"Putting the Rest Cure to Rest" An interpretive essay on "The Yellow Wallpaper"


Since its publication in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has generated a variety of interpretations. Originally viewed to be a ghost story, it has been regarded as gothic literature, science fiction, a statement on postpartum depression, having Victorian patriarchal attitudes and a journey into the depths of mental illness. More controversial, but curiously overlooked is the topic of the ‘rest cure’ and whether Gilman’s associations are fact or fiction. Evidence supports Charlotte Gilman may have misrepresented the Weir Mitchell Rest Cure, and pokes more holes in The Yellow Wallpaper.” (Blackie 57).

The story’s female character is suffering from “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical(1) tendency,” (Gilman 161) and prescribed a rest cure. The treatment enforced absolute bed rest, forbade physical, mental or social activities and required......

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Title: Putting The Rest Cure To Rest
Approximate Word Count: 1360
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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