Name
Professor Kelly Martin
English 1302
10 October 2009
The Bond between Gilman and the Protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is considered “one of the most remarkable success stories in contemporary literary history” (Weinstock 1).  The accomplishment of “The Yellow Wallpaper” lies in its ruthless sincerity, accuracy, and power. Gilman’s masterpiece is a tragic story about a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Her own real life experiences parallel to the experiences of the protagonist in her narrative story. In addition, her masterpiece not only sprang itself from her personal depression but also the mental and emotional effects of the rest cure prescribed to her by Silas Weir Mitchell. Gilman also connects to the protagonist in her short story because they are both trapped within their roles as women. The madness of Gilman and the protagonist of her narrative story are due to the rest cure prescribed to both of them. Additionally, the domestic imprisonment and the social restrictions of nineteenth-century women contributed to their psychological illnesses.
	Gilman explores the effectiveness of rest cure on a woman patient in her short story. Silas Weir Mitchell was a best-known doctor in the Victorian era. He was a highly regarded neurologist because of his rest cure therapy for treating neurasthenia. His introduction of his treatment in the United States made him one of the major contributors of neurology. Additionally, “medical historians agree that he was the foremost American neurologist of his time” (Golden 224). Many women from all over the world sought for his treatment. His treatment required prolonged rest in bed and isolation, daily body massage, and overfeeding. According to Mitchell, “no harm is done by rest, even in such people as give us doubts about whether it is or is not well for them to exert themselves” (qtd. in Golden 225). However, Gilman disputes Mitchell’s rest cure therapy. She admits that her real purpose of writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” was to reach Silas Weir Mitchell and to convince him of the error of his ways (Golden 237). She also sent a copy to him and received no acknowledgement. Many years later she discovered that the famous specialist had indeed read her narrative story and altered his treatment of nervous illness (Gilman 939).
	Furthermore, Gilman opposed to Mitchell’s rest cure therapy because his treatment nearly lost her mind. Gilman suffered from nervous depression after she gave birth to her daughter. She believed that marriage and motherhood were the reason, although she could not explain why. She travelled across the country and left her husband and baby, in order to get some rest and change. She recovered from her depression during her vacation. Gilman said, “I recovered so fast, to outward appearances at least, that I was taken for a vigorous young girl. Hope came back, love came back, I was eager to get home to husband and child, life was bright again” (qtd. in Golden 217). Although her trips across the country made her feel better, she was depressed as before after she returned home. She loved her husband and baby, but Gilman left them to preserve her sanity. Then, she decided to ask for a psychiatric help from Silas Weir Mitchell. After a one-month treatment, she returned home and followed his orders to “Live as domestic a life as possible…Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hour’s intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live” (qtd. in Gilbert). The rest cure that was prescribed by Mitchell worsened her condition. She did not feel physical pain, not even a headache, “just mental torment, and so heavy in its nightmare gloom that it seemed real enough to dodge” (qtd. in Golden 229). Additionally, Gilman shares her experience and states that she “made a rag baby…hung it on the doorknobs and played with it” (qtd. in Gilbert). She also adds that the effect of her treatment was unbearable; she “would crawl into remote closets and under-beds to hide from the grinding present of the profound distress” (qtd. in Gilbert). In the end, Gilman rejected Mitchell’s orders. She went back to work where she found her joy. 
	Moreover, other critics sees Gilman’s short story as a Gothic tale; however, according to Gilman, she never intended “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Gothic tale. Her short story is a cautionary story about what supposed rest cures could do to the mental stability of the patients. The protagonist in the story is like Gilman who suffered from nervous depression after giving birth to her child. However, the protagonist in the story is not treated by Mitchell, but she is treated by her husband, who is a doctor. Mitchell and the husband of the protagonist both use the rest cure as a treatment because the rest cure was a typical therapy during the Victorian era. Her husband’s prescription is also similar to Mitchell’s. She is not allowed to write, read, sew, and work. She is living within a daily schedule, which is prepared by her husband. Additionally, her husband confines her in a room with barred windows and a nailed down bed, which suspends her connection with the outside world. As a result, she displaces her attention to a fantasy replica of the external world, the yellow wallpaper (Davis 300). The husband of the protagonist in the story enforces all measures of restraint against her fantasizing in the hope of bringing her back under his control, yet he only aggravates her (Davis 195). In addition, her husband’s rest cure therapy exacerbates her condition. She obsessively follows the pattern of the yellow wallpaper and she believes that there is a woman trapped in the wallpaper. In the morning she starts to see creeping women outside and inside the house. The protagonist in the story also experienced sufferings similar to Gilman’s. She also crawls and creeps in the corners of the room (Gilbert). Additionally, she believes that she should free the woman in the wallpaper before her husband arrives. Then, she pulled off all the wallpaper in her room and she is creeping around when her husband opens the door. She tells her husband, “I’ve got out at last…And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (Gilman 937). The protagonist attains her freedom by expressing herself at the end of the story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” ends like the life story of Gilman; in the end, they both did not allow others to rule their life.
According to Gilman, the ideal woman in her time “was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful…smiling and good humored” (Gilbert). Another reason for the psychological illness of Gilman was because of the social restrictions and the expectations of the people that surrounded her. Gilman loves her work and her family; however, women in her time could not have both career and family. The pressure of the restrictions toward her affected her health. On the other hand, the protagonist in her story is overpowered by her husband. Unlike Gilman who had a loving and caring husband, the husband of the protagonist in her story “has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures” (Gilman 926). She is not heard by her husband and has no position to contradict him. In addition, her husband is also insensitive because he does not believe that she is sick. Gilman depicts the lives of the women during her time and she also portrays the struggles of the women trapped within the male-dominated world. 
Finally, Gilman and the protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper” endure the journey away from controlling and restricting selves. They both refute the people who dictated their life and they liberate themselves to explore worlds beyond the chains of reality. Gilman imparts her experiences through “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She became like a psychiatrist herself in the advice she presented to the nervous women who might be reading her story (Golden 237). Gilman illustrates in her masterwork that in her time society had the ability to force the people into certain lifestyles and modes of action based on gender. However, she leaves the readers a message that even if society does have that power, every individual can find and pull down yellow wallpaper and resist other people’s control (Weinstock 123).

Works Cited
Davis, Cynthia. Approaches to Teaching Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" New York: 
The Modern Language Association of America, 2003. Print.
Gilbert, Kelly. "Gilman, "Yellow Wallpaper"" FGCU Instructional Technology & 
Broadcast Services. 27 July 1998. Web. 10 Oct. 2009.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Ed. John Clifford and John Schilb. 
Making Literature Matter. 4th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 926-39. Print.
Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination A Casebook on the Yellow Wallpaper. 
New York: Feminist, 1992. Print.
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew, ed. Pedagogical Wallpaper. New York: Peter Lang Inc., 
2003. Print.