The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

Introduction

Charlotte Perkins Gilman born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut. She is an American feminist writer; she is known as a feminist intellectual and crusading journalist of her time; who wrote a short story named “The Yellow Wallpaper” which was classified as horror fiction and gothic fiction written in an epistolary style (Whitehouse, Pp. 184). The story is an exaggerated account of her personal experiences, and a specific painful episode of Charlotte's life. This story published in the New England Magazine in January 1892 was considered to be a significant piece of work in the American Literature as it deals with a woman shattered due to her discontented desires for self expression, and an unequal marriage. Within the institution of marriage, the unequal status of women was Charlotte's primary focus in her writings. She also seemed concerned regarding the social justice and political inequality in general.

Thesis Statement

“The Yellow Wallpaper” explains the perceptions towards women's mental and physical health in the 19th century.

Discussion

The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” points the undependable writer's decline towards madness. It is narrated in the first-person perspective. The main character apart from Charlotte herself is her husband John. Gilman began to suffer from fatigue and serious depression; known as “postpartum psychosis” in today's world; shortly after giving birth to her daughter in the year 1887. In 1935, Charlotte autobiography was of the view that her baby and her husband made Charlotte's condition of “ceaseless tears” and “unbearable inner misery” worse (Davis, Pp. 19). As John, protagonist's husband who only credited what was scientific and observable, and believed that going on a rest cure was in Gilman's best interests. He treated Charlotte like a patient who was powerless and served as her physician.

The colonial mansion in which John and Charlotte stayed for ...