The yellow wallpaper essay
The yellow wallpaper speaks of an unnamed woman confined to a single room in an abandoned mansion. Her physician husband diagnosed her with a ‘nervous breakdown’ and has prescribed ‘rest cure’ as the appropriate treatment. He, therefore, has brought her to the countryside to recover from the hysterical tendency where she is required to rest as well as air and exercise. She has also been forbidden from any intellectual work and is to be cared for and left alone until she is well again.
Here, she attempts to read and write, something she notes make her weary, and unhesitatingly watches the wallpaper. It is this wallpaper that dominates her exhausted mind, and the shapes on it are getting more apparent day by day. These shapes are sometimes of one woman, occasionally many and sometimes of women stooping down around a pattern. Towards the end, she takes advantage of her husband’s absence and tears the wallpaper. The women are now stooping outside in the garden, and she wonders if they are all free at last. While the narrator does not let us know if she really escaped and got her salvation or her mind was forever damned, we are left to reach our conclusions.
Considering that this extraordinary piece of writing was written in the 19th century, it must be seeking to express the plight of mental illness that women who sought to challenge individual political standings or those who pursued more creative lives were likely to be exposed to. While historical scholarship points out that some women could have used the illness to avoid chores they found unpleasant, doctors seldom blamed their ambitions but rather campaigned for lives that were physically and intellectually involving.