Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a influential and provocative piece of literature that explores many themes, including the gender roles of women in the late 19th century. In The Yellow Paper, a woman's role was to be a dutiful wife and she should not question her husband's authority and even whereabouts. Whereas, a man's role was to be a husband, main decision maker, rational thinker and his authority was not to be questioned by the wife. Through the story of woman’s descent into madness, Gilman challenges the traditional gender roles of the time, particularly the idea that women are inferior to men and must be subservient to them. Throughout the story, the narrator is portrayed as a victim of gender roles of her time. She is confined to a bedroom in a colonial mansion by her husband, a physician, who believes that she is suffering from “hysteria”. Conversion disorder, formerly called hysteria, is a type of mental disorder in which a wide variety of sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances may occur. It is traditionally classified as one of the psychoneuroses and is not dependent upon any known organic or structural pathology. The narrator is forced to rest and do nothing, except stare at the yellow wallpaper that covers the walls of her room. As the narrator’s mental state deteriorates, and she

Women were expected to domestic and to take care of the home and children. The narrator’s confinement to the bedroom represents the idea that women were expected to stay in the domestic sphere and not venture into the public world. The wallpaper itself can be seen as a symbol of the gender roles of the time. It is ugly and oppressive, and it represents the way that women were to conform to societal expectations. The narrator’s fixation on the wallpaper represents her desire to break free from these expectations and to assert her own