In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes in detail the main character’s journey into psychosis. One must start with the definition of psychosis in order to conclude if indeed the main character did become psychotic.

One definition of psychosis is the loss of contact with reality, typically including delusions (false ideas about what is taking place or who one is) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things which aren’t there) (Yahoo Health Encyclopedia) and one can also use the term psychotic as both have the same meaning. Charlotte Gilman suffered from a form of mental illness and the treatment “almost drove her insane” (McQuade et al 706). Ms. Gilman used her life struggles in her writings as a springboard to advocate for women’s rights. Charlotte Gilman is known for “her advocacy of women’s rights” through her literature, this is especially true in” The Yellow Wallpaper” which is “celebrated by two diverse groups: fans of horror tales and feminist critics” (McQuade et al 706). Gilman writes about the repression that women face in the days of the late 1800’s and from the perspective that it is an overwhelmin

The narrator introduces the character of the nanny and the main character’s baby at this part of the story. The narrator states, “it is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby” because she, the narrator “cannot be with him” (Gilman 715). Mary we conclude is the nanny, we know that the narrator has recently given birth and women that have recently given birth may suffer from a condition known today as postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is generally accepted as a condition caused by the severe shifting of hormones after the birth of a child. This condition can be extreme also may be accompanied by psychosis. Just like psychosis, postpartum depression can be as mild as slightly depressed or a severe case can be characterized by a loss of touch with reality, hallucinations, or delusions (Department of Health and Mental Hygiene).

Gilman, in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” sets the opening scene mood with the use of a traditional Gothic mansion reputed to be “a haunted house” (Gilman 713). The reason that the main character and her husband move into the mansion was for her health issue. John is a physician and “he does not believe I am sick”(Gilman 713). He believes that she is suffering from “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 713), and John feels that all she needs is to follow doctor’s order to get total rest, peace and quiet and not to do any work. The story also mentions that she has an older brother that also is a physician and agrees with John’s theory of treatment; this leaves the main character no choice but to subject herself to the torment of being totally alone in the room with the yellow wallpaper. John takes his wife to a “most beautiful place” (Gilman 714) that in fact is totally isolated “standing well back from the road…three miles from the village” (Gilman 714). I question whether this was for her health or a plot to push her over the edge of sanity. Treatments of mental illness especially female issues in the times Gilman wrote were archaic. Most physicians and psychiatrists were men who did not take female issues as serious ones and tended to be insensitive to women. John’s choice of rooms for their bedroom was “the nursery at the top of the house”(Gilman 714). The room choice was due to it being the place for “perfect rest and all the air I could get” (Gilman 714). The room was a “big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all the ways, and air and sunshine galore” (Gilman 714). The windows had bars on them, was this to give the illusion of being caged in? Of all the rooms to choose, why did John choose that one? The one that “the color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoudlering unclean yellow, strangely faded by slow-turning sunlight” (Gilman 714-5). She goes on to describe the wallpaper that “is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others” (Gilman 715). All the descriptions she uses to depict the wallpaper are either adding to her psychosis or because of her psychosis. All she has to do day after day is to stare at the wallpaper for hours on end allowing her mind to see things within the wallpaper real or fictional.

As we get into the story the main character’s hallucinations and delusions grow increasing more severe. We can see this when the main character states, “I always fancy I see people walking on these numerous paths and arbors” (Gilman 715). By using the first person, singular perceptive Gilman allows us to see the events unfold through her eyes. The narrator gives life to the wallpaper as she explains, “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!”(Gilman 716) and the statement “There is a recurrent spot where the patter

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