The Representation of Women’s Mental Disorder in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, American women were regarded as submissive and weak creatures. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in her well-known short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), gave an image of women’s struggles at that time. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the terrible consequences of true womanhood and male oppression on women's mental health. In addition, it reveals the serious effects of the "rest cure," the treatment followed to heal women with mental health disorders at that time, and how it drove the protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper” to madness. All in all, this dissertation demonstrates how Charlotte Perkins Gilman managed to write despite her illness and the oppression she was facing, as it emphasizes her fight as a woman and a female writer for her rights and freedom. This thesis applies the historical approach to analyse women's status during the Nineteenth century in order to reach the results.