The Role Of Feminism In The Yellow Wallpaper

Feminism played an important role with female authors throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many female authors shared how they were treated within their relationships with their husbands and in society. Female literature provided a means for women with similar experiences to relate and bond with each other without personally knowing one another. In most instances, women had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men, which made life harder for women. Women were not allowed to work nor vote, while men were able to work and vote. The culture experiences women encountered was a motive for most female authors to write about; it was the only freedom the women had. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman presented

The women never left the house. “Women were required to learn basic information like modern language, Music, Drawing, and dancing” (Edublogs, para.1). Women were expected to prepare the meals, wash the clothing, clean the house, and please their husband in whatever he wanted, while the husband worked to financially provide for the family. According to Women in Literature,

Lower-class women could be servants, domestic help, factory workers, prostitutes, etc. Middle- and upper-class women could help, in some cases, with a family business, but generally, the economy and the society dictated that women should work in the home, taking care of home and health. They could be educated and could study, as long as it did not interfere with their housework. (2017, para. 10)

Most women were not allowed to work if they were married because the husband believed it was his job to earn enough money to provide for his wife and children. Women rarely enjoyed their life because they often felt as if they were locked in their house with nothing to do beyond their domestic responsibilities, and if they participated in anything they were not supposed to they had to hide it from their husband. The primary purpose of a woman’s life was to find a man, have children, and spend the rest of their lives serving husband and

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman’s main character, the narrator, experienced a major depression from being alone. She had a child, however, she was not even able to see her child on a daily basis. Her husband was a doctor and left daily to go see his patients. Her husband told her it was best if she stayed in the bedroom all day, unless she was eating. She stayed in her room as her husband told her because she believed her husband only wanted what was “best” for her. The wife started to imagine seeing a lady in the wallpaper who wanted to break the bars so they could be free. In an effort to set the lady free from the wallpaper, the wife ripped the wallpaper off the wall. Unfortunately, ripping the wallpaper down did not free the lady from the wallpaper. The wife digressed to the state of being mentally insane. Gilman presented this story in a unique way because it contained a deeper explanation of how women were treated in the nineteenth century and how their mistreatment was accepted by society. Gilman wrote this story because it related to her personal experience with her