The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

At the end of the movie, “The Great Gatsby,” Gatsby asks, “What is better, to live as a monster or die as a good man?” That is a tough question, especially for a female in the 19th country. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts the miserable life of females under the power of chauvinism. The narrator and her husband, John, rent a beautiful house faraway from the city. The narrator suffers from what her husband believes is “temporary nervous depression.” She feels uncomfortable with everything, but still obeys her husband’s decisions. The husband chooses a large, airy room on the top floor instead of the smaller room on the ground floor that she prefers to live in. She is forbidden to write or work. She becomes absolutely

Inside of the yellow wallpaper mirrors the imagined world. The narrator states, “There are things in that paper, which nobody knows but me, or ever, will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous” (Gilman). Under the pressure of the chauvinism, the husband’s supervise and oppress. The narrator can no longer distinguish between illusion and reality. When the yellow wallpaper starts to reveal bars, the narrator truly feels trapped and secluded. The yellow wallpaper represents the narrator’s imagined world, especially when she finds the woman inside the wallpaper. The narrator states, “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (Gilman). In her illusion, the woman inside of the wallpaper appears at night. But in daytime, she always is quiet and surrender. The narrator is the same; she obeys her husband, but still writes when she was alone. As the story progresses, the narrator turns to like the wallpaper. She finds some of the wallpaper is different “It is not bad—at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house—to reach the smell. But now I am used to it” (Gilman). She turns to enjoy the wallpaper, and decides to help the woman inside of the

Sometimes there are more real feelings and emotions in the imagined world than the reality. Only in the imagined world females can find whom they actually are and how they truly feel. The narrator images herself inside of the wallpaper and tries to escape. The color yellow represents sickness and weakness, like the narrator’s mysterious illness. The woman inside of the yellow wallpaper represents the narrator herself. She is trapped inside of the house just like the woman stay inside of the wallpaper. Moreover, females can have their own thought only in the imagined world. In the reality, the narrator is obeyed everything to her husband, she cannot even have her own opinion. However, when she finds the woman in the wallpaper, she is eager to want to figure out what it is, and how she moves. She does not tell her husband because she has her own ideas and makes her own decisions. She is free in her imagined world. Females can also have courage to revolt in the imagined world. In reality, females are oppressed by males and never have any courage to revolt, and they just obey and surrender. John’s sister Jennie is a nurse to take care of the narrator, but she actually supervises the narrator and report her everything to the husband. She is a women, she is used to male’s power and surrender. Jennie is numb and has no courage to change her servility position. However, in reality, the narrator is the same