The figure in the wallpaper

Gustavo Quintero
English 48B
March 3, 2008
Journal #34 Charlotte Perkins Gilman




Quote:
"But in places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so- I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about being that silly and conspicuous front design"( Gilman 812).




Summary:
After several weeks in the upstairs room the narrator of the story is beginning to see a woman in the wallpaper. It seems that her treatment is having the opposite effects on her.



Response:
The woman in the story is prescribed a treatment known as "rest cure". This is a treatment that was prescribed to her by one of the leading physicians in this field, Silas Weir Mitchell. She is prescribed this treatment because she has been suffering from depression and one of the only known treatments is the "rest cure". The idea behind this treatment is to lay completely in bed for weeks at a time with no more than two hours of intellectual contact a day. The treatment also requires that the patient does not read or write. This sounds like such a primitive and backwards to treat depression. I think that the reason someone becomes depressed is because they are lonely and have no friends. So now the treatment that she is undergoing requires her to have less human contact than she had before. This does not sound like it could in any way be conducive to her health. As the story progresses we see her illness grow and her mental health deteriorate quickly. I can only begin to imagine to tremendous negative effects that this treatment would have on a clinically depresses person. You would think that her treatment would consist of more human contact and more mental exercises such as reading and writing. In the above quote we see the start of her mental deterioration. She begins to see a figure in amongst the design on the yellow wallpaper. I have to say that I feel tremendously bad for her because she is isolated at a time that she needs to be around people. Aside from seeing the figure in the wallpaper she spends hours staring at the lines and designs that are on the wallpaper. As I was reading this short story I was picturing a young woman rocking back and forth staring aimlessly at the walls around her. It almost sounds like she is in an asylum. As she spends more time in the room upstairs, unknowing to her husband, her condition goes from bad to worse.