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Literary Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper

812 Words4 Pages

Sarah Harrison
Ms. Caine
English II
Feb 10, 2023
Literary Analysis Essay From lobotomies to psychotherapy to drug medication, the treatment for mental health has worn many faces. In centuries past, the treatments for and understanding of women’s mental health has varied greatly. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson is set in the late 19th century and details a young woman’s descent into insanity. She is prescribed rest in an isolated house in the country-side and is dismissed by all those around her, most notably and repeatedly by her husband. The diary recounts her treatment’s failings and her suffering. The time period’s customary view of women along with the sexist treatment they received for their mental health issues led …show more content…

Said husband is condescending towards her, calling her “little girl” and speaking to her as if she is an ignorant child (p 6). The narrator is viewed to be incapable of making her own decisions and this stifling treatment significantly contributes to her mental decline. What was arguably her closest relationship in the text was not equal, exemplified by the quote: “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage (p 1). In the time period, it was not unusual for the husband to hold contempt and regularly mock their wife’s thoughts and opinions. This sets the scene and characters for the rest of the story, foreshadowing how her mental state will suffer under her husband’s care because of her lack of …show more content…

The figure she sees behind the wallpaper is “all the time trying to climb through” and the woman laments the inescapable nature of the wallpaper, saying “But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so;” (p 8). The woman trapped behind the wallpaper symbolizes all women who are imprisoned in marriages, families, and societal expectations. The figure behind the wallpaper that looks “like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” symbolizes how the narrator is trapped in her own life and home (p 6). By ripping apart the paper and freeing herself, she realizes the situation so many women are trapped in: “There are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” (p 10). This sexism experienced by the narrator crushed any bit of blossoming individualism and slowly killed all who encountered it. By treating women as less than, society created an environment where women did not receive the help they

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