Why Charlotte Perkins Gilman Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

In 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published The Yellow Wallpaper. Since then, much has been said about The Yellow Wallpaper. Several interpretations and a vast amount of critiques have spawned since it was first published. These coming from other authors, feminists, and even Gilman herself shed some light on her motive for writing this story in Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Yellow Wallpaper is a profound commentary on women’s rights, as well as women’s health. It also plays on “the madwoman in the attic” of many early female literary authors. Gilman displays all of this by showing the relationship between our female narrator and her husband, who constantly belittles her opinions and thoughts on how she thinks her sickness should be treated. The story starts off with our narrator talking about a mansion where she and her husband are currently residing due to her health declining. While it may be a mansion, she describes it as a, “…haunted house,” (Gilman 792). The narrator goes on to describe her husband John, who is a physician in high standing, as a …show more content…
This was nothing more than an effort to discredit them. Gilman herself suffered from a mental illness and was confined to three months of bed rest (just like our narrator in the story). Admittedly, The Yellow Wallpaper is a strange story, but the most thing that should be taken from the story is why Gilman wrote it. As Gilman says, “It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked,” (Gilman 804). It saved the life of one woman, so it did what it was intended to do. The works of Gilman and her female peers, should be looked at solely for their meaning and not as crazy stories by crazy