When I first read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, I didn’t know a great deal about its social and historical context. I read it as a story about a woman’s descent into madness, and knew enough to know that in the Victorian period women were often denied their freedom and independence. As a result I was able to sympathise with the woman in the story. However, after detailed research into the context of the novella, my appreciation of many aspects of the story was enhanced in several ways. My sympathy for the unnamed narrator was greatly intensified because I became aware of the ways in which she was victimised and controlled in the name of ‘love’ by her husband and medical supervisor, John. Knowledge of context enabled me to appreciate different complexities of meaning in particular details of the story including the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper, the bedroom, and references to writing. Finally, my knowledge of context enhanced my appreciation of how the story is written. As a first person narrative the novella encouraged me to have some sympathy for the unnamed woman. However, my knowledge of context allowed me to appreciate the importance of point of view at another level, namely its significance in giving the female victim a voice. I have thus gained an appreciation of the political dimension of the story – the way it raises issues of power, which I might otherwise have not understood.

One of the things that has helped me appreciate The Yellow Wallpaper more is my extended knowledge of the treatment of hysteria patients in the Victorian period. ‘Hans Pols’ newspaper from the University of Pennsylvania generated a very interesting article titled ‘The Social History of Mental Illness.’ This article has enlightened my appreciation for the woman in this story, I am able to sympathise with her much more due to my new knowledge of the issue. This article provides evidence to suggest that the ugly yellow colour throughout her entire room is linked to her medication. The women who were treated for hysteria were treated with a specific drug that caused their sight to become yellow. The ‘yellow’ wallpaper provides her with things that other people cannot see. This medical context gives the title added significance and discusses the way that she has been medicated rather than understood. The narrator sees the wallpaper as a text that she must interpret and it symbolises something that affects her directly. At first it seems merely unpleasant; “it is ripped, soiled, and an unclean yellow.” The wallpaper in fact is representative of the narrator herself. Her ability as the only one to see the yellowness is symbolic of how she is the only one to see the real patterns of the wallpaper. Furthermore, I am able to see that the aspects of the story can have more than one meaning and affect many layers of appreciation.

One of the deeper layers of appreciation that I have established throughout The Yellow Wallpaper is John’s mental suppression towards the woman. He can only treat her in a physical way, forcing her to become completely passive, forbidding her to use her mind. His containment of creativity and expression has been linked to my social context of that time. Women were used purely as a role of objectivity, and since an object has no mind at all the woman’s mental illnesses were seen as a vast burden. John does not alter his passive values to cure his wife; instead he modifies her symptoms to that of a physical illness. Society did not understand the concept of mental illness; there was a thought that all sicknesses were of a physical basis. All illnesses, including mental illnesses, required a physical treatment. Nijinsky for instance, the brilliant ballet dancer spent decades in lunatic asylums chained to the wall and regularly hosed down with cold water to treat his mental illness. I can understand the simplicity treatment. If someone has a physical illness, they would not be treated mentally, would they? So the same in turn represents the manner in which the woman became even more subdued as a result of the poor treatment of her husband. Throughout the text I have realised that there is a parallel between the ways that John treated the woman and the way that society as a whole treated people with a mental illness. Knowing about the social context towards mental illness has immensely assisted me in seeing the characters in the story - not only as individuals but also as socially representative figures whose representation in the story reveals some of the values and attitudes of their time.

Including the oppression John omits on his wife, The Yellow Wallpaper it is very clear that women are subordinate to men in marriage and treated as if they were children. Gilman uses the conventions of the psychological horror tale to critique the position of women within the institution of marriage, especially as practiced by the “respectable” classes of her time. At first, the treatment of the unnamed narrator by her husband seems incomprehensible to a twenty first century reader who is custom to different ideas of marriage. However, having an appreciation of values towards marriage in Victorian England enables me to see how the so-called love of the husband is actually a form of control. “He takes all care for me, and I feel so basely ungrateful not to value it more.” This allowed me to see how in fact the problem is the man and not the woman. She blames herself, but her lack of gratitude is not the problem, it’s the husbands desire to direct her and control her. What the woman in the story sees as her own individual problem is in fact a response to her lack of freedom and independence. The fact is that Victorian women, like the central character had very little freedom and independence, not being able to vote, own property, be financially independent or have an identity outside of the home.

To me, knowing about context is vital because it provides me with a social and historical explanation for the values, gender roles, and knowledge of mental illnesses in the Victorian period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper has enabled me to see that the women’s ‘illness’ is a response to the masculine insistence on reasons and facts. The woman represents the world of feeling and intuition, which has made me become critical of the scientific values of that time. If I were to read the story without this knowledge I would have not realised certain issues being discussed throughout the writing. As I am aware of the historical and social context I have taken in so much more meaning; this has helped me to appreciate that it is society who is ‘sick’ in demanding particular behaviour in women, furthermore leaving me in agreement with its effect on me as a whole.