Gilman and Plath in Marital Madness:
         The Fallen daughters of Society.
 
 

By Melissa Adams
Advanced Composition
Fall, 2000
Dr. Mark Canada
 
 

     For many years I have considered Carlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" to be my favorite short-story.  "The Yellow Wallpaper" is an autobiographical account of Gilman's experience in the nineteenth century as she endured a nervous breakdown.  It was not so suprising to realize that we as a society did not yet know how to treat mental illnesses, however I was shocked to realize that in the mid twentieth century that these treatments had not improved much at all.  This shocking revelation was depicted in Sylvia Plath's  The Bell Jar which is an autobiographical account of her nervous breakdown.  In The Journals of Sylvia Plath are these words:
 

Nothing is real except the present, and already I feel the weight of centuries smothering me.  Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do.  And she is dead.  I am the present, but I know I, too will pass  (5).

Each of these women experienced anxiety at the thought of relinquishing their lives as "writers" to become wives and mothers.  Each of these women also endured mental illness throughout their lives and consequently their illnesses were treated by the "current"  societal norms which were rarely effective.  At the very core of their mental depression was their inability to conform to societies expectations and fulfill their roles as wives and mothers.  During the months that preceded the writing of these literary works the resentment towards society escalated and caused their nervous breakdowns.

     Gilman was born in Hartford Connecticut to Mary and Frederick Perkins.  Gilman was fond of her father's cousins Harriett Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker, all contemporary writers.  Gilman's father left their family when she was very young ( about seven) and she was raised by her mother who sacrificed for her children throughout her life.  Gilman says of her mother in her autobiography The living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
 

but mother's life was one of the most painfully thwarted I have ever known.  After her idolized youth, she was left neglected.   After her flood of lovers, she became a deserted wife.  The most passionately domestic of home-worshipping housewives, she was forced to move nineteen times in eighten years, fourteen of them from one city to another (8).

Gilman watched as her mother sacrificed her own desires in order to fulfill her role as mother to Charlotte and her brother Thomas.  Gilman's father was of very little support financially or emotionally.  This I believe had a profound effect on Gilman in terms of what the expected roles of parents were during her childhood.

     Gilman, by the age of twenty-one  was already supporting herself financially by painting, drawing, teaching, and for a short time a governess.  These were years of independence for Gilman as she frequently went out alone at night.  According to Gilman in her autobiography " An old friend of mother's came to visit us, and was shocked at my Independence" (73) .  I can imagine the argument that must have taken place upon this visitor's exit concerning Gilman's behavior.  I feel sure that Gilman's mother presssured her to marry and assume the role of wife and mother as was expected of all young girls.  Feminisn was a new concept in the United States as the first wave of feminism began in the 1840's and by 1848 the women's movement had formally begun.  By 1893, the suffrage organization had thirteen thousand members.  "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published in 1892 when many changes were taking place especially in terms of literature by female writers.  "Unlike many of their Victorian precursors literary women no longer felt constrained to write covertly about their rebellion against socially prescribed roles" ( The Norton Anthology Literature by Women  978 ).  Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in hopes that people would learn from her experiences during her nervous breakdown.  It is important to understand her state of mind prior to her breakdown so that we may learn from her life and make her struggles seem worthwhile.

     In January of 1882 Gilman met Charles Walter Stetson and he proptly asked her to marry him to which she declined.  She wrote of this time in her autobiography

My mind was not fully clear as to whether I should or should not marrry.  On the one hand I knew if was normal and right in general, and held that a woman should be able to have marriage and motherhood, and do her work in the world also.  On the other, I felt strongly that for me it was not right, that the nature of the life before me forbade it, that I ought ot forego the more intimate personal happiness for complet devotion to my work (83).

Gilman did later accept Stetson's proposal and assumed the role that was expected of her by society.  Gilman became pregnant during this first year of her marriage and her depression was increasing throughout and beyond her pregnancy.  Gilman says of this time in her autobiography
 

We had attributed all my increasing weakness and depression to pregnancy and looked forward to prompt recovery now.  All was normal and oridinary enough, but I was already plunged into an extreme of nervous exhaustion which no one observed or understood in the least (89).

On March 23, 1885, Katharine Stetson was born and Gilman's mother came to stay with the young couple to assist with her grandchild.  Gilman was experiencing what we now call post-pardum depression in addition to the anxiety that she was already experiencing from her loss of independence.  Gilman was extremely depressed because she felt she was now useless to society and that her chance to do something worthwhile had disapeared when assumed that dreaded role.  Gilman says of this time in her autobiography
 

A constant dragging weariness miles below zero.  Absolute incapacity.  Absolute misery.  To the spirit it was as if one were an armless, legless, eyeless, voiceless cripple.  Prominent among the tumbling suggestions of a suffering brain was the thought "You did it to Yourself!  You did it to Yourself!  You had health and strength and hope and glorious work before you -- and you threw it all away.  You were called to serve humanity and you cannot serve yourself.  No good as a wife, no good as a mother, not good at anything.  And You did it Yourself ! (91) .

Gilman was experiencing many feelings of guilt, worthlessness and mental as well as physical exhaustion.  Gilman weaned her baby and went away on a trip to clear her mind as was advised by her doctor.  Gilman spent the winter in Pasadena with her close friends, The Channings, following a brief visit with her brother in Utah.  Gilman also managed to visit with her father in San Francisco, whom she had not seen for many years.  After her stay with The Channings, Gilman eagerly returned home to her husband and child, feeling refreshed and well.  This feeling of wellness didn't last very long though, Gilman says of this time

 
within a month I was as low as before leaving... This was a worse horror than before, for now I saw the stark fact-- I was well while away and sick while at home-- a heartening prospect (95).

Gilman consulted Dr. S.Weir Mitchell, the leading "nerve specialist" of the time, and was put on his famous "rest cure".
Gilman was to be overfed, massaged, secluded and above all should not read or write anything.  This is the period of time that Gilman wrote about in "The Yellow Wallpaper".   In the Fall of 1887, only a year after her breakdown,  Gilman and Stetson  agreed to a  divorce with no hard feelings.  Gilman needed freedom from this marriage to protect her sanity.

     "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published in 1892 and years later Gilman was pleased to learn that Weir Mitchell had ceased to practice his "rest cure" .  Gilman continued to write throughout the duration of her life  and produced nine novels, nearly two-hundred short-stories and one volume of poetry, however after her death her work recieved only a minor place in history.  For nearly fifty years "The Yellow Wallpaper" went unprinted and unread.  Gilman committed sucide in 1935 just three years after Sylvia Plath was born in Boston Massachusetts.  This was also a period of continual change for women's rights-- women had finally received the right to vote and things looked as if they were going to be fair to women as members of society.  A new generation unfolds.

     On October 27, 1932, Sylvia Plath was born to Otto and Aurelia Plath.  When Plath was eight years old her father died and she was then raised by her mother who struggled financially to support Sylvia and her brother Warren.  Ronald Hayman says of Plath's mother
 

Aurelia consistently put herself under almost intolerable strain.  Always in the suboridinate position, first as Otto Plath's favorite student, and then as the submissive wife who doubled as his assistant, she was conscientious, self-disciplined, self-effacing and apparently self-less.  After his death she was unexpectedly in the dominant position inside the family, but she was unacustomed to domination , and if she ever had a talent for taking initiatives, she'd lost it (35).

Otto Plath died in 1940 and the years following his death were marked by World War II when women were forced to enter the workforce and assume the roles of men, who were fighting for freedom, overseas.  When the men returned they suddenly wanted their jobs back and women were once again thrust into the "domestic sphere".  In the Fall of 1950, Plath entered her freshman year at Smith College and was a prime candidate for marriage, considering that was one of the major goals of college for women during this time.   Thoughts and doubts concerning her feelings on marriage appear in her journal as Plath is convinced that assuming the role of wife and mother would end her career as a writer.  An excerpt from The Journals of Sylvia Plath  reads
 

Will I be a secretary--a self rationalizing, uninspired housewife, secretly jealous of my husbands ability to grow intellectually and professionally while I am inpeded?  Will I submerge my embarassing desires and aspirations, refuse to face myself, and go either mad or become neurotic?  (62).

This is a perfect example of the anxiety that Plath was feeling in terms of finding a husband.  These feelings of anxiety and depression resulted in a suicide attempt the summer of 1953 followed by a stay on the Psychiatric ward in McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.  The Bell Jar is an autobiographical account of this summer and the experiences of her nervous breakdown.  Plath was treated by Dr. Ruth Beuscher and received shock treatments in her recovery process.  In The Bell Jar , the character that represents Plath is Esther Greenwood and she is clearly portrayed as someone who feels the need to be married. Linda Wagner argues in The Bell Jar A Novel of the Fifties that
 

Economic considerations make Esther's need to marry well much more than just a personally motivated dream.  In the 1950's women's social and financial standing depended almost entirely on their husband's occupation (56) .

It is evident through Plath's writings that she was feeling the same pressures to marry that Gilman had faced in the previous century.  Not only did Plath feel these same anxieties concerning her thoughts on marriage--she also suffered the cruel but socially accepted shock treatments as part of the recovery process following her nervous breakdown.

     Sylvia Plath married Ted Hughes, a poet, in 1956 and continued to feel threatened by assuming the expected role of wife and mother and to neglect her role as a writer.  Her writing suffered during the marriage as her writings were being rejected increasingly and with each failure she became more and more depressed.  Plath did write, The Bell Jar  and a book of poetry that was published posthumously,during the last part of her marriage.  Plath often expressed feelings of anger towards her mother and society for her unhappy life as a mother.  An example of this anger  is evident in these words taken from her journals
 

Who am I angry at? Myself. No, not yourself.  Who is it?...All the mothers I have known who have wanted me to be what I have not felt like really being from my heart and at the society which seems to want us to by what we do not want to be from our hearts:  I am angry at these people and images.  I do not seem to be able to live up to them.  Because I don't want to  (273).

Plath did assume the role of mother for a short period of time to her two children, Frieda Rebecca born in 1961, and Nicholas Farrar who was born in 1962.  Plath attempted suicide the Spring after Nicholas was born and then again on Febuary 11 1963 only this time she was successful at ending her life.  As I have researched Plath's life and learned more about her, I have wondered if she had been able to read and learn from the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman if it would have made a difference in her life.  Maybe she could have found strength and courage to face the obstacles in her life.  It is highly unlikely that Plath ever read any of Gilman's work considering that "The Yellow Wallpaper" was not reissued until 1973, ten years after Plath's death. Phyllis Chesler says of Plath's tragic life
 

Her genius did not earn for her certain reprieves and comforts tendered the male artist.  No one, and especially men of culture, felt "responsible" for her plight of felt responsible to honor the poet by "saving" the woman ( 12).

Each of these women were great literary creators and they probably could have been better wives and mothers had society not imposed such impossible demands upon their lives.  It is ironic that families now almost require that the mothers work in order to support the family.  It makes you wonder if we as a society have changed and now accept women in the workforce or if we simply impose more demands than ever on our women.  Gilman and Plath have preserved in their works the horror stories that can arise out of the biased pressures that women face in the living of their lives.  I as sorry that these two women had bad experiences, however I am so very thankful that they took the time to record their experiences and I hope that society will pick up our fallen daughters when they stumble.
 
 

Works Cited

Chesler, Phyllis.  Women and Madness.  Garden City, New

York .  Doubleday and Co. Inc.1972.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar.  The Norton Anthology

Literature By Women The Traditions in English.

Norton and Co. New York.  1996.
 
 

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.  The Living of Charlotte Perkins

Gilman.  Arno Press, New York.  1935.

Hayman, Ronald.  The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath.   Carol

Publishing Group.  1991.

Plath, Sylvia.  The Journals of Sylvia Plath.  The Dial Press,

New York, NY  1982.
 
 

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