Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” there are many things that demonstrate the realism era. The first is the background of the story itself, the misdiagnosis of depression and anxiety disorders as a fit if “nervousness.” In the story, she says “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do. My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing and he says the same thing.” (Perkins-Gilman 2) The narrator is diagnosed by her husband as ‘nervous” and despite her doubt of the diagnosis, she continues to be oppressed not only by her husband but by society as well. She repeatedly asks …show more content…
The reader can infer it is not a children’s room with bars on the window, but a room for locking someone in, such as a padded room for psychotic patients to prevent them from hurting themselves. The narrator doesn’t realize this, but none the less describes it as giving her a bad uneasy feeling, which sets the honest and realistic mood during this time. She continues on to object to staying in the room and when her husband refuses and tells her she’s imagining the dark mood of the room, she stops saying anything to prevent further fighting and this beyond a doubt demonstrates the oppression of women with mental disorders, and how they were treated. She could have blamed her nervousness like so many others, but she instead chose to say what she thought to be absolute fact until she was shut down by her husband. This quote provide little description of the room itself, which demonstrates the small simplistic writing of the realism era and re enforces the innocent perspective of the narrator as well. These are a few of many reasons why “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a perfect example of literature during the realism