Common threads of yellow wallpaper and the story of an hourIn his article “Why I wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper "", as it appears in The Forerunner (1913), Charlotte Perkins Gilman candidly reveals her personal story of mental illness and her subsequent journey to wellness after rejecting her doctor's "expert" advice. She tells the story, with some embellishments, in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Her own nervous breakdown and the prescribed "rest cure" popular at the time brought her to the brink of "total mental ruin." With the help of a friend and using what resources she had left, she began writing again, intending to use this story as a way to stop others from going crazy. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was published in May 1892, amid a wave of refusals and protests. Nonetheless, her story has been told, and I think many women can relate to what she went through, to varying degrees. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in "A Feminist Reading of Gilman's Yellow Wallpaper" (818), identify the specialist as S. Weir Mitchell, a famous "nerve specialist" of the time. Gilman was forbidden from writing until she recovered, which, of course, was worse for her than her postpartum depression. The comparison in the story of "rings and things" in the child's bedroom parallels the feeling of being "locked away from creativity", and the door at the top of the stairs to one's bedroom on the upper floor may be symbolic of his imprisonment. In her short story, the forced detention prescribed by her doctor husband made her realize that she was imprisoned not only physically, but also mentally and voluntarily. In the end, he didn't want to dominate her, and she ref...... middle of paper...... dramatic irony. No one but the reader knew to what heights Louise was rising and into what depths of despair she was sinking. The fact that this story had such a big impact on me in just two pages shows what a great writer Kate Chopin is. Works cited and consulted Bender, Bert. Review of a short story. Flight. 8. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 64-65. Chopin, Kate. “The story of an hour.” Literature: read, react, write. 3rd ed. Ed. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997. 70-72. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The yellow wallpaper.” Literature: read, react, write. 3rd ed. Ed. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997. 160-172. Shumaker, Conrad. Review of a short story. Flight. 13. Ed. David Segal. Detroit: Gale Research Inc.., 1993. 164-170