Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is, on the surface, a chronicle of a woman’s descent into insanity due to postpartum depression and improper treatment. However, a feminist examination of the story reveals that the protagonist’s plight extends beyond an isolated, individual situation. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a critique of not just the dangerous treatment experienced by the protagonist herself, but of the misogyny and female marginalization present in the late nineteenth century that allowed for such practices to occur. The protagonist’s perception of an imaginary woman trapped behind her room’s wallpaper is a representation of her own trapping by the sexist dismissal of mental illness and the unequal nature of marriage. Perhaps most importantly, Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to illustrate the commonality of the narrator’s oppression, and ensures that the reader is well aware that it is as much a social commentary as it is a fictional tale. When reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” from a modern perspective, it is inarguable that the unnamed protagonist’s mental health is jeopardized. She knows it herself, often vocalizing the depression, anxiety and eventual hallucinations she experiences in her journal entries. However, in the eyes of the patriarchal Victorian society, her symptoms are nothing more …show more content…
The state of marital subordination at the time is suggested in numerous ways, down to the room that John keeps her in. She describes it as being “a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium” (Gilman 648). The childlike state of the room reflects the way John treats his wife – as a child incapable of making her own decisions. As she writes, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” (Gilman 647) He sees his wife’s thoughts and actions as laughable, never taking her seriously until it is too late to save her from her from

Show More

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper