Much of the life that is reported of Charlotte Perkins Gilman is concerned with her troubled and loveless relationships: with her mother, her father, and her daughter. These relationships are central to the life of Charlotte Gilman yet only peripherally relate to the incident in her life that sparked one of the greatest pieces of feminist literature ever written. Ann L. Jane suggests that "The Yellow Wallpaper" is "the best crafted of her fiction: a genuine literary piece . . . the most directly, obviously, self-consciously autobiographical of all her stories" (Introduction xvi). Today in the twentieth century this statement does not contain the impact that it should for the women of the world who never experienced the suffocating life that Gilman led from 1860 to 1935. To be able to relate to Gilman's situation and appreciate “The Yellow Wallpaper” for how it exemplifies women's lives is difficult in this age where women have more freedom than ever before. Gilman's original intent in writing the story was to gain personal satisfaction from the knowledge that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell might, after reading the story, change his treatment. But more importantly Gilman says in her article in The Forerunner "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked" (20).When the story first came out in 1892 the critics saw "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a description of female insanity and mayhem instead of a story that reveals society's values. A Boston Physician wrote in The Transcript after reading the story that, "Such a story ought not to be written . . . it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it" (Gilman 19). This statement implies the thought that any woman who would go against the grain of society might as well have been insane for writing it in the first place. In the time period in which Gilman lived "The ideal woman was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good humored" (Lane, To Herland 109). The women who refused this role and chose a life of self-expression and freedom from the social constraints suffered ridicule and punishment from their peers. This is not unlike the repercussions that Gilman experienced throughout her lifetime from expressing her need for independence from the private sphere that she had been relegated to. Through her creation of "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote an autobiography of her emotional and psychological feelings of rejection from society as a free-thinking woman. This work is a reaction to the lack of free agency that women had in the late 1800’s and their inability to have a career and a family; the pressures of these restrictions resulted in her involvement in Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s "rest cure."
Gilman comes from a long list of freedom fighters for women’s rights; without having this type of influence throughout her life she would have never become the free thinker and advocate that she is famous for today. Charlotte Gilman was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut to a long lineage of revolutionary thinkers, writers, and intermarriages that were, as Carol Berkin put it, "in discrete confirmation of their pride in association" (18). Whether from the inbreeding or from the high intellectual capacity of the family, there was a long string of mental disorders fluctuating from “manic-depressive illness” to nervous breakdowns ranging from suicide to short term hospitalizations (Lane, To Herland 110). Gilman's aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, also complained of this same illness; Beecher wrote to a friend saying, “My mind is exhausted and seems to be sinking into deadness” (Lane, To Herland 111). She felt this way for years and suffered many breakdowns until finding “real release in her writing" of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Lane, To Herland 111). Along with Gilman and Stowe, another well known writer and lecturer of her time, Catherine Beecher, was also sent to the same sanitarium for nervous disorders. Coming from a family of such well known feminists and revolutionaries it's no wonder that Gilman grew up with the knowledge that she had the right to be treated the same as anyone, man or woman, and was just as capable in her work and in her personal life.
Having this strong background affected more than her mind set about things; it also affected her interpersonal relations that she had with her husband and what role she was expected to play in that relationship. This was a major factor to her breakdown upon entering into the bonds of marriage with Charles Walter Stetson, "an extraordinarily handsome and charming local artist" (Lane, Introduction x). From the beginning she struggled with the idea of having to conform to the domestic model for women. Upon repeated proposals from Stetson, Gilman tried to "lay bare her torments and reservations" about getting married (Lane, To Herland 85). She states that "her thoughts, her acts, her whole life would be centered on husband and children. To do the work she needed to do, she must be free" (Lane, To Herland 85). This idea was scariest of all to Gilman who sincerely loved Charles yet also loved her work and her freedom from constraints. “After a long period of uncertainty and vacillation” she married Charles at the age of 24 (Lane, Introduction x). Not even a year later on March 23, 1885, Charlotte bore Katharine Stetson, "But feelings of 'nervous exhaustion' immediately descended upon her, and she became a 'mental wreck' " (Ceplair 17). What is commonly known as Post-Pardum Depression was the affliction that fell upon Gilman; because doctors of the time were not versed about the female hormonal system all nervous disorders were associated with "hysteria" a reference used for women with emotional problems. In this time of illness she wrote many articles on "women caught between families and careers and the need for women to have work as well as love" (Ceplair 19).
Gilman’s love for free will and her work caused a major tension that was not anticipated; the stress of denying the “normal” social roles of women caused her to have a breakdown that led to the meeting with Dr. S.Weir Mitchell. Her writing was an effort at expressing the tensions she felt between her work, her husband and her child. She tried her best at beating the depression she felt but in the end "she collapsed utterly in April 1886" (Ceplair 19). This final collapse forced her to search out the Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell the nationally recognized neurologist who specialized in the nervous diseases of women. When Mitchell initially interviewed Gilman he told her that “she was suffering from neurasthenia, or exhaustion of the nerves" the diagnosis required his renowned rest cure (Lane, To Herland 115). The treatment required for the cure involved four steps: “1) extended and total bed rest; 2) isolation from family and familiar surroundings; 3) overfeeding, especially with cream, on the assumption that increased body volume created new energy; 4) massage and often the use of electricity for 'muscular excitation'" (Lane, To Herland 116). The women he treated were basically taught an extreme version of how to be domestic and submissive according to the society outside of the sanitarium. This treatment would be considered cruel and unusual punishment to anyone today but then it was supposed to be the best care you could get. After a month of treatment Gilman was sent home with the instructions to "live as domestic a life as possible . . . and never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live" (Lane, To Herland 121). For a woman of Gilman’s intellect and stamina this was an impossible feat to accomplish. She says in her diary that "I went home, followed those directions rigidly for a months and came perilously near to losing my mind" (Lane, To Herland 121).
In the late 1800’s women like Gilman were not given the opportunity to choose their career over their families, to do so meant they had to give up one or the other. Gilman did exactly that, despite the enormous amount of controversy she created she chose her work over her family. Due to the enormous pressure of the treatment on her psyche and "calling upon an inner sense of survival, she rejected both husband and physician" (Lane, Introduction x). Gilman divorced her husband in 1887 and moved to California. A few years later in order to lecture across the country she gave her child to her ex-husband and his new wife, who happened to be Gilman’s best friend, and left to fulfill her work. Years later in 1890 she wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in reaction to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure.” In her "Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?" Gilman describes the "years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown" and goes on to talk about the doctor who treated her and how in response to treatment had "sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad" (Gilman 19, 20). She says, "the best result . . . years later I was told the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’" (Gilman 20).
Gilman is insistent throughout all of her interviews that this acknowledgement of her writing by Dr. Mitchell is the quintessential accomplishment that she could gain. Regardless of what she said there’s an underlying tone of this work being too close to her emotional and psychological reality to be the true and only reason. There have been many studies as to what Gilman’s intent was in writing "The Yellow Wallpaper" as Joanne Karpinski suggests, "one theme that seems to run through all her works . . . is a desire for order and coherence in lived experience" (3). Holding this theory true, then it is assumed that this work is a sorting through of her emotions and fears in her personal life and as Lane states, “(it) is an intensely personal examination of Gilman’s private nightmare” (To Herland 127). If Gilman says that it was for her revenge for Dr. Mitchell she was neglecting to admit that it was also a true to life account of her emotional and psychological state.
Today, after nearly three decades of studies and analysis of both her life and her works, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of the few pieces of work that Gilman ever wrote that delved as deep into her emotions and feelings as she was capable of doing. Lane states that “Never again in her writing did she take such an emotional chance or engage in such introspection as she did in this story” (To Herland 127). Even though it's fiction the story has some dramatic similarities in Gilman’s own life. Lane describes a diary entry from Gilman in which she states, "I made a rag baby . . . hung it on the doorknob and played with it. I would crawl into remote closets and under beds-to hide from the grinding pressure of that profound distress" (Lane, To Herland 121). This is an ironically similar description of the nameless narrator in the story who crawls and "creeps" in the corners of the room. Gilman showed her emotional reality in the work and tries to discover for herself as Lane describes, "what happens to our lives if we let others run them for us" (Introduction xviii). This realization was hard for her "(it) must have haunted Gilman all her life because it answered the question: what if she had not fled her husband and renounced the most advanced psychiatric advice of her time?" (Introduction xviii). "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a testament to Gilman's own life experience and in reading it there is a feeling of the tough decisions she made in her life and the impact those decisions had on her emotionally and mentally. Never again did Gilman write anything with such a personal attachment as this story had, "perhaps the emotional truth and intensity of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ drained her; perhaps it frightened her" (Lane, To Herland 127).
Gilman's life was plagued with pain, emotionally and psychologically, yet she lived every second to fullest extent. Her only fear was that she would not accomplish her life's work, and unfortunately because of the lifestyle she lived she never gained recognition for her accomplishments. Gilman died on August 17, 1935, by huffing chloroform; she had terminal cancer and decided it would be best to take her own life than die a long painful death. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Gilman’s works began to enter into to the colleges and the feminist forum. She was undoubtedly ahead of her time in her every thought and action. Not until recently have critics began to study “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the more they delve into the world of Charlotte Perkins Gilman the more we learn about what it was like to live an emotional and psychologically restraining society.
Ceplair, Larry. “The Early Years.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Non-fiction Reader. Ed. Larry Ceplair. New York: Columbia UP, 1991. 5-19.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?” The Forerunner (Oct. 1913): 19-20.
Karpinski, Joanne B. Introduction. Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ed. Joanne Karpinski. New York: G.K. Hall, 1992.
Lane, Ann J. Introduction. “The Fictional World of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader. Ed. Ann J. Lane. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. X-xviii.
---. To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. New York: Penguin, 1990.
