The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- Charlotte Perkins

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a partial autobiography. It was written shortly after the author suffered a nervous breakdown. This story was written to help save people from being driven crazy. Appropriately, this short story is about a mentally disturbed woman and her husband's attempts to help her get well. He does so by convincing her that solitude and constant bed rest is the best way to cure her problem. She is not allowed to write or do anything that would require thinking. The woman is restricted to a room where she slowly begins to go insane. Atrocious yellow wallpaper covers this room and it aids in her insanity. The woman is writing the story to express her insane thoughts against her husband's will. "The Yellow Wallpaper" begins with the narrator talking about her illness. She informs the reader that her husband, John, is a physician and he believes she is not even sick. This may lead the reader to believe that she really is not sick also. She even says herself "I am glad my case is not serious!" It is revealed soon that she is writing this story to us, the readers, in secret. She feels comfortable writing on the paper and it relieves her. In the story she says, "I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind." This gives the reader and the narrator a very strong connection. For the reader is the only one to know her deepest thoughts. Throughout the entire story, John controls his wife in a loving but dominant way. According to him, he knows what is best for her. There is even a time where ... ...pressing herself and her story of insanity. "The Yellow Wallpaper" presents readers with story of a woman's insanity. It tells how women were disregarded at times and treated like frail children at others. Ultimately, Jane realized that she held control over her own life. It was her responsibility to relieve her stress and tell her story. This is a story of seclusion and escape. "The Yellow Wallpaper," being highly autobiographical for Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was written shortly after her own nervous breakdown. The story is part reality for her and part fiction focusing on the treatment that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell enforced upon her which was rest, seclusion, and absolutely no writing, which is what she loved the most. Her story is a stepping-stone in helping to understand depression, liberating women, and expression.