A Ghost Story about Symptoms of Rest Cure and its Treatment

A Ghost Story about Symptoms of Rest Cure and its Treatment
Charlotte Gilman, the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells a ghost story about symptoms of rest cure and its treatment. Dr. Silas developed the treatment by restricting women from intellectual stimuli to a domestic life that would facilitate their postpartum recovery. Gilman wrote the story as a victim of the treatment. The author utilizes symbolism to develop the story to allow readers to analyze the themes relating to societal misogyny and feminism. A house, writing, and wallpaper are symbols that reveal ways that rest cure limits the potential of women in the society. Gilman (2009) foreshadows the effects of the rest cure, especially on women in the entire story. The author utilizes vivid diction to craft the image of a house and reveals how men imprison women’s minds in Victorian society. She portrays the house as a hereditary estate and colonial mansion.
Gilma uses the “romantic felicity” that might have a light tone. However, a dark statement that the estate is a haunted house precedes the words. By contrasting the two tones, Gilman foreshadows the likelihood that the house in which the narrator is interned for treatment might be grand and magnificent (Gilman, 2009). However, the rest cure and the house turns to be her doom. The foreshadowing reveals how physicians oppress women by denying them their right to a postpartum experience. The only strategy to address the issue would be tearing a man’s injustice in such a case. “The Yellow Wallpaper” centers on the fate of a mentally ill patient.
The Relationship between the Narrator and her Husband
Gender roles a...