in-law and her new baby, to a summer home where the
woman is supposed to do nothing: she is not allowed any stimulation at all. Her mental
state is not treated, but ignored, and her husband controls his wife. Ironically, part
of her problem is that her husband is a
doctor.
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...and
perhaps…perhaps that is one reason I do not
get well faster. You see, he does not believe I am
sick.
John "takes all care
from me," by controlling every aspect of her life. She tries not to think of her
problem, but she has little to distract her. She believes that some
kind of work would help her, but it is forbidden. She has nothing to do. John does not
allow her even to write, so she keeps her diary in
secret.
Her room is at the top of the house, once a
nursery—then a playroom and gymnasium. There are bars on the windows, certainly once put
there for the safety of children, but now it too much resembles a
prison.
The woman's illness is the result of several
factors—it take its toll. She is physically exhausted as her situation and her
"nervousness" chip away at her. Keeping things secret (like the diary) tires her. She
reports that it is exhausting to try "to dress and entertain, and order things." She
feels like a burden to her husband, and admits that the situation is difficult to
manage. As for her husband...
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He knows there is no reason to suffer and that
satisfies him.
She thinks
about the baby, glad her sister-in-law is so good with him, but she is not allowed to
see the infant—because he makes her
nervous.
Mentally, the woman's
depression worsens because of the reasons already mentioned, as well as because of the
wallpaper. She wants it gone, and her husband
had planned to change it, but then—like a tyrant trying to prove
something, John changes his mind.
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…afterward he said I was letting it get the
better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such
fancies.
The woman tries to
"fight" the peeling yellow paper, but John decides to take a "tough love" approach,
making her face her "fancies." Her mental condition begin to noticeably change. When
they first arrive she says of her room:
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I should hate it myself if I should have to live
in this room long.
With more
time spent there, she says it isn't so bad, but the
paper:
It dwells in
my mind so.
John's constant
control forces the wife to remain in that room, and she imagines
she sees things in the wallpaper—becoming obviously obsessed by
it.
Her depression worsens on a social level. She sees
little of her husband—as a doctor, John is often gone a great deal, during the days and
sometimes at night. She cannot spend time with the baby. She spends too much time alone.
She doesn't take callers, or sit and sew with her
sister-in-law.
All of this leads to her deepening
depression. No one notices—not even John. She believes he does everything out of love,
but it's a need to control. Then the smell comes, and the faces with their eyes appear
in the paper. The woman rips down the paper, and soon creeps along the walls. In her
descent to madness, she doesn't even know John, but is freed from reality
and the paper—trapped by depression and
insanity.