The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman was it insanity or a cry for freedom
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman was it insanity or a cry for freedom“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a women trapped in her own life. The woman in the story reveals her desire to break free from the confines of her marriage and her life. The story then goes on to reveal her relationship with the wallpaper in her room and the feelings she has that causes her to go insane. Although this is the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life was very much like the woman in this story. As we look at this story, Gilman was able to portray a woman’s descent into madness, due to her own fit with a similar disorder.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford Connecticut. Although her parents separated when she was young, her father remained constant in her life. He emphasized on her education, especially reading in the sciences and history. Gilman’s only formal education was Rhode Island School of Design. As a teenager, she was a commercial artist, art teacher, and governess. By the age of twenty-one, she was writing poetry that described the limitations of being female in late 19th century New England (Pringle, 131).
Stated by Doneskey, in the year of 1884, Gilman married Charles Stetson and had a daughter together. With the marriage not doing so well and the birth of her child, Gilman suffered from severe depression. Her husband, Stetson, placed her under the care of a neurologist, who prescribed the kind of complete rest that Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” showed. Unfortunately, this made her worse instead of better and she began writing, finding her sanity again in productive intellectual work. Shortly afterwards, Gilman left her husband and moved to California to be with her family and daughter. She continued to write on women’s issues, producing more books (1). Throughout
Gilman’s life, she would suffer from breakdowns and depressions. Her life did turn around when she would later be married to her cousin, George Gilman, and would live happily with him until his death in 1934. In 1935, though, suffering from breast cancer, Gilman took her own life by inhaling chloroform (Doneskey, 1).
Although, Gilman was not diagnosed with postpartum depression, she did develop a severe depression after the birth of her child. In order to relate this condition with the condition in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and explanation of the cause of depression and its symptoms is helpful. Gilman was thought to have this depression because of the causes stated by the medbroadcast home page. Two causes of this depression are hormonal levels that occur immediately after childbirth and being a new mother may be overwhelming with all the responsibilities (2).
Postpartum depression has a few symptoms that the woman in this story experienced. The...
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