Response 5: Rosemary's Baby and The Yellow Wallpaper

    Rosemary’s Baby shares several similarities to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” -- and not just in its use of the color yellow. Both works involve a woman who has a baby, who is treated poorly by doctors, and who remains confined. Rosemary feels guilty about her pain and doesn’t want to bother anyone by complaining of it; she is constantly taken advantage of by her husband and neighbors because of her obsession with conforming to society’s picture of a polite housewife. The narrator of Gilman’s story feels guilty about her condition and how annoying she must be for her husband, and every time she complains or asks for something from him, her guilt overwhelms her and she ends up crying. Both women deal with doctors who tell them that they’re going crazy and that their suspicions are all in their heads.
    The first scene in Rosemary’s Baby that reminded me of “The Yellow Wallpaper” was Rosemary and Guy’s first night in their new apartment. They hear sounds coming from the neighbors, and the sound is followed up the wall behind their bed -- a wall that is covered in yellow wallpaper. The shadows move creepily across the wall and we hear the sound of the cult practices next door. This reminded me of Gilman’s narrator and her fascination with the yellow wallpaper by night: “I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy” (652). The narrator insists that there’s a woman living inside the wallpaper’s pattern, a woman who needs to be freed. This could be seen as symbolism for her own life and her own desire to be free of her husband’s control. Just as Rosemary seeks freedom from Dr. Saperstein when she suspects he uses witchcraft, Gilman’s narrator wants freedom from her role as her husband’s case. The narrator’s husband, John, is also a renowned doctor, and takes his wife’s case very seriously. He is convinced, however, that there is nothing physically wrong with her, and all of her nervousness stems from hysteria. He says there is nothing wrong but “temporary nervous depression” and “a slight hysterical tendency.” She has just had a baby, and is likely suffering from postpartum depression, which is definitely real and not a “slight hysterical tendency.” Rosemary suffers while she’s pregnant: she believes Dr. Sapirstein at first, and takes his pills willingly, but he doesn’t listen to her when she tells him how much pain she’s in. He tells her the sharp pain in her side is completely normal and can be solved with aspirin. Both women are told by male doctors that their pain is not a big deal, even though it’s severely hindering their health.
    Dr. Sapirstein tells Rosemary not to listen to any of her friends because they don’t know anything about her personal pregnancy. In an act of defiance, Rosemary throws a party and invites many of her friends she hasn’t seen in a while. Her friends are shocked to hear about her pain, and they tell her to see another doctor as soon as she can. When Guy finds out about this, he says her friends are “a bunch of not-very-bright bitches who ought to mind their own God damn business.” No one wants Rosemary to have any outside contact; she is to be the precious experiment of Guy, Minnie, and Roman. They won’t let anyone interfere with Rosemary, even if they have Rosemary’s best interests in mind. In comparison, Gilman’s narrator is constantly lonely and craves the company of her old friends. She asks her husband if she can visit her Cousin Henry and Julia, and he says she won’t be able to go and will “not be able to stand it” once she gets there. John doesn’t want her to have any outside contact; that way, she can remain his perfect case study, trapped and confined in a room swathed in lurid yellow wallpaper.
    The question that is raised at the end of both works is: did these events really happen, or has the woman gone insane and it’s all happening in her head? If Rosemary has gone insane, she too, has been driven to it through confinement: she was trapped in her bed after giving birth, and was surrounded by nothing but dizzying yellow; if Gilman’s narrator has gone insane, it’s not for lack of “gaslighting” on her husband’s part. “Gaslighting” is defined as “a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.” Both Rosemary and Gilman’s narrator have been convinced that their problems truly are all in their heads, and the information they’ve been given by doctors slowly begins to dawn on them; once they’ve been told that they are crazy, they begin to act crazy. John tells the narrator that she will be “as sick as she pleases,” which makes light of her condition and convinces her that if he has written her sickness off as something she can control, maybe she actually can control it and will act accordingly; Dr. Sapirstein tells Rosemary, “If you say anything more about witches or witchcraft we’re going to be forced to take you to a mental hospital.” Both women are told their problems and suspicions are imaginary, and that they are the ones who are crazy; at the end of each work, they start to believe this, and the end scene works accordingly. Gilman’s narrator and Rosemary are both told they will be fine, they are both told not to see anyone, and they are both held in confinement for long periods of time until they begin to go insane, or believe that they are insane because of what they’ve been told.