The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman about a woman with an unknown illness. She moves to a summer home with her husband, a physician who believes there is nothing wrong with her, where she is kept in a spacious room without much company besides her husband. She despises the peeling yellow wallpaper in the room, and during an episode she believes there is a woman trapped behind it and tears the rest of it off the wall. At the end of the story, she believes she has become the woman trapped, and her husband faints when he sees her scurrying around the room.
I’ve read this story before in high school and my class took the feminist approach at that time. My first thought after reading this story for this class was how much it reflected the treatment of mentally ill for years, especially women with mental illness. Just like the narrator, their issues were never taken seriously and it was often diagnosed as “female hysteria” which I think we all know is utter nonsense by today’s standards. Even her simple request to take down the wallpaper that bothers her a great deal is denied, her husband insisting that she was “letting it get the better of [her]” (Gilman). Not only that, but she is allowed very little to do while she is “recovering” from her illness. She cannot socialize, cannot write, and seemingly cannot leave the room with the yellow wallpaper. She is like a prisoner in her own home, and arguably the room invokes an image of a mental asylum, with the barred windows being the clearest example.
Being kept away from others only serves to worsen her condition. Humans are social, and we need to interact with more than just the same few people for long periods of time. From experience, you tend to get frustrated easier, like the narrator does with her husband. We also need stimulating activities, and the narrator says she needs it herself, “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman). She is not even allowed to write while she’s “recovering,” a basic human activity. Mentally ill people were considered unsightly and kept away from others, which often only worsened their illness like the narrator. It’s not really surprising she begins to hallucinate after who knows how long she’s been in that room, having no real activities to do.
I also couldn’t help but think of current events while reading this short story, especially after seeing a post on social media that said something like, “Whatever you guys do, don’t read The Yellow Wallpaper right now.” I’m sure a lot of people are dealing with new issues during this quarantine (myself included; my mental health has tanked since we moved out of UMW). Cooped up in our own homes, unable to go out and interact with people besides our immediate family, not much to do besides complete school work, watch TV, and/or play some kind of game. “Stir crazy” is what a lot of people are experiencing, although for others there may be hidden issues that they never experienced before because they were stimulated and properly socialized. It may be a reach on my part, but I see a bit of a connection between the story and current events as well as how mentally ill people have been treated in the past.
Word count: 575
I Pledge, Erin Smith
