The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Introduction

“The yellow Wallpaper” is written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1899. In the short story she protests male domination and entrapment of females. She focuses on the treatment of female mental patients, whom she represents as victims silenced by incarceration for gender-biased treatment. Gilman knew the scenario from her own postpartum emotional collapse and treatment in 1887. Neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, a recognized expert on neurasthenia in women, advised her to forego scholarly ambitions and to devote herself to home and hearth, a disastrous course that preceded her divorce and a move from New England to California.

Discussion

The story is written in late nineteenth century when treating women as a subordinate, and as a person who does not possess any will of their own was habitual. With the images of the barred windows, menacing bedstead, a dominant man and a creeping woman, “The Yellow Pages” effectively raises the issues of gender roles (Thomas, 1998). The story is written in a way that the suffering woman was herself the narrator who was diagnosed by a temporary nervous depression by her husband. In order to keep her nerves calm, her husband brought her to some distant town where the house seemed strange to the women (Thrailkill, 2002).

John of “The Yellow Pages” possessed a materialistic view for world and believed that it may hurt his authority if he would allow her wife, a weaker sex, to let her do what she wanted. According to the diary, the narrator women used to write it can be observed that it was not only her husband who was dominant but her brother was also alike him (Hotard,1999). The indifference of man towards her ill wife becomes obvious with the fact that she had to write her feelings and emotions in a diary because her husband did not appreciate her fantasies neither wanted to hear her out.

The general picture of the woman in the 19th Century consisted of the three expectations housewife, wife and mother. Basically, the man decided on the formation of his wife, depending on their educational and social status of the family. Since neither candidate had women were allowed to tell the public their opinion, was the only way to express the opinion freely in writing books and poems (Shumaker, 1985). If they wanted their works published but that was usually only ...