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Character Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, raises many questions from readers and makes us think about what has really caused the narrator to become insane in her story. Due to her husband’s controlling nature as a physician, there have been many moments where he treats her like a child that should be kept away from the outside world, which eventually drove her to insanity. She says, “dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was …show more content…

(Gilman 8) Since he is someone who doesn’t believe in things that are not felt or seen, he also doesn’t believe that his wife is sick because she doesn’t look sick in appearance. He tells her, “you really are better, dear, whether, you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you.” (Gilman 8) He then tells her in a condescending manner, “bless her little heart! She shall be sick as she pleases! But now let’s improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!” (Gilman 8) John could have prevented her from going insane at the end, but he uses his position as a doctor to deny his wife’s feelings about her own …show more content…

Despite of her mental illness, Gilman started writing again which was against her doctor’s orders. She explains that without doing work, she wouldn’t be living at all because that is what keeps her mentally and physically better. As a response to women who are suffering from rest-cure treatments, she wrote, “work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without one is a pauper and a parasite.” (Gilman 15) Although, women were expected to live a domestic life during that time period. Gilman defied the idea of domesticity and gender roles through writing, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is what makes this story so influential for women in

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