[ SECRET POST #5066 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5066 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 25 secrets from Secret Submission Post #725.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Uh, I guess it's all up to interpretation, but while I also assumed it was a ghost story. It's actually (apparently) just about a woman slowly descending into madness. The moving images in the wallpaper is a common hallucination when it comes to delirium. If I wanted to get all introspective about it, it makes more sense to me that it would be more of a commentary about the inevitability and existence of madness in each and every soul and the losing battle as people attempt to ward it off... or something. Definitely not sexism.

[(Anonymous)]

"The Yellow Wallpaper", while it is a solid ghost story, is also a direct response to the "Rest Cure" - a practice that would theoretically cure a (generally middle-class) woman's anxiety by shutting her away from all stimulation, company, exercise... and drove them up the wall instead. Charlotte Perkins Gilman experienced this, and the doctor who prescribed her the "Rest Cure" read the story and reconsidered his practices.

CPG was an extremely feminist writer and trying to read anything of hers without considering what she was saying about gender roles is like, I dunno, looking at a flower garden when you're red-green colourblind. It can be done, but you're going to miss important shit.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

That's a good point, I wasn't familiar with her story so I didn't think to connect it in that way. I love the story when I read it a fair number of years ago and it was briefly discussed in a class in high school. I am vaguely familiar with rest care though, most I recalled the part where they moved up north for better access to clean air (I think) which I know was a common recommendation for basically all aliments to get them away from city pollution.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Well, it's the sign of a good story that it works even if you don't know the entire context of how it got written, so, yeah.

Sorry if I came across as a bit snippy, nonny.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Oh no, I'm glad you mentioned it! It's a really great story, and it's nice to learn more about it. :)

[(Anonymous)]

That's not rest care, that's trying to treat TB in a sanitorium. (Obviously it didn't cure TB but the clean air often helped with the coughing.) Rest care was specifically used on women, particularly women who had post-partum depression.

[(Anonymous)]

I always thought the sanitorium thing was more "Might as well die somewhere pretty."

[tree_and_leaf]

No, there was definitely a belief in the power of 'clean dry air' (and it did have a therapeutic/ palliative effect, even if it couldn't cure the TB). TB hospitals were always put in places with the cleanest air available, even if they were intended for people who couldn't afford to go to Switzerland.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

I may be misunderstanding, but sending people out of city for fresh air was a common treatment for basically every medical condition there is. Rest is still by todays medical standards a common recommendation due to the strain it takes off the body. Bed rest is essentially the medical evolution of rest care (?) if only due to the intention of it's prescription.
Limited treatment meant limited results, and city life was factually deadly to those without the means to escape it. (similarly to the detriments of lifetime mining)
If someone had money they would move to housing on the countryside to treat themselves. (like how there was a sort of cottage season in London where those with the means would essentially take a season off and move to their homes outside the city effectively cutting off all commerce within the city while they were away) They wouldn't risk besmirching the family name by admitting a member into a sanitarium. Likewise the need of admittance would rely on the reference for treatment/the availability of another option. Again, same as today, you wouldn't send someone to an asylum if you believed you could take care of them yourself.

Usually in terms of care they would have staff to wait on them hand and foot until their symptoms alleviated enough to return home. But regardless of standing/being, the individual would be encouraged to remain in bed until recovery, and often symptoms became worse and death became imminent. It's not that what your saying isn't accurate or that wasn't the authors meaning, but that kind of treatment was common in those times, if I am not mistaken.

I am sorry if I am wildly misunderstanding what you're saying though.

[(Anonymous)]

You... have some points in there, but are basically not talking about what "the rest cure" is.

https://writingonwomenwriters.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/the-rest-cure-in-relation-to-the-yellow-wallpaper/

It's not just rest. It's confinement, loss of agency, no exercise, none of those healthful walks and looking at trees to soothe one's heart. No writing. No reading. Solitary confinement. Lots of things that are generally considered to worsen mental illness by modern psychiatric practice.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

The link is specifically in reference to the authors personal experience under such a 'care'. Her experience:

"In 1887 after the birth of her daughter, Gilman became severely depressed and sought treatment for nervous exhaustion by psychiatrist Silas Weir Mitchell. Mitchell’s rest cure consisted of bed rest, isolation, overfeeding, and massage/electricity on her muscles. When Gilman realized that Mitchell’s treatment worsened her depression, she left both her husband and doctor. Several years later, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a reaction to her physician Mitchell’s prescribed rest cure."

Is not a definitive standard. Though it is quite typical to the time period. Essentially the recommendation was bedrest, a serene environment, nutrients, and stimulation to the muscles to prevent weakness. There were no proper antidepressants at the time, no scientifically understood drugs to treat illnesses, nor any proper alternatives if treatment failed its course. Modern times tell us this was wrong, but Gilman's reaction to treatment is just as common in todays world, we simply just have more alternatives.
Postpartum depression is nothing to laugh at, no doubt this is her experience, that she was trapped and in pain, she wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper' to reflect that. But in the same way that she merges the role of her husband and psychiatrist, it can't be ignored that she also adds lines such as this: (from the yellow wallpaper)

“It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so”

She left both of them, as well she should, in order to save herself, but that does not mean her husband nor her psychiatrist purposefully put her in a position of harm, that they did anything but their best to help her.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like you're working really hard to misunderstand both Gilman, and everyone else in this entire thread. And the article I referenced.

[(Anonymous)]

it's about a woman being locked up her husband and doctor 'for her own good' until she goes completely fucking insane
of course its about sexism

[(Anonymous)]

I love how you completely ignored the conversation that already happened half an hour ago just to try to be an asshole. Good job, I'm glad only your opinion counts in the world.