charlotte perkins stetson the yellow wallpaper

Ultimately, she and her husband decided that a separation was the best solution to allow Gilman to heal without causing more harm to herself, him, or their daughter. Instead of curing her, these restrictions-prescribed by Miller and enforced by her husband-only made her depression worse, and she began to have suicidal thoughts. Silas Weir Mitchell was summoned to help, and he prescribed a “rest cure,” which essentially required that she give up all creative pursuits, keep her daughter with her at all times, avoid any activities that required mental exertions, and live a totally sedentary lifestyle. By 1887, Gilman wrote in her journals about such intense inner suffering that she was unable to even care for herself.

This is precisely what happened to Gilman, and it would become a formative influence on her writing and her activism. Although families at the time tended to be much larger than two children, Mary Perkins was advised to not have any more children at risk of her health or even her life. She had one brother, Thomas Adie Perkins, who was just over a year older than her. Notable Quote: “It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it.”Ĭharlotte Perkins Gilman was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut, as the first daughter and second child of Mary Perkins (nee Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederic Beecher Perkins.Selected Works: 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892), In This Our World (1893), Women and Economics (1898), The Home: Its Work and Influence (1903),.Parents: Frederic Beecher Perkins and Mary Fitch Wescott.Known For: Novelist and activist for feminist reform.Also Known As: Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

Charlotte perkins stetson the yellow wallpaper