Essay On Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

“And women should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body” (Direct 1). In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a wife and mother, faces postpartum depression and, treatment that is unfit for her by her husband. The resting cure increases her psychological behavior causing her to hallucinate. The women lose all form of self-awareness and is expected to conform to what is expected of her in the 19th century. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman demonstrates the issues women faced during 1892 using theme, point of view, and symbolism. Women’s freedom of expression and independence is deniably the theme of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Hastily the narrator says, “There Comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me writing a word” (Gilman 649). Particularly, John would rather her not have her own thoughts about things, rather his own. Allowing her to sit in boredom of the resting cure away from any excitement. However, the narrator feels as though journaling gives her a way out and the

While the narrator was sitting in her room she states, “Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over” (Gilman). Strictly speaking, the narrators intellectual lack of activity caused her to see a woman trapped within the wallpaper. The point of view within the short story gives us a better view on what the narrator had to go through. “Years later, Gilman claimed the story reflected her own experience under the care of Philadelphia neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell, in 1887, and that the story’s purpose was to spare others from such treatment” (Bittel). Therefore, using the first person point of view in present tense shows the deep emotional and mental state of her life. Giving the short story a real intimate connection with the