After reading Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” I have come to think that the narrator does not suffer from hysteria. I have reached this idea from comparing the research I have done on hysteria to her symptoms in the story. In this paper I will discuss why I feel the narrator does not suffer from hysteria but may be suffering from postpartum depression.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written in the late nineteenth century. In that period of time hysteria was thought to occur through irregular blood flow from the uterus to the brain. Over the years the definition of hysteria has changed. Today hysteria can be defined as, “…a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excesses”(“Hysteria biography”). From the research I have done it seems that the fear the person has is usually centered on a certain body part even though there is nothing wrong with it, “…a patient experiences physical symptoms that have a psychological, rather than an organic,......
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Approximate Word Count: 1380
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |