John, the narrator's more logical counterpart, often tells her there is no "reason" to suffer. She has a nice home, food to eat, clothes to wear and a husband who "cares about her very much" - so what reason does she have to complain?

Men, exemplified in her husband John, had a hard time believing that women could want anything outside of a trivial domestic existence - that that should not be satisfying enough. Therefore, the rest cure seemed to be an effective treatment. What detriment could denying women any exercise of the mind have, if their biology dictated that they should be satisfied by domesticity? A woman doesn't have to read, write or work to be happy - in fact, it is probably the cause of her unhappiness.

How men and women suffering from depression were treated shows how differently they were viewed by the medical community. While women were prescribed the rest cure, men were perscribed the "west cure" - they were instructed to travel west, engage in physical activity and then write about it. Men were told to be more adventurous and engaged. Women were told their depression stemmed from being "over-stimulated". They, like our narrator, were instructed to disengage from the world.

Using fiction, and making her argument through the life of her narrator is a subtle, indirect, and yet effective strategy on the part of Gilman. She is using her story to talk about women, and the larger problem of women as patients and their relationship to their doctors.

Gilman is an example of what Cixious' was advocating for in The Feminization of Language. Gilman, a woman, is writing her story. She is making a pathetic appeal using indirect language to talk about an issue close to her life and to the lives of her audience (other white, upper-middle class women).

Gilman is not using the language of men - firm, straightforward logic. In fact, it is almost as if she is using feminine language to argue against male language. She is using the story of a woman, her story, to counter the narrative created by men and the masculine medical authority about hysteria and depression - traditionally thought of as female afflictions. Gilman is arguing against how women, and women as patients are being treated, by writing women and sharing her story - a rhetorical tactic Cixious would have whole heartedly endorsed.

Gilman writes this character as the embodiment of the "hysterical woman". A highly emotional and "nervous" person, thought to be incapable of making her own decisions. Throughout the story she is often put in opposition to her more "logical" husband John - as can be seen in these few lines with the repetition of "Personally, I…". The tension between logos (John) and pathos (the narrator) exemplifies the position of women with postpartum/nervous depression, and Gilamn's own opposition to the medical community.

Here, by the narrator expressing her own private concerns, Gilman is beginning to sow doubt in the audience's mind as to the effectiveness of the treatment. However, because the tension is not framed as an explicit critique, Gilman is still able to protect her narrators ethos.

In the late 19th century, when The Yellow Wallpaper was first published, "nervous depression", or hysteria in upper-middle class women were sent to an asylum, or perscribed treatment like the rest cure. Like the narrator in the story, patients and the families of patients trusted the medical community to prescribe the right treatment. Even if they had some hesitation, and thought that the treatment might not be helpful

Here is when we first see the tension between the narrator and her husband. Though she is resistant and questions the treatment her brother and husband have prescribed, she publicly defers to their judgement. She like many women in her position, felt stuck - hopeless and helpless - as can be seen by the repetition of the phrase "What is one to do"?

That the narrative/argument is framed as private diary entries protects the narrator, and thus the rhetor's ethos. The narrator openly questioning the advice of her husband, and her doctor, would not "appropriate" parlor conversation among her white, upper-middle class friends. As the narrator makes clear throughout the story, she can only "talk" freely to "dead paper"; for expressing what she thinks about her home, about her illness, and about her own life, is not "right" for a decent lady - especially if it undermines the opinions of her husband.

So the private diary entries at once protect the narrators ethos, and enable her to speak honestly - to reveal herself to the audience in a way we wouldn't see otherwise. It also makes her a more trustworthy rhetor - for why would she lie to "dead paper"? Unlike with a traditional rhetor who we know is actively trying to persuade us, we don't feel the same kind of wariness towards her. We know we are not being manipulated because an argument (it seems) is not actively being made. By reading her diary entries, we think we are being offered a fairly unadulterated picture of this woman's life and mind - which makes her descent into madness that much more chilling - and convincing.

The diary entry format makes us better able to identify with the narrator, and empathize with her because we are able to see and understand her life from her point of view. There is an intimacy that exists between the narrator and the audience that wouldn't exist in a formal speech, non-fiction, or even a fiction piece told through a third person perspective - an intimacy that makes the speech that much more powerful and relatable.

Perkins Gilman uses various characters throughout the story to indirectly persuade her audience. The doctors in the story - the narrator's husband and brother - serve as the "logos" of the argument. Though logos here is not used to make her argument, but as something to argue against - to show as something flawed or incomplete.

Logos is standing in for male authority and the authority of the medical community. Men and doctors were seen as "rational" - the competing force against highly emotional, nervous women. Because women seemed to lack logos (reason), they were infantilized. Like children, they weren't trusted to know enough about themselves and the world to make decisions about what's best for them - often to the detriment of their mental health.

Perkins Gilman's intended audience in The Yellow Wallpaper are white, upper-middle class Victorian women. So fiction was a particularly effective medium to make her argument. In the late 19th century many upper-class/upper-middle-class households subscribed to magazines that featured short stories. The Yellow Wallpaper was first published in the New England Magazine, a magazine with a circulation of 15,000 - 20,000. copies.

Writing her argument as a story, and then having it published in a popular magazine, was a sure way for Perkins Gilman to know that the argument would reach a broad audience - particularly those white, upper-middle class women she was writing to. If Perkins Gilman made a formal speech, went door-to-door handing out pamphlets like the suffragists, or even published a non-fiction piece, she would (probably) not have been well received. Women who spoke out in public were often christened unchaste, whorish and loose - some men equating their words as "flirtatious baby talk.pdf)".

If she had written a non-fiction piece directly arguing against the treatment of postpartum depression, she would most likely have prompted an immediate response from the medical community, who at that time, had built up considerable authority treating "hysteria" and "nervous depressive" disorders in women. So it is likely that if Perkins Gilman had chosen a different medium to make her argument, she wouldn't have as receptive an audience. Those women who read and were moved by her story, would have turned her away and shut the door before she had any opportunity to make her case. Presenting her argument as a story allowed her a chance to be heard.

The narrative form allows Perkins Gilman to use language in a way that would be limited in a formal speech. In a story, she is able to say what she wants without having to be explicit - by speaking through characters, metaphors, and setting. Unlike if she were writing non-fiction, or speaking behind a podium, Perkins Gilman is not telling women what they should think or how they should hear her. Like Gearhart's invitational rhetoric in The Womanization of Rhetoric, Perkins Gilman is not treating her audience as a conquest. Rather, by creating a character most can empathize with, Gilman invites her audience to think what they want - to find themselves in the character, to feel and see the world as she does. And hopefully, to be convinced that the traditional treatment for women with postpartum/nervous depression is ineffective and dangerous.

However, there is a disadvantage to fiction and an indirect, invitational rhetoric. When the story was first published, it was often thought of as only a ghost story - or worse, as a "cautionary tale of a woman's descent into madness". So fictions ability to be subjective, and give the audience the responsibility in understanding your message, can be a negative - sometimes what you are trying to say does not come across/is not always received the way you intended.

The rhetor of the narrative is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, speaking through the voice of an unnamed female narrator. She, like the narrator in the story, suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her first child, and was prescribed the "rest cure" - a treatment that isolated the patient from friends and family and prevented them from reading, writing or any exercise of the mind. Perkins Gilman, like her narrator, suffered greatly under the rest cure and came "so near the borderline of utter mental ruin"

The haunting story of a young mother's descent into madness in The Yellow Wallpaper is Perkins Gilman's subtle yet persuasive argument against the rest cure, and more largely, how depressive/hysteric patients (mostly women) were viewed and treated by the medical community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJ4ZtLlRvE

The clip posted is part of PBS Masterpiece's The Yellow Wallpaper. The movie, absent the intimacy provided by the format of a diary, lacks the depth of Gilman's piece. I don't think it is as convincing an argument because the audience does not feel the same empathy for the character. Also, the movie does not seem to be making an argument in the way that Gilman is - the movie seems more like a ghost story, a woman gone mad. However I included the link because I think it is interesting to compare the differences in persuasiveness of the movie and the story.

Silas Weir Mitchell, a famous American nuerologist and father of the rest cure, questioned the effectiveness of the treatment after reading Gilman's story - proof of how powerful the argument made in the story was.

Even in the final scene, where the narrator appears to have gone totally mad, she is still thinking of how others see her - she wants, at all times to be a proper woman. As mentioned before, it is this, her concern with what is appropriate, of being a "good woman", that preserves her ethos with her audience. Her awareness of what is right, and her attempt to do what is right, even when she is "insane", makes her trustworthy and someone her audience can continue to empathize with.

Women at an asylum being treated for depression with radium.

See annotations above. Another example of John believing, as a physician, that he knows better than her.

Here again we see the dynamic between patient and doctor that Gilman is arguing against. John is not listening to his wife. She is trying to express her concerns, and instead of taking what she has to say seriously, she is patronized. He is ignoring her, believing himself to be the authority over her body and mind.

The character of John's sister exemplifies ethos in the story. Though like the logos of the narrator's husband and brother, it is an ethos that Gilman is arguing against - a force that is contributing to the problem and suffocating women and patients like the narrator.

John's sister is the "good woman" - wholly satisfied being a wife and mother. Like John, she believes activity is making the unnamed narrator sick. Her function in the argument is to represent those women who side with the medical community and male authority - who saw hysteria as a woman's moral failing. "Moral failing" counting as a woman's inability to fulfill their essential functions as wife and mother.

The audience responds very strongly to the narrator. We recognize how her life is suffocating her. We recognize the injustice of her not even being able to choose her own room! To walk outside when she wants air! She is shut up, shut in, and shout out - limited in her ability to participate in her own life. A testament to the effectiveness of Gilman as a rhetor, and how powerful the argument is as a story.

see comments above.

The narrator maintains her ethos throughout the story by never challenging her husband. Whenever she tries to express concern/give her opinion - about her mental health or the house - she always ends up deferring to his judgement, even in her own private diary entries. Like here, when she details an exchange between her and John about her wanting to move downstairs. Though it is clear she is not happy, she concedes in the next few lines,"but he is right enough about the beds and windows and things" (highlighted below).

The narrator maintains her ethos here because she behaves like a "proper woman" - one who seems to know and accept her place within the dynamic of her marriage. She knows what is appropriate to say, what thoughts/opinions should be censored, and acknowledges her husbands authority and her inferiority. She is a "good girl" - a very important element of her character and her persuasiveness as a rhetor because it means that her audience of white, upper-middle class women can trust her. They can trust her account, though she is going mad, because she is not a loose woman, not unchaste or improper. So what she is feeling does not stem from any kind of rebelliousness - she does not have a poor disposition, an inclination for evil things like wanting to speak in public, or dominate her husband. She is your average, upper-middle class white woman, whose greatest sin is keeping a dairy of her thoughts. And this ultimately makes her a more convincing rhetor.