The Yellow Wallpaper and the Problem of the Unhelpful Man

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 and descended from a proud line of rhetoricians (Silcox). Having a way with words was in her blood. Her parents separated when she was a child, and she became accustomed to a degree of independencebut when she was pressed into marriage, she found the arrangement to be oppressive and it contributed to her having a mental breakdown. The response of her husband was to give her the rest cure recommended by Freud and other high-profile physicians of the time (Silcox). Gilman did not want such a treatment, and her story The Yellow Wallpaper is a representation of her attitude about it: she believed that women in general suffered from a kind of neglect from men, who viewed them as inferior beings. If there was to be any cure for a womans mental breakdown it had to be traced back to how she was treated by the men in her life. Gilman had some difficulty getting her story published, as editors found it to be too disturbingbut with the help of a literary agent, it was eventually published in the New England Magazine. Gilman published several other stories over the course of her writing career, but The Yellow Wallpaper is the story that has remained in the public view the mostthanks in particularly to its rediscovery in the 1970s during the second wave of feminism in America (Silcox). Her work was seen as important because it touched upon themes important to womentheir needs, their views, their plight, and why men seemed to be so ignorant of their inner life.

In this paper, it will be shown that The Yellow Wallpaper is an argument against unhelpful men attempting to direct and control womens lives. It is a story told from the first person perspective of a narrator, who serves as a stand-in for Gilman herself. The narrator is confined to her room because of her nervousness. Her husband, a physician, insists that he knows best and will not listen to her side of things when it comes to what might help with her condition. Eventually, the narrator goes mad, leading to the collapse of her husband. The story may be read as an indictment of unhelpful men thinking they know better than their wives or even than women in general how a woman is best to be treated.

The inner life of the narrator in Gilmans story is threatened by the no-nonsense attitude of her husband. He is oblivious to her creative and spiritual needs and dismisses them as problematic. The narrator states, John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not being felt and seen and put down in figures. The narrator thus gives the impression that whatever her inner spiritual life may be, it is not permitted to come out or find expression in her daily life. It is something to be suppressed, according to her husband and according to the medical community. The fact that Gilman underwent the same treatment as the narrator in the story indicates that this story is Gilmans own way of criticizing the treatment and societys inexcusable attitude toward women in general. As Silcox points out, Gilmans rest cure was championed by Freud and was popularly used as treatment among upper class womenyet in her experience it was nothing short of barbaric cruelty; a treatment in which she was confined like a prisoner in isolation. Indeed, Silcox notes that Gilman explained clearly why she wrote the story later one: it was intended to convince Mitchell [her physician] to change his treatment of nervous disorders. A better treatment might have been for the men in her life to pay more attention to her inner needsrather than having no patience with faith or any other sort of elements of life that were not confirmed by way of empirical science.

The narrator knows what would help her: I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulusbut John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad (Gilman). The fact that she receives no support from her husband for this alternative treatment that she herself would like indicates that she is entirely marginalized. Moreover, she is made to feel guilty for her own feelings. Yet, the ludicrousness of what is being forced on her exposes the sham treatment for what it is: she is given nothing to do whatsoeverand therefore all she can do is think about her condition. But of course that is what her husband says she must not do. It is as though his conception of her were little more than that of a robota thing that can be turned on and off. He has no real understanding of her inner being or of herself as a woman.

However, there is also the problem...

But there may be even more behind this story than thatand it pertains to Gilmans own story of how her parents separated and she was left destitute at an early agethough at least she had a degree of independence in her life. Her parents failed to have a successful marriage, which can have an impact on a sensitive child, and that impact may not show up until years later when adjustments are needed in the adult stage of life. Gilman grew up, was forced into a marriage she did not necessarily want, and experienced a mental breakdown as a result. Her marriage was not to her liking, and as Silcox states, The ensuing mundane domestic routine caused her mental anguish, and shortly after the birth of their daughter Katherine, Gilman suffered a mental breakdown. The breakdown of her own parents marriage was reflected in her own mental breakdown, and that breakdown was reflected in her story The Yellow Wallpaper. What one senses from all of this is that in 19th century America, men and women had not learned or else had forgotten how to get along in a mutually beneficial way. Whether it was a problem of gender inequality or power dynamics or influences from a puritanical culture, one may speculateyet the fact remains that Gilmans condition was not supported by her husbands insistence on a scientific cure; what Gilman indicates would have been more helpful is evident in The Yellow Wallpaperunconditional care for her inner spirit; respect for her creative, independent impulses; and appreciation of her as a real human being of equal importance and stature within the marriage and within society overall.

In conclusion, The Yellow Wallpaper is a story that emerged from Gilmans own personal trauma with the rest curea treatment that did nothing to address her inner needs. She herself found the appropriate solution through writing, a creative expression that returned to her a degree of the independence that she possessed prior to her marriage. It also allowed her an outlet for the rhetorical impulse that was in her blood from birth. The story shows how important it is for a husband to see his wife not as an inferior or as a child, but rather as his equal partner, to be loved and considered as an equalwhich means accepting that she may know more about…