The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a semi-autobiographical short story by author Charlotte Perkins Gilman that was initially published in 1892. The story follows the narrator, a mother, living in the 19th century who had been prescribed the oppressive rest cure by her physician who also happens to be her husband. The rest of the cure requires her to isolate herself from society within the walls of a room and eventually begins writing a diary in secrecy. Her slow spiral into insanity leads her to become unphased by the bars on windows but obsessed with a yellow wallpaper which she goes to great lengths to describe in utter detail. She begins seeing strange patterns on the wallpaper that slowly get more and more strange and intrigue her more and more, enticing her to rip the wallpaper off which she was beginning to despise more and more as a

Women finally began to gain some control over their lives, no longer succumbing to their husband’s desires and practically being slaves to society. The story displays the struggles of many women at the time, reflecting Gilman’s past experiences. In 1887 a “wise man put [her] to bed and applied the rest cure,” but "came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that [she] could see over,” and finally decided that the treatment was no longer working and after a long three months she returned to the life she lived prior to the rest cure and ultimately “recovering some measure of power”(Gilman 1). Similarly, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, who exists at a similar time as Gilman, finally decides to free herself from the constraints of her husband and tears down the yellow wallpaper that had been progressively increasing her insanity, representing her moment of reform just as Gilman’s withdrawal from the rest of the cure had