with one but a temporary nervous depression&emdash;a slight hysterical tendency&emdash;what is one to do?" (255). This statement most likely has autobiographical relevance. Gilman explains through the voice of her character the reasons behind her submission to Dr. Mitchell's treatment.Mitchell's belief that the cause of hysteria is the taxation of weak minds is echoed in John's warning to his wife. She recalls, "He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency" (258). Although from a twentieth-century point of view suppressing independent thought is ludicrous, in the nineteenth-century it was "good sense".Mitchell's method of rest cure treated women as children by restricting them to bed rest and forbidding them to engage in any adult activities. John's view of his wife as a child is seen in "The Yellow Wallpaper" in the manner in which husband and wife interact.John and the narrator do not possess a normal adult relationship. This is apparent in the way in which John refers to his wife as "little girl" (262) and a "blessed little goose"(258). John acts more as a father figure than as a husband. In response to his wife's complaints he responds, "Bless her little heart!…She shall be as sick as she pleases!" insinuating that his wife is exaggerating her symptoms for comfort. He also puts her to bed like a child. His wife recalls, "And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head" (261). The extent to which Dr. Mitchell treated his female patients as children is apparent in his essay "Fat and Blood." In regard to the rest cure he writes, "Where at first the most absolute rest is desirable, I arrange to have the bowels and water passed while lying down" (106). This aspect of th...
