"If a high-ranking doctor, and her husband, assure friends and relatives that in reality there is nothing but a problem other than a temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency: what should be done?" (Gilman 1). Many women in the 1800s and 1900s faced challenges when it came to advocating for themselves before their fathers, brothers, and then husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story "The Yellow Wallpaper", is married to a doctor, who has rented a colonial house for the summer to nurse her back to health after her husband thinks she has neurasthenia, but in reality she suffers of postpartum depression. . He suggested the “rest cure.” He wasn't supposed to do any kind of physical or mental activity, his only job was to relax and not worry about anything. Charlotte was a writer and she missed writing. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is significant for literature in the sense that the author addresses the problems of the rest cure that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell prescribed to his patients, especially women suffering from neurasthenia, is ineffective and leads to severe depression . This article includes the life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in relation to women's rights and her contribution to literature as one of her best short stories. “The Yellow Wallpaper” became significant not only in literature, but also socially, it was a current issue that Gilman was relating to at the time. Gilman sought medical help from famed neurologist S.W. Mitchell for his mild depression. Mitchell, who prescribed his famous "rest cure," which prevented women from doing anything that would strain and tax their minds, and for Gilman, his writing. More than just a psychological study of postpartum depression, Gilman's "The Yellow...... middle of paper ...... f John, the husband, seems strangely inappropriate and restrictive, but was considered quite normal in the 19th century After learning about Gilman's life and reading his commentary and other works, one can easily see that The Yellow Wallpaper has a definite agenda in its quasi-autobiographical style, as revealed in Elaine Hedges' foreword from the Heath Anthology of American Literature,. . Gilman had a difficult life, due to the choices he had made that had upset common conventions: from abandoning his son to amicable divorce (Lauter 799 is described in particular by Ann Lane as an introduction). to the 1979 publication of “Herland,” one of Gilman’s most important novels Works Cited Kennedy, XJ, and Dana Gioia “The Yellow Wallpaper Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing 2011. Print..