The yellow wallpaper

The Horrors of Mental Health

Mental health is a serious issue given our brains are the motor that generates us yet somehow it is always ignored. Some consider it to be a minor glitch while others see it as a “voodoo”. Many cultures see it as something to be ashamed of and so left untreated. But the question is, is it just a glitch in our system or is it something much more severe?

Such can be seen in the writings of Charlotte Gilman in her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, where a mentally ill person journals are deepest thoughts and confusions to express how severe mental health can get.

The Yellow Paper is a famous short story or in reality actual writings from the authors diary where in just five pages the author expresses something horrific that she goes through in her life.

“At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.” (6.10). Here we can interpret many mental issues that she might have been going through. Despite her husband’s claim according to her journal of her going through simply depression this quote reveals a lot more.

Depressed or not throughout the book she complains about a woman in the wallpapers that seems to haunt her. Just those few words make me think if she was in fact going through multiple personality disorder along with anxiety and depression. The confinements and mazes she repeatedly mentions in her story, was it in reality or the confinements of her mind? She clearly was struggling already from gender discrimination in her own household what with her brother and husband being a physician. Did her confinement in that horrible room with the creepy wallpapers just push her off the edge? Many questions occur when we read this story and at the same time many were being answered.

Further in to the story she talks about laying on the ground for hours trying to follow the patterns of the wallpaper, “I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to sometime of conclusion.” (Gilman 429). After this we can see more changes in her personality hinting effects of schizophrenia and hallucination.

Mental illness has and always be a serious issue that certainly cannot be overlooked. Even now in this modern day and age we can see people struggling

through it. One of the more recent cases of how women’s health is being affected and ignored is the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. While mental issues were discovered in the mother Dee Dee Blanchard, I believe Gypsy Rose Blanchard went through a similar phase mentally. Confinement and depression opened the door to multiple personality disorder, anxiety and schizophrenia. Both women craved attention, freedom and affection. For Gilman it was the yellow wallpaper and for Blanchard her wheelchair that reminded them of their weaknesses.

In the end, what remains is severe mental illness and memories of the person suffering it. It is time mental illness be counted as part of health issues in general. As we move forward this ‘glitch’ in our brain needs to be given more attention or else soon enough more lives will be lost in the patterns of the wallpaper

Work Cited

Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Yellow Wallpaper Freedom and Confinement Quotes Page 2.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/yellow-wallpaper/freedom-confinement-quotes-2.html.

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman: the Pattern of Despair.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 12 Jan. 2009, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4125453/Charlotte-Perkins-Gilman-the-pattern-of-despair.html.

“Schizophrenia in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Bartleby, www.bartleby.com/essay/Schizophrenia-in-The-Yellow-Wallpaper-by-Charlotte-FKJ3A5XZVJ.

Marland, Hilary. “The Yellow Wallpaper: a 19th-Century Short Story of Nervous Exhaustion and the Perils of Women's 'Rest Cures'.” The Conversation, 21 Jan. 2019, theconversation.com/the-yellow-wallpaper-a-19th-century-short-story-of-nervous-exhaustion-and-the-perils-of-womens-rest-cures-92302.