The Yellow Wallpaper Role Of Women

Improved Essays
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman illustrates how women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had no basic rights and experienced severe oppression in many aspects of their lives. Women who lived in this time were treated much differently than they are today. Even when suffering from serious illness, the story’s protagonist, Jane, is not taken seriously. This ultimately leads to her demise. By illustrating the main character’s depression, the author shows that society’s view of women, a controlling environment, and a lack of self-expression can have detrimental effects on one’s well-being.
SOCIETY******
The Yellow Wallpaper,” published in the year 1892, came long before women’s rights or any type
…show more content…
Her actions, thoughts, opinions, and even her emotions are masked in front of others. Her true self only comes out when she writes. This is only possible because no one reads her journals. As a physician, Jane’s husband, John, controls many aspects of her life through treatment and behavioral modification. John is a physician with high standings in the community. They are of the same opinion that her condition is simply temporary nervous depression. The study of mental illness was not as medically advanced in the Victorian Period as it is today, so John does not treat Jane properly. Only phosphates, tonics and exercise are prescribed to Jane to help her condition (Gilman 310). Jane often writes about her illness and believes the excitement of her writing benefits her, but John forbids her to write. She must hide her journal from John because he tells her not to work until she is well. For example, Jane writes, “There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 311). John discourages her writing because he feels that her vivid imagination and habit of story-making will exaggerate her nervous condition. Companionship for Jane is not acceptable to John because he feels that it would be too stimulating. He says that he would as soon put fireworks in her pillow case as to let her have company (Gilman 312). The yellow wallpaper in her upstairs room is given human characteristics that could represent …show more content…
The wallpaper becomes a mirror of herself, reflecting that during the day she is free, but as the moon rises she becomes trapped by her thoughts. Jane decides to let the woman free by tearing off the horrid, yellow wallpaper. She says, “If the woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her”. Jane then begins to speak as if she is the woman trapped behind the wallpaper. For example, Jane says that she wonders if all women come out of the wallpaper as she did. She writes, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard”. Overcome by her mental illness, Jane becomes frustrated and angry enough to do something desperate. Unable to jump from the window because of the bars, Jane begins tearing the wallpaper in attempt to set the “woman” free. Securing herself to a rope, she declares, “I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper so you can’t put me back” (Gilman 320). Jane is successful in freeing the woman, who is a representation of herself. By freeing the woman from the yellow wallpaper, Jane is freeing herself from her mental illness, as well as from the oppression she faces every

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    1.What psychological stages does the narrator go through as the story progresses? The narrator goes through a rollercoaster of emotion throughout this story. In the beginning of the story she is suffering from postpartum depression so her husband locks her away in the attic. Being bored out of her mind and stuck in the room for 3 months she starts to be intrigued by the specific most minor details of the room like the pattern of the yellow wallpaper.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While reading the story, it appears that a woman is going delusion, but in the end it is made clear that a woman is just trying to gain her freedom. "The Yellow Wallpaper” expresses the theme of the control men have on women in society. The control men have on women is shown by the way…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wallpaper With a Thousand Words “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an important story, but digging has to be done to see so. The author Charlotte Perkins displays a feminist interpretation in an impressive way. Her use of metaphors brings out the true meaning behind this story. The wallpaper represents the way women are treated in our society, and the author tells a story of a “madwoman” to represent this overall theme. The house is the whole backbone to the story and is a one of the metaphors used.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a commentary on the empowerment of women. Beaten down by a society that is ruled by men, the narrator decides that she has had enough and takes matters into her own hands. During the time the story was written, woman struggled to find a sense of individuality. They spent their lives being suppressed and could do little about it. The narrator challenges this suppression and evolves into a woman who will not be dominated by men.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While John is in town, she tries to tear down the wallpaper and hides it from her husband, but the wallpaper, the yellow wallpaper is what helped her. The woman stuck in the wallpaper is what helped her get through “an illness” that wasn’t an illness in the first place. Towards the end of the writing, the narrator says, “I’ve got out at last, despite you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time (Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”)!” This illustrates how the treatment of mental illness and the oppression of women in the nineteenth century drove Jane into a form of psychosis. Jane was finally able to escape the oppression of John, only to escape into…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When discussing gender roles or feminism in literary works, several would tend to gravitate to the idea of gender focusing solely on the plight of women. However, feminism and the restrictive power of gender roles heavily affect men as well. The dynamic of people believing sexism to only influence women is intriguingly played out in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Many of the analyses I’ve read explain how Gilman’s story shows societal pressures affecting women during that time and how they still have an impact on us today. While this popular theory is evident to be true, even by Gilman’s own admission, I would challenge this idea and push to say that while, yes, “The Yellow Wallpaper” does enlighten us to the…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it became a big part in feminism in the 19 century and also today. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you can tell that feminism is one of the big parts into this story. This story is considered a classic feminism literature. Even though the women would take care of the children and make sure there were food on…

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s story The Yellow Wallpaper, it is evident to the reader that women in the late 1800s did not have very many rights. White males were seen to be more important and have more power over women. In that day in age, there were very specific gender roles in place. Often, the women were to stay at home and cook and take care of the kids while the husbands went out and worked. Sadly, this meant a lot of women were controlled by their husbands.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Argument

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” Speaks Out For Women’s Rights Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as one of the few women writers of the nineteenth century, did a remarkable job on developing women’s rights through her story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” She describes how women were treated unfairly and how women’s writing were unwelcome in the nineteenth century in the story to stand out for women. She relates the story with nineteenth century society to tell her audiences that women’s marriage life in the nineteenth century were pitiful and she implies that women should be equally treated as men. Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a feminine topic to imply how unfair the marriages were for women in the nineteenth…

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As time goes on, she becomes more and more intrigued with the wallpaper and is determined to find a purpose to it. She claims she saw a woman behind the main wallpaper who is thought to be trapped behind bars, trying to escape her husband, only visible in certain lighting. This is symbolic of the narrator’s relationship with John, as the narrator also feels confined to John and his beliefs. After spending days analysing the wallpaper, the narrator takes it down and immediately feels better. Tearing down the wallpaper represents the narrator’s freedom and liberation…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This submission shows her lack of self-confidence and feeling that women are lower than men. She believes that her own opinions do not count. Among all the varieties of restraints in her room, the yellow wallpaper itself seems to have an adverse effect on her. It completely strips her from her sanity. This wallpaper is one of the largest symbols in the story.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women in the late 1800s were given a career which was marriage. A career where women will stay home under the authority of her husband. A job that made women feel enslaved by men. They could not give personal opinions or speak out to the world. Women felt they would never be able to be something great because men prohibited it through their marriage.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When his wife tries to express her feelings to him, he invalidates her emotions, to which she begins to believe she is “unreasonably angry” (Gilman 2). An average person would feel anger, being locked away in a sequestered house, but John manipulates his wife into thinking her emotions are unwarranted. Cutter explains that often “[t]he voice of the female patient is strong-armed into silence” and this “ultimately leads to psychosis” that is “certainly tied to the narrator’s gender” (157). Without Gilman’s characterization of John, who forces his wife into submission, there is no source of the woman’s mental illness. With no cause of the woman’s mental illness, the purpose behind “The Yellow Wallpaper” is absent.…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman published The Yellow Wallpaper in 1892. The Yellow Wallpaper is about a woman who suffers from what her husband calls as a “temporary nervous depression”. Her husband John is a physician who puts the woman in a room to recover from her illness. The woman takes John’s advice since she believes he is doing what is best for her. The woman trusts John and justifies everything he does As the story continues you can see John doesn’t care about his wife or how she feels.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays