Empoword

Part Three: Research and Argumentation 355 This source follows my argument rather closely, and will be helpful in supporting my thesis. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1892. Archived at U.S. National Library of Medicine , 7 June 2017, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digi talDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf [also available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm] . The Yellow Wallpaper is an important narrative from the early 1900s that illustrates the delusional medical procedures placed onto women. Gilman herself experienced what was called the “rest cure,” which in essence confined women who were diagnosed with Hysteria or nervous diseases in a room to do nothing, limiting their “stressors”. They were forced to eat copious amounts of food to gain weight, and they were allowed no company. This story is told from the perspective of an insane person, as she herself admittedly nearly slipped into madness. If anything, this piece serves as a firsthand account of the damage done to women in a time when they had less rights, and when women’s medicine was seriously lacking. This will be helpful in understanding how these treatments were accepted by the public, as well as noting the unintended effects of said treatments. ——. “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” 1913. Archived at The College of Staten Island , City University of New York, 8 June 1999, https://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/history/files/lavender/whyyw.html [Link expired]. [Also available via The National Library of Medicine and The American Yawp Reader] . This brief letter was meant to address the many inquiries that Gilman received about her story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This letter is meant to explain that although she added little “embellishments and additions”, it remains a fully viable account of a woman who fell into madness because of unsound medical advice. Within, she details her nervous breakdowns. She also provides details of the lifestyle she was told to lead in order to keep her nerves at bay: she was given advice to “‘live as domestic a life as far as possible,’ to ‘have but two hours’ intellectual life a day,’ and ‘never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again’ as long as I lived.” Of course, this didn’t work. Just as “The Yellow Wallpaper” is helpful in providing an in depth look at someone experiencing such a treatment, Gilman’s letter is useful in that it was written in a place where she had fully recovered due to not taking her physician’s advice. She also notes that a different physician read her book, and since had ceased prescribing “rest cures”. First-hand accounts of experiences such as these will help provide credibility to my argument.