The Role Of Mental Health In The Yellow Wallpaper By Kate Chopin

Throughout the last few centuries, women have been viewed in the role of being weak and not being able to take care of themselves politically or financially. During these times, specifically in the 1800s, there have been novels written by powerful authors such as Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They used literary elements to advance readers' ideas about women's roles in society and how it was discriminatory. Through their novels they used these literary devices to highlight women's struggles with mental illness, marrying for survival, and having to only depend on the powerful male figures in their lives. Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, uses symbolism to show the struggles of women's mental health in

In the story, Desiree, an orphan, and Armand, a slave owner, married each other, with Armand having promised Desiree that he loved her even if he didn’t know where she came from. After the marriage, they had a baby, who was very loved at the beginning by both of their parents, yet just a few short months later, Armand treated them as if they never existed. When confronted, Armand revealed the reason was that the baby was black, which by default meant that Desiree was black, and he didn’t want the embarrassment of being with someone black and having a black. Not being able to live with this news, “ She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again”( Chopin 1). Due to the lack of knowledge about Desiree's past, Chopin was able to make us think that the only possible solution was that Desiree was black. Like us readers, Armand made the conclusion that Desiree had to have been of black descent. And yet in the end we find out that Armand had been the one who was black and he ruined his entire life and family. Women were chosen during this time period due to a man's taste so they could mold their own families and after were isolated from the world to the point they felt they could only live on with their lives if their husbands were in it. Even if some had a family they become so dependent on their husbands because they were the ones providing for them and giving them the love and attention a human needs which turned their love into an obsession. An obsession that we concluded led to Desiree killing both herself and their baby. She felt she only had an identity with her husband and she didn’t want to lose