Mental illness Essay

Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The colournessness W exclusivelypaper, relays to the proofreader near involvement more than than a simple level of a muliebrity at the tenderness of the limited medical k straightwayledge in the late 1800s. Gilman creates a character that expresses veritable emotions and a psyche that ass be examined in the context of modern understanding. The Yellow Wallpaper, written in prototypic soul and first published in 1892 in the January edition of the New England Magazine, depicts the downward spiraling of falloff, loss of control and competence, and relishings of worth itsy-bitsyness that take away to greater depression and the possibility of schizophrenia.The commencement emphasis lead be on the interaction and roles of the preserve and married char fair sex in The Yellow Wallpaper, which atomic number 18 found on the male dominated propagation of the late 1800s. The main character, a woman whose name is never revealed, tells us of th e intellectual state of mind she is under and how her economise and his brother, both physicians, dismiss it. You see, he does non believe I am anxious And what rump angiotensin converting enzyme do? If a physician of high standing, and ones own preserve, assures friends and relatives that there is authoritatively nonentity the proceeds with one nonwithstanding passing nervous depression a slight hysterical tendency what is one to do? The doctors seem comp accordely unable to take away that there might be more to her educate than nevertheless stress and a slight nervous disorder plain off when a summer in the sylvan and weeks of bed-rest move e very(prenominal)(prenominal)place not careed. It might be thought that it is a simple matter of a loving husband existence overprotective of his ill wife, besides this ef scarecrowery is quickly washed away by his arrogant attitudes, combined with his callous intervention of her that entirely serve to compound the fuss.At first he meant to repaper the way of life, hardly after he said that I was allow it stick to the better of me, and that nothing was worsenedned for a nervous patient than to ordinate way to such fancies. washbowl treats his wife in a manner that gives her origin to doubt herself and her capabilities. Her husband joke has explicitly forbidden her to do certain things, although we be never told wherefore just it can be assumed that it is because of her frailty that some of these activities maintain been taken away from her. As such cosmosness prohibited to turn and not world able to generate to the household as a square-toed wife and newmother she begins to feel helpless. So I am utterly forbidden to go away until I am sanitary again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Additionally, she has been told not to write There comes John, and I moldiness put this away he hates to deliver me write a word. With no seminal upshot her mind galvanises to find things upon which to dwell, things that plainly she can see.Virtually imprisoned in her bedroom, hypotheticly to allow her to rest and recover, she easily starts to go insane. With give away compassion or an outlet for her creativity, her mind turns inward and focuses on her now increasingly shrinking universe. She has no pronounce in the location or the interior design of her room. I befoolt resembling our room a bit. . . But John would http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u7t0TuAnKU not notice of it. She is not allowed visitors, It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship . . . nevertheless he says he would as briefly put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people slightly now. In large part because of this persecuteion, she continues to decline. I dont feel as if it was worth trance to turn my hand over for anything and Im acquiring awfully fretful and querulous. However by retention her a prisoner in a room with offen sive wallpaper and very little to occupy her mind, John roughly forces her to dwell on her psyche. Prison is supposed to be depressing, and she is pretty close to being a prisoner.The study does hint to the particular that John knows he could have through with(p) more but simply does not seem to necessitate to be fazed with the exertion of such an endeavour for his wife. He never acknowledges that she has a real problem until the end of the story, at which time he fainted. John could have obtained council from soul less personally involved in her case, but the only help he sought-after(a) was for the condition of the house and the baby. He obtained a nanny to watch over the children while he was away at work each day It is fortunate bloody shame is so good with the baby. He overly had his sister Jennie take care of the house. She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper.There is one instance, however, when he does talk of taking her to an talented for assistance, John say s if I dont pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. Nevertheless she took that as athreat since Dr. Mitchell was even more domineering than her husband and his brother. Perhaps, if she had been allowed to come and go and do as she pleased her depression might have lifted, I see sometimes that if I were only well becoming to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. It seems to her that retributive being able to tell someone how she really feels would have eased her depression, but her husband would not hear of it because of the unenviable consequences it could bring to the family name. Thus, John has made her a prisoner in their marriage where her opinions are pushed aside, and her self-worthiness questioned.She does have a rebellious intention in her and the fact that this spirit is being crushed is the final nail towards her insanity. Her despondency is almost the like someone being buried alive and screaming well-educated that t here are people just above but who seem not to hear or care. Her reaction is to seek to prove her husband wrong, John is a physician, and perhaps . . . perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster . . . turn putting on an appearance of submission, in actuality she was a great submit rebelling against her husbands orders. She writes when there is zero around to see her, and she tries to move her bed, but always keeps an eye open for someone coming. As her segmentation approaches she actually locks her husband out of her room, I have locked the entre and thrown the key down into the front path.I dont want to go out, and I dont want to have anybody come in, process John comes. I want to surprise him. This forces him to see that he has been wrong, and, since she knew he could not tolerate hysteria, to eventually drive him away. While there is supporting evidence that her husbands treatment of her was a major(ip) contributing factor to her madness, the possibility besid es exists that her madness was caused by an internal in watertightity which, given the level of medical knowledge, her husband was unable to deal with appropriately. As mentioned in the beginning of this essay, Gilman creates a character that has real emotions and a real psyche that impresses upon the reader that she is slowly deteriorating into a psychogenic disorder known as schizophrenia (a tumult of the personality). This illness, however it manifests itself deep down the personality of someone is usually highlighted through a renewal of indications. The leading character exhibits these symptoms sporadically throughout the story.To begin with, one of the more diaphanous of her symptoms is her irrational obsession, displayed by relentless thoughts of and about, the yellow wallpaper that wraps the walls in her room. It is a room that she feels captured by and her obsessions start from the beginning of the story. I never saw a worse paper in my life, she says. It is dull en ough to confuse the eye in sweep uping, say enough to constantly irritate and stimulate study Taken in isolation, this bod of observation might appear to be harmless to the uninformed observer, but as her obsession with the wallpaper grows, so does her dementia. At one point she describes lying on her bed and following that pattern about by the hour . . . I determine for the one-thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some riddle of conclusion.Interconnected with the first symptom of irrational obsession is that of thought touch on disorder. This disorder can range in severity from a vague murk of thinking to a complete breakdown of ones mental processes. The first real clues that she is having trouble controlling her mental state of being comes into focus when she states, I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes . . . I take trouble to control myself before him, at least, and that makes me very tired She tries to discuss her feelings rationally, bu t this only brings a stern reproachful matter at which she gives up and returns to her room. Again her condition is revealed a few pages later when remarking that, It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight.Soon, other perceptible changes in her mental state start to take shape. She slowly begins to show symptoms of paranoia, provided another unfortunate schizophrenic trait. She speaks of how knowing she is that her baby is not exposed to the akin torturous existence that she has to endure in her room with the yellow wallpaper. Of course I never mention it to them any more I am too wise, but I keep watch of it all the same Even the mistrust of her caretakers is throw out evidenced when she says, The fact is I am getting a little terror-stricken of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look When catching Jennie look at the yellow wallpaper, she thinks to herself, But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determine d that nobody shall find it out but myself? This type ofparanoia is a firm indication that her psychological state is continuing to deteriorate towards complete schizophrenia.Another in the list of common symptoms of schizophrenia that the jockstrap exhibits is hallucination. Of these hallucinations, one is when she sees people walking in the paths that she views from her bedroom window. As her condition worsens, she begins to have other hallucinations, this time focused on the yellow wallpaper itself. This is noticed when she exclaims, At night in any miscellanea of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it the wallpaper turns bars The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be. In rundown to her mental hallucinations, she starts to also have ones where she can smell things as well, the only thing I can think of that it is like is the colour of the paper A yellow smell.The climactic stage of her hallucinations com es when she realizes, that woman gets out in the daytime It is at this point that her madden thought processes become a coping mechanism to help her deal with her mental state of being. She passes into a full schizophrenic state and transforms from a helpless, self-pitying woman, to one who feels, in her mind at least, that she has broken free of her shackles. She feels that she has gained a sensory faculty impression of control, no matter how false that sense whitethorn be, as she says, I dont want to go out, and I dont want to have anybody come in, till John comes. I want to astonish him.Much has changed by the end of the story, so much in fact that in the end it is she who is metaphorically and literally creeping over John, who has fainted after seeing her in a deranged state of being. This is in contrast to their interactions up to this point when it was John who usually bring down and condescended her. The fact that the protagonist in this story is schizophrenic is support ed by non-homogeneous bits of evidence. However, the question that remains to be answered is wherefore a diagnosis of schizophrenia is eventful to interpreting The Yellow Wall-Paper. Schizophrenia is a logical choice in that it explains why the protagonist behaved in the way that she did. For her to control her submission to an environment that has sought to oppress her, she had to discard the personality within her that was tame and mild.This is a common defence mechanism of the mind in order to deal with situations it perceives to be uncontrollable. It is quitepossible within the realm of psychological study that the crew of the stress of childbirth, post-natal depression and the mental seek of having to repress her emotions triggered the schizophrenia. This terrible condition may have resulted from the bonds she felt would not allow her to express herself as a homophile being, mother and wife, a freedom that she so desperately needed. Her slide into madness, as a way to de al with her entrapment, is similar to a caged animal that, when backed into a corner, will fight for its life.