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The Rest Cure: The Prescription of Conscription to Conformity
The collective feminist struggle for recognition as more than reproductive, servile beings is a theme that is often documented in literature. Many groundbreaking works have been penned by trailblazing women with enough courage to expose the stifling cultural climate within which they subsist. The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story written in the last decade of the nineteenth century by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has remained popular with generations of female readers for its powerful context containing a timeless relevance. This tale explores the epidemic of neurasthenia plaguing an unhappy housewife and the contrived methods advocated in order to cure her disease. The concept of the perfectly subservient domestic woman is an idealistic archetype perpetuated by cultural convictions that little girls should be conscripted to a life encompassing seamlessly fostered training and ingrained acquiescence as she transitions from one household, that of her family, to the next, that of her husband. However, retaining one’s sanity is not easy under such prescribed restraints and in The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman renders the disillusionment women suffer from such paternalistic inequality among the sexes.
This impressive short story involves a troubled new mother, the narrator, with a decided case of neurasthenia that can only be sufficiently cured by that which serves to throw her further into morbid depression. The affliction is described by her husband as “temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 644). In conjunction with a prominent male doctor of the day, the husband and brother of the afflicted woman, also physicians, prescribe the rest cure which is typical of the Victorian period. An oppressive climate for women, the Victorian era proved worse for those with an acute awareness of the severe restriction imposed upon every facet of their lives. The domestic woman is handled much like a domesticated animal with those most prized having little spirit for disobedience as well as easy acceptance of authority. When conformity is not wholeheartedly accepted, the “rest cure” is the manner in which the wayward woman is to be made well. This so-called rest cure is fraught with chauvinistic ideals regarding the appropriate behavior a polite woman should preserve to display her impeccable training. With the purpose of becoming cured, the protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper must be excluded from social gatherings and is therefore in seclusion inside a mysterious home with compelling wallpaper that serves to symbolize the incarcerating characteristics of societal oppression, tainting everything it comes near with stain and stench. This remedy also involves the prohibition of all writing, which troubles the disconcerted narrator as she describes the exhaustion she incurs from the illicit inscriptions she manages in secret. In one of these forbidden journal entries, the woman depicts her writing as her only salvation as she laments “I must say what I feel and think in some way – it is such a relief” (Gilman 650). She is aware of the fact that her true feelings are of the quality best kept unspoken.
The concept of wellness is one that can be discerned as dichotomous, as the path to good health prescribed by all of the characters in this short story, aside from the protagonist, is the rest cure. The author reveals much about the power of the majority by inserting a subservient female, Jennie, into the plot as an example of the eminence and inevitability of societal trappings on the oppressed female population. Jennie represents the epitome of the true woman archetype and she also serves as an illustration of the outcome the rest cure is meant to bring about. Jennie does not question her place in society; rather she embraces her domesticity as “a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper.” Jennie is not troubled by the complex disillusion that plagues the narrator. Instead, Jennie is fully entrenched in her predestined role, even offering up advice that resembles that of the male physicians in this story. The narrator perceives Jennie as part of the opposition for her cooperation with the prescribed rest cure, but not in an overtly menacing way. The confined woman may also feel a separation from Jennie because of more deeply seeded issues, such as the proper display of domesticity Jennie always portrays or for her lack of will against the chauvinistic ideology she has adopted with such ease she is now an advocate.
The rest cure is intended to assert control by essentially ordering women to stop thinking so much. The principle momentum behind this policy is the insidious notion that if women would just let the men in their lives take care of every machination of existence and cease worrying their pretty little heads, this hysteria would fade into distant memory and allow them to excel in keeping a clean and efficient home and procreating as is projected. The life of the narrator is meticulously handled by John, her husband and she describes the extent by explaining “I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me” (Gilman 645). Her husband is not taking care of her, but from her. The restrained woman is so confined by John, she writes that he “hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman 645). The cure is meant to extinguish any hope of self-determination; it is a method of breaking the spirit.
As its name suggests, the rest cure prescribes ample amounts of sleep and this serves to insight further annoyance in the protagonist. In the beginning, sleep eludes her during these mandatory rest periods and she asserts these naps are forcing her to be deceptive by not telling “them” she is awake (Gilman 653). Later, the narrator expresses that her required rest during the day has opened up a new world for her at night as she spends countless hours examining the wallpaper and the woman confined in its pattern. In the night, the protagonist is alert and contemplating the ordeal of her daily life and becoming more curious about the creeping woman, even debating whether it may be multitudes of creeping women locked in the decoration. The observance of the restrained daytime behavior of the creeping woman and its resemblance to her own serve to send the narrator into a mental break from reality that could be perceived simultaneously as both a breakthrough and a breakdown. At this climactic moment, the creeping woman in the paper and the narrator become one and the result is anything but the epitome of true womanhood that is intended when employing the rest cure. In the end the narrator has become defiant as she exclaims “I’ve got out at last” (Gilman 657). She even presses the issue by telling John “I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman 657). The rest cure has catalyzed an impressive change in the demeanor of the protagonist by the end of The Yellow Wallpaper. However, it is certainly not the one her husband had hoped for and this is evident as he faints at the sight of his wife creeping along the wall of their bedroom.
Had the cure been more successful by John’s standards, a cured wife would emerge from the bedroom looking lovely in the appropriately modest attire required of a new wife and mother. The epitome of true womanhood and domestic bliss, the narrator would care little for anything not concerning the welfare of her almighty husband and child. The woman that would be considered a success upon completion of the rest cure would be all that society expects of her all the time. This would be especially true concerning the rebellious writing that could lead a delicate female mind astray. The narrator attests to the social contempt for female’s writing by asserting that Jennie “thinks it is the writing itself which made me sick” (Gilman 648).
The modern equivalent of wellness could be described as having two distinct archetypes. Although more than a hundred years has passed since the first publication of The Yellow Wallpaper, the cultural climate has not completely transformed in the United States and in some locations not at all. There are many that still espouse the ideology that a woman’s place is in the home. Fortunately, women today possess established rights and have more freedom to assert their own determination, but the old beliefs still lurk beneath the shallow surface. The present populace has assumed a more relaxed stand on the issue of divorce, offering a contemporary female the opportunity to separate herself from an unhappy relationship with the chance at a fresh start. Medication is another alternative that the modern woman might pursue following the birth of a child and the onset of postpartum depression. Counseling, either couple’s or personal, would be an option to be considered. The ability for modern women to decide their future to a greater extant is what sets them apart from the preceding generations, but the battle is far from over.
The clear path to freedom for women to speak out against gender restrictions and social oppression has been paved by the pioneering efforts of courageous women with the ability to express the demand for equality among the sexes in timeless prose. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is just such a woman with a body of work dedicated to recognizing the power that exists within the female frame. The Yellow Wallpaper is an important piece among her literary offerings as it serves to elucidate the prison-like quality of a repressed life corrupted by gender roles and expectations of polite society.
