Exploring Medical References in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Running Head : ENGLISH ESSAY
English Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ENGLISH ESSAY
1. Write an essay that explores the medical references in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
“The Yellow Wallpaper”. How does the story comment on Victorian –era medical
practices and beliefs?
The short story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a series of diary
entries in a secret diary. The narrator describes the three-month stay in a particular estate by this
intimate medium. The first entry captures the details of the external circumstances under which
the narrator and her husband came to live in the estate. The narrator’s husband is called John,
who diagnoses her with a little of hysterical tendency and takes full care of their new born baby
(Gilman). The narrator does not question her husband’s authority because he is a well-known
physician. She starts obeying whatever her husband instructs and leads a strict scheduled lifestyle
away from writing and taking supplements too.
Writing is the only creative outlet of the narrator and being stopped from writing leaves a
greater impact on her. According to Dosani, as she pays heed to her husband’s instruction, she is
made to spend whole day by sitting in bed and staring at the yellow Wallpaper of the room. The
result is that, her mental and physical health condition deteriorates eventually. Presumably, she
starts hallucinating and seeing a woman inside of the wallpaper having believed that the woman
is craving to break free (Gilman). As the story nears the end, her obsession with the wallpaper
increases. She starts discovering new characteristics of the paper everyday and becomes
engrossed in the yellow smell pervading every corner of the house. She sees that the patterns of
the wallpaper are moving and with that the woman inside is also moving, creeping outside in the
garden.

2ENGLISH ESSAY
The narrator imitates her and starts creeping in the bedroom having grown suspicious of
Jennie and John at the same time. The final entry in the secret diary describes the narrator having
torn down the wallpaper the whole night in order to set the woman inside free. She becomes
failure to free the woman and out of frustration considers herself as a trapped woman. She views
hundreds of other women creeping equally in the garden outside as suggested by Brooks. The
husband John returns home and faints having seen his wife in such state but she persistently
creeps “over him every time!” (Gilman).
As per the views of Stuehser and Jensen, in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the
wallpaper is the ultimate secret text which she tries the best to interpret. It is the most influential
symbol which affects her directly. Throughout the course of the story, the wallpaper develops as
a symbol. It appears as an unpleasant “unclean yellow” (Gilman). However, the formless pattern
of the paper is what attracts the narrator the most later. She tries to discover the organization of
the patterns and finds out a woman constantly stooping and crawling. Gradually, she sees many
woman festooned in a cage. Hence, the wallpaper represents the domestic world and the tradition
where the narrator and similar other woman are trapped. It is the supremacy of Gilman’s intellect
that makes the hideous wallpaper symbolize the domestic life which traps thousands of women.
The story of Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays the narrator diagnosed with
neurasthenia. It has been found that Neurasthenia is a disease which is characterized by the
nervous exhaustion and also extreme excitability. However, Gilman is not the first to have
connected women with the weak nerves as this topic has dominated the medical theory for many
centuries. In the 18th century, of the pre-Victorian era, this type of disorder was referred to as
one of the most dangerous “nervous diseases”(Dosani). It was named so because of its
association with the nerves, the emotions more prominent in women. The propensity of this