One
of the most interesting things I found in both the book and our class discussion
was the way Gilman presented the baby within the book. All thought she has recently
given birth, the baby is so few times mentioned. I’m not sure if perhaps post-partum
depression has to do with her psychological break or if so, how much of a role
it played. However the real reason I found this so interesting was because, I noticed
throughout the book she becomes more and more dissociated with her child. At first
she mentions it as her baby, then as it goes on it's THE child. I feel like
that has a great bearing on how we said in class that having children was a
form of enslavement for many of these women. That many women had to choose, job
or child, and once a child was born, any other form of life became stigmatized.
I also like how this almost apathetic attitude the main character has for her
child makes her not solely the victim of her own mind, but a perpetrator to anyone
who finds is sociopathic not to care for ones child. That was hard for even me
to forgive.
This was a great observation to make in the story. The protagonist very rarely mentions the child and at one point seems to doubt herself as a mother by saying "such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." This is a pretty clear indication that she is suffering from some sort of postpartum depression. It could also derive from the fact that she feels trapped within the confines of motherhood, much like how the women is trapped within the wallpaper.
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