Covering Up the Truth

Mary Kate Ryser-Oatman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-paper"

January 8, 2009

Journal #2

"John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)-perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick!" (Gilman 808)

The narrator of the story discusses how her husband is a doctor, and how his profession is somehow preventing her from getting well sooner. She also discloses that he does not actually call her state a sickness.

When I read the beginning of the story again after finishing the whole story, I finally began to understand the meaning behind some passages. Her husband is a physician, yet he does not help her become well in a timely manner. This sounded strange to me at first, because he is a doctor after all, and his job is to help people become well again. Reading further into the story, the narrator mentions that the rules she had to follow in order to become well again prevented her from visiting family, writing, leaving the house and yard and even from thinking. I could understand how she feels; I am sure that if I were in the same situation as she that I too would feel like I could not get better with all of this rest. Her husband seems so convinced that if she just lie in bed all day and sit outside doing nothing that she will get better and be cured of her illness. He is not allowing her any say in what she does, she is forced to follow his rules. If someone is ill, depending on what they are suffering from, a lot of rest and relaxation is the best medicine. What the narrator is suffering from sounds like some form of depression, and that is something that can not be cured by resting. She was probably right when she said that she would feel better writing; she needs something to keep her mind off of her boredom and her illness.

The fact that he does not think she is truly ill is strange to me. According to the footnote, she was suffering from what they called hysteria, or as was discussed in class, neurasthenia. This could have been post-partum depression, or she could have been suffering from multiple illnesses, but the point is that doctors had linked hysteria to coming from the same Greek root as uterus which led many doctors to believe that women were crazy. I think that is ridiculous. Her husband thought it was a woman's illness and nothing more. Then again, I must also add that from the reader's point of view, he could have also been telling her that he does not believe that there is anything wrong with her so that she will remain calm and believe this herself.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered the same illness as the main character in her story, and her treatment was seen by many doctors in the same way. According to Wikipedia, "Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered a very serious bout of post-partum depression in the months after Katharine's birth. This was an age in which women were seen as 'hysterical' and 'nervous' beings; thus, when a woman claimed to be seriously ill after giving birth, her claims were sometimes dismissed as being invalid." Doctors could not take these symptoms seriously, and many women suffered because of it.