Shut up and Do as I Say
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Shut Up and Do As I Say
Women were supposed to be seen and not heard. Amy E. Hudocks “The Yellow Wallpaper,” analyzes the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman and gives an insight to the plight of women during this time period. The story tells of a woman who, after giving birth to her child, comes down with a nervous condition. Her husband John, who is also her doctor, does not believe she is sick, prescribes her a treatment for this. The treatment was to lock her in a room with no outside influences. The term for this treatment is called “rest cure,” and it was developed by real life Dr. Weir Mitchell as treatment for hysteria for women. As the story unfolds, she is driven into a deep depression that eventually turns into her having delusions of the yellow wallpaper in her room. While mental illness may have not been widely understood in the 19th century, I can hardly think of anything worse than being locked in a room with nothing to do but stare at wallpaper all day.
In her analysis, Hudock examines the inequality between the sexes, “The unequal relationship between the narrator and John is a microcosm of the larger gender inequity in society.”(3) John believes that since he is the doctor and a man, he knows what is best for his wife. Her brother, who is also a doctor, does not believe she is sick either. In the story, the wife is forbidden to do any work or write, but she believes that this is counter- productive. Gilman writes “Personally, I disagree with their ideas.” (1) She believes that by staying active, her mind will stay sharp and she will be able to recover quicker. Hudock further explains how the men in the story speak and treat the wife as a child, “He speaks of her as he would a child.” (3) In Gilmans story, the wife got out of bed when she thought she saw the wallpaper move and as she got back in bed, John woke up and asked, “What is it, little girl?”(5) He was talking down to her as if she were his child instead of his wife. As the reader delves deeper in to the story, it becomes clear the treatment is not making the wife better, but in fact, she gets worse. Hudock writes” One can see the negative effect of Johns (and societys) treatment of the narrator in her response to the rest cure. (3) Even the wife knows she is getting worse, as she and John