The Yellow Wallpaper: Freedom Through Madness
Freedom Through Madness
In his article, “Escaping the jaundiced eye: Foucauldian Panopticism”, John S. Bak begins his analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" by investigating the author's own life. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written as a critique of S. Weir Mitchell's "Rest Cure" which Gilman underwent to treat "nervous prostration." The narrator's physiological and emotional health is adversely affected by her husband/doctor who follows Mitchell's prescribed treatment. Bak compares the effects of her imprisonment under constant surveillance to what Michael Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish in response to Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. Bak make a comparison between Gilman's isolated room and Bentham's "ingenious
In his article, “Escaping the jaundiced eye: Foucauldian Panopticism”, John S. Bak begins his analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" by investigating the author's own life. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written as a critique of S. Weir Mitchell's "Rest Cure" which Gilman underwent to treat "nervous prostration." The narrator's physiological and emotional health is adversely affected by her husband/doctor who follows Mitchell's prescribed treatment. Bak compares the effects of her imprisonment under constant surveillance to what Michael Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish in response to Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. Bak make a comparison between Gilman's isolated room and Bentham's "ingenious