MEDICINE
and
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
Presentation by:
Michelle Gayer
Andrew Hittig
Stephen Reid
What will cure you?
Medicine
What diseases can you think of
are related to the conditions
that the narrator is
experiencing?
What are some of the symptoms
that the narrator is
experiencing?
Diseases related to Narrator
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Delusional Disorder
Dementia
Post-Pardum Depression
Obsessive Compulsive
Nervousness
•A story about a woman supposedly suffering from post-partum
depression
•Written as journal entries
•Husband, who is a doctor, moves the family to the country so his
wife can get better
•Prescribed “rest-cure”
•The wife begins to obsess and hallucinate about the ornate yellow
wallpaper in the master bed room.
•Claims there is a woman trapped behind the paper, crawling
around the floorboards.
•Due to her isolation, the woman has a mental breakdown,
becoming the woman in the wallpaper.
Story Fact or Fiction
many found it unbelievable to write a story as crazy and
detailed
In 1913, Charlotte Perkins Gilman put rumors to rest and
admitted to having suffered post-partum depression like the
main character, prescribed rest-cure unlike the character,
Gilman stopped the “treatment” before going crazy
Wrote the short story to show how the “rest-cure” was actually
driving women to insanity and to show Dr. S. Weir Mitchell
was a quack
Dr. Weir Mitchell
Charlotte Perkins
Gilman
Post-Partum Depression
– after giving birth, a woman loves her child, but
is convinced she will not be a good mother
–Caused by unbalances in hormones
–Very few women suffer psychotic post-partum
episodes
–Infanticide usually caused by hallucinations
to kill the baby or the baby is thought to be
possessed
–In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five
children while supposedly suffering from
Post-Partum depression
Post-Partum Depression
• Main character keeps herself from her baby
– “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby.
Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it
makes me so nervous.”
– If the main character would have been in contact
with her baby, would she have harmed it?
Andrea Yates pictured with
her husband and five children,
shortly after the birth of the
youngest.
Dr. Weir Mitchell and the “Rest-Cure”
• Main character and Gilman are prescribed the
“Rest-Cure”
– Used to “cure” hysteria in women
– Preached seclusion and total control over the
woman’s daily activities
• Visitors must be cleared
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman learned from
experience, the “rest-cure” made women even
more insane
Dr. Weir Mitchell and the “Rest-Cure”
• “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I
had less opposition and more society and
stimulus--but John says the very worst
thing I can do is to think about my
condition, and I confess it always makes
me feel bad.”
– Tells the reader that she is starting to feel
restless being cooped up and controlled all
day.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a
psychiatric disorder, specifically, an anxiety
disorder. OCD is manifested in a variety of
forms, but is most commonly characterized by a
subject's obsessive drive to perform a particular
task or set of tasks, compulsions commonly
termed rituals.
Instances
Compulsive
Obsessive
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Color Yellow
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Yellow Wallpaper
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Woman Outside
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Freedom
Escaping the yellow
Tearing down the
paper
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD) - Quotes
“It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It
makes me think of all the yellow things I
ever saw -- not beautiful ones like
buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.”
Notice she mentions yellow three times,
seemingly repetitively – she is obsessive
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD) - Quotes
“Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach
standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and
the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled
heads and bulbous eyes and waddling
fungus growths just shriek with derision!.”
She is compulsive about getting the paper
off of the walls
Parts
Obsessions are thoughts and ideas that the
sufferer cannot stop thinking about.
Compulsions refer to actions that the person
performs, usually repeatedly, in an attempt
to make the obsession go away.
Media
Howard Hughes suffered from OCD. Several
instances of the movie The Aviator reflect his
actions concerning the disease. In these
scenes he thinks that the men in suits and white
gloves are after him – which leads him during
his gas-turbine discussion to repeat “the way of
the future”
Delusions
Yellow is
everywhere!!
Characteristics of Delusional
Disorder
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Mental illness
Person is usually functional and does not
show any oddities except for the delusions.
Person usually sees imaginary objects or
hallucinations
Usually linked with Schizophrenia,
and dementia.
“there are so many of those creeping
women,
and they
creep
fast.” out of the
She sees
women
thatso“came
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wall”
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Clearly hallucinations
Shows signs of having a delusional
disorder
Treatment by John was suppose to get rid
of the “slight hysterical tendenc”
Instead treatment Fostered a delusional
disorder, narrator imagines people who
aren't there.
Why is she delusional?
Three Basic Theories:
John the physician claims that the narrator
has a “temporary nervous depression or a
slight hysterical tendency” (born with
disorder)
● The narrators oppressive husband, John,
treats her as a child and takes away all
her liberties
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The fact of being locked up in a room
that is all yellow just drove her crazy.
What do you think?
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Discussion
After reading this story, how big of an impact
do you think your environment has on your
mental and physical health?
Works Cited page…
•
http://people.umass.edu/clit121/AmesYel/weir.html
•
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins; “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper;”
http://www.kino-eye.com/yp/whyiwrote.html
•
Http://healthyminds.org/postpartumdepression.cfm
•
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCD