ENC1102 Scholarly Article Summary

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One can question in today’s milieu if confined with no stimulation of reading, writing or social connection of personal relationship(s), what would happen to the “human” mind, commentary would conclude insanity would ensue.  However, in retrospect, literary author Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote in 1890 (published in 1892), a short story entitled “The Yellow Paper”  about the depression the protagonist suffered following the birth of a child and being prescribed a “rest cure.”   (The Norton Class Textbook 571-582)  In Greg Johnson’s scholarly article Gilman’s Gothic Allegory:  Rage and Redemption in “The Yellow Paper” it is posited that the work is underappreciated, like Emily Dickinson, “until decades after her death.” (522)  As provided hereinabove, the “human” mind being deprived of stimulation is in quotes as Johnson provides in his article that a woman’s mind is differently perceived in the 1800s (and before), however, Johnson notes that Gilman wrote a gothic allegory short story of what a woman of wealth endured if suffering from depression and or confinement of mental or professional pursuits.  (525)