Barbara Dennison

Eng. 102

Ms. Abbott

March 16, 2010

All He Could Give

Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts a woman’s minds

while following her journey through madness. The story is filtered through a single narrator, a

young married, upper-class woman, who had just given birth, in the late nineteenth century.

Although the young women is brought to a large colonial mansion to carry out doctors orders

for a “rest cure”, she stands confined to the four walls of a dated nursery. The dated nursery was

agreed upon by the young women due to the influence of her husband, the acting physician. The

narrator is said to suffer from a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” or

diagnosed by physicians of the error as Neurasthenia or Puerperal Fever (Gilman 394).

Neurasthenia is describes as an emotional disorders that arises from an unknown onset, those

diagnosed would not respond to medical therapies. It was as if in the 19th century a person’s

mental state was only seen as normal or as having extreme psychoses. Neurasthenia was

considered the compromise that lied between.

Neurasthenia, the psychosis the narrator was thought to be suffering from was likely

postpartum depression which led to postpartum psychosis. The mental illness was not yet fully

recognized by physician of the error. Many women who experienced postpartum blues,

depression, or psychosis in the late 19th century where sent to Dr. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell

described these patients as "nervous women, who, as a rule, are thin and lack blood" prescribing

them with his famous “rest cure” in hopes of recovery (Mitchell 7). At one point John, the
narrator’s husband and physician, comments to send his wife to Dr. Mitchell if progression lye

idol. The narrator pleas away from his suggestion “he is just like John and my brother, only more

so” (Gillman 398). John, who is devoted to his wife’s health, feels she “shall neglect proper self-

control” so in hopes of recovery, he follows the form of Dr. Mitchell’s “rest cure” a method

deemed to be safer than the other option of “the mischievous role of bromides, opium, chloral,

and brandy” (Mitchell 28). The narrator in the story frowns upon the prescription for health, but

a women suffering from postpartum psychosis cannot be trusted to her own psychological care.

The narrators deception and lack of admission to her growing illness, John could do nothing

more than the numerous attempts applied to recover his wife’s health.

When it came to his wife’s illness, John was anything but lacking. He provided her with

a limitless supply of rest, air, and assistant, while occupying nothing less than a colonial

mansion. He chose a room in the mansion that provided space for his company and extended

windows with sunlight in every direction. If it were up to his sick wife, she would have buried

herself in a dark room downstairs that provided no sunlight, due to the “roses all over the

windows” (Gilman 395). The nursery upstairs had been chosen by John because of the fresh air

and sunlight that better supported his wife’s health. He cared for his wife dearly and when she

asked for another room, John “said he would go down [to a] cellar if [she] wished” providing her

with the assurance that he would go anywhere and through anything for her (Gilman 397). The

upstairs room, agreed upon, was prepared prior to the arrival of the narrator. John had the room

fit in precaution for his wife’s condition. Although the chariness of the room played unnoticed

while focusing on the narrator’s state, a closer look shows the detail taken. It was not ironic that

the windows were barred, the bed nailed to the floor, and “there [where] rings and things in the
[wall]” (Gilman 395). All of the institutional like equipment was carefully installed in

preparation for his wife’s unpredictable mental illness.

Not only did John prepare the room for his wife’s safe recovery, he also summoned his

sister for assistance in fully caring for his sick wife and new born son. John did as much as he

possibly could to unsure his wife and son’s safety. When present in the mansion, he was at his

wife’s side and in his absence, he arranged care. Before continuing to work and leaving his

family in the care of his sister John “cautions his wife not to give way to fancy in the least”

explaining the danger of “imaginative power and habit of story making, a nervous weakness like

[hers] is sure to lead to all manners of excited fancies, [pleading] she uses her will and good

sense to check the tendency” (Gilman 396). The plea was heard by his wife, yet her efforts to

flow John’s cautions quickly disappeared as the wallpaper took over her mind.

John’s was unknowingly deceived by his wife due to her obsession of the wallpaper. The

obsession took place behind closed doors, not only the bedroom door, but her mind. She was

smart in taking great precautions of hiding the progressing illness, admitting to “cultivating

deceit, for I don’t tell them” (Gilman 401). John’s observations only showed his wife to be

improving; she was “gaining flesh and color, [even] her appetite was better” (Gilman 400). If he

only knew his wife’s true state of dementia, her visions of women in the wallpaper and the belief

that “[t]hey get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and

makes their eyes white” he could have attempted to help more (Gilman 399). John was unable to

read her mind and his wife “had no intentions of telling him it was the wallpaper” that had

consumed her mentally.

Do to the narrator’s secret agenda, deception, and precaution to what might spark her

husband’s suspension “I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once” it
led her to the full consumption of this mental psychosis (Gilman 403). John was unaware of the

progressed state of his wife illness until the moment he observed her crawling on the floor

“looking at him over her shoulder”, a sight that must have been the true version of Linda Blair in

the exorcist (Gilman 405). Devastated by “his darling, his comfort, and all he had” John

collapsed (Gilman 399). There was nothing more John could have done.

A hundred years later, women are still suffering from this illness. Even now with the

awareness and drugs that treat postpartum psychosis similar cases have ended worse. On June

20, 2001, despite the countless efforts of Rusty Yates to help his wife Andrea and her battle with

postpartum psychosis, his efforts failed. Andrea was left alone for a short 20 minutes; in this time

she successfully drown her five children. A person dealing with a close member struggling from

a mental illness is dealing with much more than the illness its self, due to overwhelmed

responsibility, exhaustion, and stress, change in the ill person can easily be missed. John was not

provided with modern medication and had little knowledge of the illness that plagued his wife,

he did the best job possible, his new son was safe and wife still had a chance to recover.
 Works Cited

Literature; Reading, Reacting, Writing. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner. Compact 7th ed. Boston:

Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 394-405. Print.

Mitchell, S. Weir: Fat and Blood: And How to Make Them. Eds. Kimmel, S. Michael. 2nd ed.

Philadelphia: Altamira Press, Feb. 2004. 109. Print.