Depression or Oppression in The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

Tags: yellow wallpaper 19th century human nature depression treatment power determination freedom women

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Depression or Oppression: The Yellow Wallpaper

\"The Yellow Wallpaper\" is an amazing piece about Charlotte’s descent into mental impairment. Presented in diary form, the text recounts the experiences of Charlotte who is diagnosed with a nervous condition (i.e. hysteria) and is advised by her physician husband that she ought to be exposed to minimal mental stimulation in her path to recovery. Towards this end, she is essentially barricaded in her bedroom – a room wrapped in yellow wallpaper. While Charlotte is at first diagnosed with depression and supposedly put on treatment for the same, what informs her descent into further mental impairment is oppression, as opposed to depression.

It is important to note that human beings happen to be social creatures. What this means is that they thrive on constant interactions with each other. Charlotte is isolated and the only persons she has access to are the nurse and her husband. At some point, she points out that she has nobody to seek “advice and companionship” from. She lacks a social system that she could actively use to share her tribulations, vent her frustrations, or simply converse meaningfully with. This actively denies her an essential component of human nature. It should also be noted that Charlotte’s freedom of movement is curtailed. The ‘yellow wallpapered’ room could symbolically be viewed as her detention facility effectively meaning she is more or less a ‘prisoner’ whose right to both association and movement has been truncated. The short-story also alludes to the treatment of women as the weaker sex and paints a picture of an extremely obedient and submissive woman. Charlotte’s husband is in this case the dominant figure – a fact proclaimed by his male gender.

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Charlotte, on the other hand presents a typical 19th century woman disposition of passivity and meekness. She even hides that fact that she is keeping a diary from John so…

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…Charlotte also has facts and the true state of affairs distorted or hidden from her view. This is particularly the case when it comes to her husband’s assurance that her condition is improving while to the contrary, it I actually deteriorating. She is in essence forced to a point whereby she blindly trusts her husband’s untrue assertions regarding her wellbeing and recovery. At some point, oblivious of the fact that her condition is deteriorating, she quips, “I wish I could get well faster.” Charlotte’s ‘rest therapy’ ends up doing more harm than good. It is because of her confinement that she loses herself and her mental condition further deteriorates. In the final analysis, this piece brings to light the misguided practices of the 19th century that instead of improving patients’ mental wellbeing ended up hurting them even further. In addition to being enlightening and informative, the piece also offers insight into the nature of mental stress. Its allusion to….....

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