Between The Covers | A Peek into Classic Books: The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In real life, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) drew heavily on her life experiences when writing “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Postpartum depression afflicted her after her daughter’s birth, and her doctor prescribed the “rest cure.” The treatment involved confinement to bed for several weeks or even months, isolation from social and intellectual stimulation, and a high-fat diet of large amounts of milk, meat, and eggs. 

She separated from her husband and described her experience with the treatment as deeply damaging. In “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” she critiques the medical practices and societal norms that challenge a woman’s freedom and mental health.

Excerpt from the short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”

John is practical in the extreme. He 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.

John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see, he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would be beneficial to me.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.