Hello! So I need to have a research essay over any fiction story the essay It self will need to be 2000 words with 10-15 credible sources from a reliable database not google!! The paper needs to be in

Name

Burns

English 1302 – Section Number

Date Month Year

Mind Over Medicine?
Someone gets sick and goes to a doctor. The doctor prescribes medicine or a lifestyle change, and the patient improves after following the doctor’s orders. At least, this is the ideal course of action for illness. Unfortunately medicine does not always work like that. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson is about the usage of the rest cure, based on her experience with it. In the story the narrator, Jane, is a woman being treated for postpartum depression by her physician-husband, John. Any thoughts she has about what would help her recover are dismissed in favor of his prescription. Stuck following the rigid orders of her John, Jane’s mental state starts to deteriorate further. There are many discussions focusing on the gendered aspect of the story. Ellen L. Bassuk questions the motivations behind the rest cure and why it did and did not work for women. She argues that the cure worked if a woman was willing to give up certain freedoms and fall in line with the gender roles of the time. There are many things to be said about the role of social and personal beliefs in medicine. Looking at the past does shed light on one aspect of medicine that should not be denied, medicine has a social construct to it that affects how patients are treated.
In the beginning, Jane's husband diagnoses her with a nervous depression. He prescribes various medications and forbids her to do any work. She disagrees with this, but with his standing and profession she cannot argue with his orders. “But what is one to do?” (Stetson 648) The narrator feels she has little say in her own treatment because of her husband’s standing as a physician. While she may have her own beliefs of what would help her recover she kept these thoughts to herself. Giving up control of treatment to a physician was required for this type of treatment. The rest cure was pioneered by Silas Weir Mitchell, and a controlling aspect was as plain as day in his treatment. In Mitchell’s care the patient’s “feelings, questions, and concerns” (Bassuk 247) were ignored, much like John does with the narrator.
The best way to understand the meaning behind the story is to look at the context behind it. The rest cure was pioneered by Weir Silas Mitchell for civil war soldiers, but came to be more commonly used for female patients with nervous or physical disorders. However, Mitchell’s attitude towards both types of patients was much different. Mitchell’s attitudes towards women followed the norms of the times, and are seen in the story itself. Mitchell did not allow female patients to do any work, including something as simple as writing or even reading. To Mitchell part of what caused these women to get sick was related to some of the changing aspects of society, especially women pursuing careers like men did. Mitchell’s goal for female patients was to “reorient them to domestic life” (Poirier 19). Mitchell’s attitude is highlighted by Jane’s physician-husband, and shows how it did more harm than good.

Like Mitchell, John forbids Jane to write, but she refuses to comply. He claims this work would be exhausting for her and make her condition worse. Jane however does not comply and as a result has to hide her writing, “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal - having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Stetson 648). It was not the writing itself that was harmful to Jane, but hiding it that was. Should she have had more support for even just that she would not have to exhaust herself so much to hide it, but the doctor’s orders were law. It is a parallel of Stetson’s own experiences of being dismissed.

If Mitchell’s treatment of his patients seemed excessive, the way his attitude changed when they did not respond to the treatment could take that further. He saw these women as selfish and when it came to treating them said “the fools are to be dealt with by other moral drugs” (Poirier 22). His treatment became supposedly punitive, but the regimen was largely the same as it was used in all cases. It becomes clearer his attitude towards women had quite the degree of contempt. While his total control worked for some women it did not work for all, but he was so deep in his beliefs he refused to listen and as a result his patients suffered.

The pitfall of Mitchell is not a standalone issue. Throughout history there has been some degree of personal beliefs permeating the field of medicine. When the AIDs crisis was in full swing patients were quarantined and many doctors and nurses were cold towards their patients. The societal attitude at the time towards the group perceived to get the illness - the gay community - influenced how they were treated. Some illnesses like Jane’s nervous depression were disregarded due to lack of a specific physical illness which “often raises suspicions that their problems are ‘all in their heads’” (Conrad 70). John himself does not believe she is sick, “You see he does not believe that I am sick” (Stetson 647). While he does diagnose her with the nervous depression, his attitude makes it clear he does not really seem to think it is much of an issue. Though he diagnoses her with a mental issue he instead focuses on treating physical issues. He takes her weight gain as a sign she is improving despite it being clear her mental health has gotten worse. Whenever Jane speaks up he talks down to her. When an illness falls out of what is considered typical for illness, or the patient does not meet the standards of what society might see as a model citizen, they can fall through the cracks of treatment.

With all of this in mind, it should be no surprise reproduction also plays a large role in the issue. One of the hallmarks of women’s health is related to domestic abilities. Due to social roles women are assumed to have and raise kids at some point in their lives, especially so for Victorian woman. Stetson herself was negatively impacted by this and it is apparent in Jane. Part of her worries over her illness is being unable to be there for her baby, “It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way...And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous” (Stetson 649). Jane makes herself worse by thinking about her failure to be able to rest, and her failure to fulfill her role as a mother. If she cannot take care of the baby what can she do? She sees herself as a burden on the family. This was typical for the time, and even in cases where the doctor was also female the end goal was to return to a domestic life. Doctor and patient “measured their recovery by their capacities to sustain long hours completing chores, either for their own families or as servants in the families of others” (Morantz-Sanchez 1). As long as a woman could take care of her family she was fine. It did not matter if that was what she wanted or not.

The view did not die with the Victorian era either, and is still seen in the twenty and twenty first centuries. In a study of medical texts from the 1950s, “Medical, technical definitions of womanhood...drew on social concepts of femininity that emphasized women's reproductive capabilities” (Findlay 132). In the current day there is still a pressure to have children, and women who say they do not want this are met with resistance. Should a woman want to get a procedure so she cannot have kids she has to jump through many hoops to do so. She will be pressured out of it by saying she will change her mind later, and if she continues to persist she might have to get permission from her husband. Not having children, being unable to have children, or having difficulty raising children is seen as a deviation from the norms. It is at the point where “Pathology is more readily attributed to...women who dislike child care and children than to men” (Levinson 426). The reproductive abilities of women are pushed into the spotlight as the most important indicator of health.

Stetson, and by extension Jane, suffered under the pressure to have and raise a family. When problems occurred from the stifling of agency, instead of looking for a solution of freedom they were essentially punished with imprisonment. Under Mitchell - and the physician-husband who is based after him - the rest cure is used to uphold the “ideal” of returning to a domestic life. This only caused more harm for Stetson and it was not until she moved away from this and did what she wanted that she improved. Jane, who did not have this freedom, broke down from it.

Not only is there an issue with the physical aspect, but the mental is treated differently as well. Jane clearly has postpartum depression, but her issues are treated in the sense of a physical disorder instead. Many women of the time dealt with two issues, “Here we are up against not only individualization but also...medicalization of unhappiness” (Oakley 32). Despite so many women dealing with the same issues for similar reasons, it was treated as a personal issue for each patient. There was an obvious social component to the problem, but it was easier to treat each case as a single instance than part of a larger problem. Even though the issue had a large mental component the treatment of such was ignored in favor of physical. Jane was given medications to deal with her illness and was then put in an environment that exacerbated it. “So I take phosphates or phosphites - whichever it is, and tonics” (Stetson 648). Medications can be used for mental illness, but rarely is it supposed to be used solely. When illness is treated purely by medication it does not improve too much at all. Medication can help suppress the strength of symptoms, but it does not necessarily make the symptoms go away. Part of dealing with mental illness is learning mechanisms outside of medicine to cope, but Jane does not get this. However a rational man like John does not see a reason to deal with the nonphysical symptoms. To him, “mental illness is the inevitable result of using one's imagination” (Shumaker 592). When Jane needed help, and was clearly saying what would probably help her, she instead was dismissed by John. As a result, the only thing she could turn to was her writing, but with no help she could not channel it in a healthy way. At first it helped her, but over time it led her to obsession. By ignoring her in favor of what he believed was right John helped lead to her breakdown.
Interestingly with all of this said and despite the tone of the work, Stetson was not exactly against the rest cure at all. While it failed for her it did not necessarily fail for everyone. What she wanted was for the cure to be used equally for both genders. Instead of how it was used with the goal of returning to domestic life she wanted a “sex-neutral medical model” (Thrailkill 529). Where Mitchell saw women’s role as a wife and mother as innate and natural, Stetson saw it as an artificial result of society. This is what the point of her writing goes back to, women and men should have equal treatment in care. Stetson acknowledged differences in the physical body, but pushed that this difference and the weakening of women was the result of femininity being seen as inherently made for one role - wife and mother - and being seen as inferior to masculinity. Should both be treated more fairly, women would naturally gain a better position physically and mentally.

With all this in mind it is no wonder women - both real and in this case fictional - suffer when it comes to illness. The personal beliefs of doctors and psychologists are not as easy to ignore as one might hope, and as a result can bleed into the professional’s work. When this happens what is lead to be correct can force patients into a role of what they should be and punishes them should they not fill that role.

Works Cited

Bassuk, Ellen L. “The Rest Cure: Repetition or Resolution of Victorian Women’s Conflicts?” Poetics Today, vol. 6, no. ½, 1985, pp. 245-57. JSTOR. Doi: 10.2307/1772132. Accessed October 28th, 2019.

Conrad, Peter and Kristin K. Barker. “The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 51, Extra Issue: “What Do We Know? Key Findings from 20 Years of Medical Sociology”, 2010, pp. S67-79. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20798317. Accessed October 27, 2019.

Findlay, Deborah. “The Good, The Normal and the Healthy: The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge about Women.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology. Vol. 18, no. 2, 1993, pp. 115-35. JSTOR. Doi: 10.2307/3341254. Accessed November 6th, 2019.

Stetson, Perkins Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. 1892. https://my.tccd.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-8510797-dt-content-rid-42181898_1/courses/2019FL-ENGL-1302-50092/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.

Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. “Negotiating Power At The Bedside: Historical Perspectives On Nineteenth-Century Patients And Their Gynecologists.” Feminist Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, June 22nd 2000, p. 287. Gale OneFile: Business. Doi: GALE|A76519762. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A76519762/GPS?u=txshracd2560&sid=GPS&xid=d91a1d5b. Accessed November 1st, 2019.

Oakley, Ann. “Beyond The Yellow Wallpaper.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 5, no. 10, November 1997, pp. 29-39. JSTOR. https://www-jstor-org.ezp.tccd.edu/stable/3775460. Accessed November 2nd, 2019.

Poirier, Suzanne. “The Weir Mitchell Rest Cure: Doctor and Patients.” Women's Studies, January 1983, vol. 10, no 1, p. 15-26. Academic Search Complete. Doi: 10.1080/00497878.1983.9978577. https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ezp.tccd.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=219583d8-11a3-4a37-9840-3b024f3974cf%40sessionmgr4007. Accessed November 1st 2019.

Shumaker, Conrad. “‘Too Terribly Good to Be Printed’: Charlotte Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” American Literature, vol. 57, no. 4, Dec. 1985, pp. 588-99. Doi: 10.2307/2926354. https://www-jstor-org.ezp.tccd.edu/stable/2926354. Accessed November 28th, 2019.

Thrailkill, Jane F. “Doctoring ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” ELH, vol. 69, no. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 525-66. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30032030. Accessed October 25th, 2019.