Oppression Of Women In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Most women in the 19th century were thought to be less superior to men and had little to no rights at all. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it focuses on the oppression of women during that time period. The story is told from the perspective of a lady who suffers from depression. She starts out by describing the estate that her husband and she have rented for the summer. The choice to rent this estate for the summer was because her husband wanted to expose her to the calm life and clean air to help ease her depression. However, she feels that her husband never wants to listen to her when she talks about her condition and says that he treats her like a child. The husband later goes on and tells her that she can’t do the thing she loves, writing, that she is only able to do house work. She later is forced to stay in her room, and she becomes very fascinated with the yellow wallpaper. She starts believing a woman is trapped behind the paper, so she tears all of it down. Her husband walks in and faints from the site of shredded wallpaper all over the room. Since the girl is stuck in the same room the entire story and does not have a say in what she is allowed to, the story illustrates how the setting helps advance the theme which is lack of freedom and confinement. First of all, based on where the story took place at, …show more content…
The house can be thought of just like jail. She has no freedom and is always stuck in one place. She has no say in anything because her husband has complete control over her. Going crazy in the end was a response to having no say or thought for herself. That goes to show that a person who is diagnosed with a serious disease needs to get professional help. Confinement is not healthy for anybody with a mental disease. The narrator shows that in the end when she tears off all of the wallpaper to help save the woman behind