Gender Issues In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, gender issues are an established concern from the beginning of the story. In fact, gender issues play a major role as to what the conflict of the story truly is. It is set up so that the conflict of the story be to help the narrator recover from her mental illness, but the narrator is almost forced to overcome the male dominance that is pushing her towards mental sickness. As one delves deeper into the story it becomes evident that the narrator struggles with the confusion of her own mental state, in addition to her struggle to recover from such mental illness. While the narrator must manage these issues, she is also unknowingly struggling with her own freedom and self-expression. …show more content…
The Narrator’s room—specifically the wallpaper—she was “assigned” to symbolizes imprisonment. For example the Narrator describes the room as if it were for little children, “It was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls” (p. 227). This is a great example of what men thought of women. Men looked at women as children rather than wives. The men are in control of what goes on and the women just comply, just as children would with their parents. This is again exemplified when the Narrator goes to talk to John about her condition in the night, ‘“What is it little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold”’ (p. 232). He directly uses derogatory names to almost show that she is below him. He uses these demeaning names as a way to show he has more intelligence than her and will directly confront her in such a way that she knows she is below him. Not only do the barred windows show imprisonment in a figurative sense, in that women are treated as children, but also in a literal sense in that the window mocks what an actual prison cell would look