For the women in the twentieth century today, who have more freedom than before and have not experienced the depressive life that Gilman lived from1860 to 1935, it is difficult to understand Gilman's situation and understand the significance of "The Yellow Wallpaper". Gilman's original purpose of writing the story was to have gained personal satisfaction if Dr. S. Weir Mitchell might change his treatment after reading the story. However, as Ann L. Jane suggests, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is "the best crafted of her fiction: a genuine literary piece…the most directly, obviously, self-consciously autobiographical of all her stories" (Introduction xvi). More importantly, Gilman says in her article in The Forerunner, "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked" (20). Therefore, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a revelation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's own emotions.
When the story first came out in 1892 the critics considered "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a portrayal of female insanity rather than a story that reveals an aspect of society. In The Transcript, a physician from Boston wrote, "Such a story ought not to be written…it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it" (Gilman 19)
. . .
Although "The Yellow Wallpaper" is just a story that is most probably fictitious, there are amazing similarities between Gilman's real life experience and what is depicted in the story. From the beginning of her marriage, she struggled with the idea of conforming to the domestic model for women. In her "Why I wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper'?" in The Forerunner, Gilman portrays the "years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown" and goes on to talk about the doctor who treated her and how in reaction to treatment had "sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad" (Gilman 19, 20).
Gilman expressed her emotional and psychological feelings of rejection from society for thinking freely in "The Yellow Wallpaper," which is a reaction to the fact that it was against the grain of society for women to pursue intellectual freedom or a career in the late1800's. This is exactly what Gilman experienced when she tried to express her desire for independence. Lane describes one of Gilman's diary entry where she wrote, "I made a rag baby…hung it on the doorknob and played with it. The treatment required for the cure involved "1) extended and total bed rest; 2) isolation from family and familiar surroundings…" (Lane, To Herland 116). The stress that Gilman was under of rejecting the "domestic model" of women led to her breakdown and caused her to meet Dr. " Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Non-fiction Reader. I
would crawl into remote closets and under beds to hide from the grinding pressure of that profound distress" (To Herland 121).
Approximate Word count =
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Approximate Pages =
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