The Yellow Wallpaper

The short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is very intriguing. I could tell early in the story that what the woman was suffering from was postpartum depression. The sad part is the way she was being "treated" for this condition. Because of the time that this story was set, the treatment for postpartum depression was the "rest cure", where she was brought to a remote location and not allowed contact with many others. She was also not allowed to work and was encouraged to sleep often. It is obvious as the story goes on that her depression and psychosis worsens probably due to this treatment. This was shown through her hate an obsession over the wallpaper in the room she spend so much of her time in. It starts out where she just doesn't like the color and the pattern of the wallpaper. It then slowly worsens until she believes there is a woman creeping behind the pattern, then finally results in her actually thinking that she is the woman from the pattern that has escaped from her awful patterned prison. I think that this story represents the power than men had over women at this time. The woman's husband makes her believe that she is getting better, even though she know that she is not. This sends her into the deep state of psychosis at the end.