Yellow Wallpaper Essay, Research Paper

Quiz #1 Resubmission Exercise (The Yellow Wallpaper)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story of a woman and her struggle with her psychological problems, and her quest to regain her sanity. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator instructed to refrain from any intellectual activity and to engage in total bed rest in order to cure her depression. From the beginning of the story, the narrator doubts the proposed cure for her depression,, but she reluctantly follows the prescription for cure. As a result of her prescription, she spends most her time alone in a room with yellow wallpaper on the walls. The narrator thinks she sees an image behind the wallpaper, and becomes obsessed with determining what exactly is behind the wallpaper. Eventually she rationalizes that the image behind the wallpaper is a woman who is struggling to be set free and equates herself to this woman. Eventually he narrator builds up enough courage to tear the wallpaper off the wall, setting the woman and her sanity free.

What was the purpose of Gillian writing “The Yellow Wallpaper”? Her purpose for writing this story was to change the way depression was treated. She felt that the treatment she received did not help her condition at all, but in fact worsened it. At this time depression was not even recognized as a “real” problem, and was just thought as a figment of ones imagination. By Gillian writhing “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she both increased awareness of problem of depression and influenced the way it was treated. In fact the doctor who treated her originally modified his treatment procedure due to Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”