ts that she has a significantly serious mental illness.The manner in which Gilmans husband and sister-in-law treat her also suggest that she is an insane patient. She is constantly called by demeaning names. For example, John, her husband, says, "What is it little girl? Dont go walking about like that-youll get cold (Gilman 475). She is treated as if she is a small child with no thoughts or beliefs of her own-much like patients in an insanity hospital. The height of Gilmans mentally ill status is displayed in the last portion of the story. Gilman has grown so obsessed with the belief that the woman in the wallpaper is going to escape, that she locks herself in the room in order to catch her: Ive got a rope up her that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her (Gilman 480). Gilman then proceeds to lie down on the floor of the room and crawl along the floor. As Dr. Richard J. Goldberg discusses in his book, hallucinations of this type are typical of patients suffering from mental illness (Goldberg 32).At this point, the reader has been given enough evidence through Gilmans own writing that she is definitely mentally ill, and that she does in fact resemble an institutionalized human being. Gilman obviously does not know how to make mature judgments for herself. She is not in a stable frame of mind, and thus portrays someone in an insane asylum. Works CitedGilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy. New York: Longman, 1999. 469-481.Goldberg, Richard, M.D. Diagnosing Disorders of Mood, Thought and Behavior. Medical Examination Publishing: New York, 1981.Kosson, David S. A New Method for Assessing the Interpersonal Behavior of Psychopathic Individuals: Preliminary Validation Studies. Psychological Assessment. 9.1 (1997): 89 pp. 3 May 1997.Pinel, Philippe. A Treatise on Insanity. Hafner: New York, 196...
