Major Themes in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Major Themes in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late 1800's, focuses on a distressed woman with no place to turn. The woman narrates the story to give the reader an inside look at what she feels and how she reacts to her surroundings. She initially turns to her husband, John, as a doctor and as her companion and he dismisses the notion of mental illness as a "slightly hysterical tendency". He isolates her by taking her to a secluded house with no human contact outside of his sister and himself who both view her illness in the same way. Gilman makes a convincing statement about gender roles in this time period, the debate of mental illness vs. physical ailment, and the concept of freedom in insanity in her exquisitely written short story. By focusing on the male dominance over the narrator, Gilman shows that a troubled mind, with no outlet, has no defense but to retreat to its inner sanctum.
In order to understand the gender roles in Gilman's short story, we must first understand the era in which she was writing. The period of the late 1800's was a time when male dominance was prominent in society and women were meant to be seen, not heard. Women of the time did not defend their own opinions or beliefs by opposing their male counterparts, regardless of the relationship between them. The narrator recognizes this fact in many ways from the beginning of the story. She even says, in the opening lines, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage." This shows that she understood her submissive position in life and that, in general, men viewed women as senseless or silly people.
By portraying John as the typical man of the era, Gilman shows the underlying effect of gender roles on the narrator's psyche. John tells the narrator that she is creating "silly fancies" in her head and that he doesn't believe she is in any real danger. John tells her what to do and when she tries to disagree, he "sat straight up and looked at [her] with such a stern, reproachful look that [she] could not say another word." It is as if he doesn't care how she feels because he is a man and...