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CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN"THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"Gil 1. Berman, Jeffrey. "The Unrestful Cure: Charlotte PerkinsGilman and 'The Yellow Wallpaper/" In The Talking Cure: Liter-ary Representations of Psychoanalysis. New York: New York Uni-versity Press, 1985. Pp. 33-59.The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography discussesevents in Gilman's life that are relevant to understanding "The YellowWallpaper." Her father, soon to become a prominent librarian, desertedthe family upon learning that his wife, for health reasons, was advisednot to bear more children. Gilman's mother withheld affection fromCharlotte, one of two surviving children out of four, reasoning that ifthe girl did not expect affection then she could not be hurt in the future(34-35). In response, Charlotte created a dream world that sustained heruntil her mother told her it was wrong to fantasize; the thirteen-year-old girl obeyed (36). Even though she had misgivings about the institu-tion of marriage, she, at twenty-three, wedded Charles Walter Stetson(37) and ten months later bore a daughter and immediately entered intoa severe depression (38). Seeking a change, she left for California andimproved. Upon arriving home and feeling the depression returning,she sought the help of the well-known neurologist S. Weir Mitchell,who prescribed a rest cure (39). For months she complied. Realizing,however, that her condition was deteriorating and that marriage andmotherhood were the sources of her affliction, she divorced her hus-band (39). Motherhood for Gilman represented "weakness and passiv-ity" (39) and was "the ultimate human sacrifice" (40) Gilman's life af-fected her writings, both the nonfiction, which gained her fame, and thefiction, especially "The Yellow Wallpaper." Especially relevant to thedevelopment of her theories concerning women and their relationshipto the culture was the trauma caused by her parents' actions (40—45). S.Weir Mitchell, a well known psychiatrist (author of numerous standardmedical texts) and fiction writer (nineteen novels), introduced the restcure, with its components of bed rest and minimum stimulation (46).Although most of his patients were women, he held conservative viewsconcerning them and their roles (47). Information concerning Mitchell'streatment of Gilman comes from her own autobiographical writing (49).64
"The Yellow Wallpaper" 65Turning to Mitchell after three years of depression, she entered into therest cure confident that it would alleviate her problems (49). After amonth, Mitchell sent her home with explicit directions, among whichwas "never touch a pen, brush or pencil as long as you live" (50). Afterthree months, she rejected Mitchell's advice and began writing, imme-diately making gains toward a recovery (50). Perhaps the rest curefailed with Gilman because although Mitchell supported the idea ofmotherhood, she did not: "She was attempting to flee from the domesticprison of the mother's world—the parasitic world of abject dependencyupon men, the depressing routine of endless drudgery, screaming ba-bies, intellectual impoverishment, and helpless resignation. Mitchell'spaternalistic therapy locked her into the mother's role" (50). As Gilmanherself acknowledges, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a fictionalized ver-sion of her breakdown and treatment, with the ending suggesting theoutcome for Gilman had she continued Mitchell's regimen (51). Com-paring the autobiographical account of the breakdown and cure withthe fictional version suggests that the short story is more direct andhonest (52). In the autobiography, Gilman describes her husband asbeing without fault, but in the story the narrator's husband, insensitiveand patronizing, forbids her to write (52). For Gilman writing leads tosalvation; when the fictional narrator is denied writing, her recoverybecomes impossible (53). The home, both for Gilman—as evident in herlater tome The Home: Its Work and Influence—and for the narrator, is seenas a prison, as is suggested by the bars on the nursery (53). Thewallpaper, a projection of the narrator's fears, symbolizes herconflicting emotions about motherhood and marriage (53-55). Indeed,"the wallpaper recreates the mother's inescapable horror of childrenand her regression to infancy. The pattern and sub-pattern mirror herterrified identification with the abandoned child and abandoningmother" (55). The wallpaper also suggests the narrator's uneasinessabout sex, an uneasiness also seen in her desire to sleep downstairs in aroom with a single bed (56). Stating that she wrote the story "toconvince him [Mitchell] of the error of his ways" (58), Gilman sent hima copy and later discovered that he subsequently changed his treatment(58). HISTGil 2. Feldstein, Richard. "Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referen-tiality ii\ 'The Yellow Wall-Paper.'" In Feminism and Psychoanaly-sis. Eds. Richard Feldstein and Judith Roof. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1989. Pp. 269-79.In the manuscript of the story the word "wallpaper" appears threedifferent ways: wall paper, wall-paper, and wallpaper. Editors, how-ever, without justification, have imposed consistency in publication(270). Feldstein argues that the ambiguity is intentional, for the wordrefers to something that "resists analysis" (270), much as the narrator