Disability and Madness in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Abstract

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” has been subject to diverse interpretations from several theoretical positions. Disability studies conceptualise disability as the body/mind that does not conform to the codes of normalcy in dominant social formulations. Hence, the diagnosis of disability itself can be a reflection of dominant codes. The diagnosis of hysteria in particular, was used to denote a wide cluster of symptoms, particularly in female patients, and impose curative measures like the rest cure to restore the ‘deviant’ or ‘immoral woman’ back into normative gender roles. “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts not only this hierarchical relationship between the domineering male doctor-husband and the female patient but also illustrates the debilitating impacts of a cure that focuses more on restoring normalcy than the specific psycho-social needs of the individual. The woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper can then be seen as the reviled ‘other’: the disabled body that breaks all codes of normalcy, aesthetics and gender. Initially, the narrator detests her and resists identification with the ‘other’, but as the realisation of her own oppression increases, she embraces the non-normative other as a part of herself. While this subversion does not necessarily ensure her independence in a normative world, it manifests the narrator embracing the only path of resistance available to her: madness. This paper hence seeks to explore the unequal relationship between doctor and patient, the imposition of curative measures against the will of the disabled woman and its relationship to female insanity in the context of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.