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  • Essay / 19th Century Hysteria: Yellow Wallpaper

    Nineteenth Century Hysteria: Yellow WallpaperFemale hysteria in the early 19th century was extremely common. These were the first mental disorders attributed solely to women. However, there was a serious misinterpretation; symptoms of hysteria at the time were nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts, various varied sexual urges, sexual thoughts, fainting spells, sexual desire or frustration, and irritability (Pearson). Although there were many symptoms, they were not limited to this list. Many of these symptoms were only signs of expression in women; however, society immediately decided that these women were suffering from hysteria, without any real proof. These women then had a label, holding them back from their normal daily lives that they couldn't fix because they weren't allowed to. Because most doctors were men, they relayed the cure for these symptoms through masked sexual acts by presenting them as a cure such as "hysterical paroxysm" (Pearson). These so-called “treatments” continued for centuries, but are no longer used as a cure for hysteria. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, was a feminist who, at one point in her life, would have been described as hysterical. She then began to express these feelings she was experiencing through her writing. Most of this writing was based on his personal experiences with the disease. She thought that if she wrote about her situation and how she was able to distance herself from society to improve herself, it might help other women suffering from hysteria or its symptoms. Her depiction of hysteria in The Yellow Wallpaper doesn't really differ from what women of the time expressed about themselves. Gilman's representation and direct experiments with...... middle of paper ......3DYellow%2Bwallpaper%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&resultItemClick=true&Search=yes&searchText=Yellow&searchText= wallpaper&uid=3739600&uid=2134&u>.Pearson, Catherine. "Female Hysteria: 7 Crazy Things People Believed About Women's Illness." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, November 21, 2013. Web. April 30, 2014. .Tasca, Cecilia, Mariangela Rapetti, Mauro Giovanni Carta and Bianca Fadda. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Np, October 1, 2012. Web. April 19, 2014. “hysteria”. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, nd Web. April 6. 2014. .