The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's descent into madness as the result of being isolated as a form of "treatment" when suffering from post-partum depression. On a larger scale, Gilman is also telling the story of how women were kept prisoners by the confines of the society of her time and the penalties these women incurred when they attempted to break free from these confines.In the beginning of the story, the narrator, whose name is never divulged, has been brought to an isolated country estate in order to recuperate from "a slight hysterical tendency" by her husband, John, who is also a physician. From the outset it becomes apparent that she is an unreliable narrator due to her state of mind. The paragraphs of the story are short and choppy, indicating an inability to concentrate and a mind that is racing from one thing to another. The narrator talks about her imaginings that the house is haunted," . . . There is something strange about the house-I can feel it"; she also relates how everything she does exhausts her. These symptoms, as well as the numerous referrals by the narrator to the baby, indicate post-partum depression. When speaking of the baby the narrator says, for example, "I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous."In order to treat this "temporary nervous depression," John isolates her from society and orders her to do nothing but rest. He even becomes upset when she wishes to write, causing this story to be "composed" of writings she manages to do in secret. John places her in the attic of the mansion, like a dirty secret, in what she believes to be a former nursery. There is, however, strong evidence that the narrator is not the first mental patient to occupy the room. There are bars on the windows, gouges in the floor and walls, and rings fastened to the walls; the bed is bolted down and has been gnawed on, and the wallpaper h...
