Bed Rest' Challenged: A Liberating Treatment in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

Abstract

This article explores a feminist approach to the nineteenth century psychoanalytical treatment of 'Bed Rest'. The treatment, as the article demonstrates, is practiced on women who according to standards of patriarchal society project abnormal brain activity, and should be reduced to docility in order for them to resume their domestic societal roles. However, the cure in this research does indeed prove to be beneficial for women by giving the opposite of the intended outcome, by allowing women enough space to question their place in society and allocate a subjective Self that goes beyond the fixed patriarchal image of maleness and femaleness onto a fluid 'in-between'. This newly formed individuality will be discussed through the analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper'..