The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins, represent the oppression women faced, for a long period of time. The story goes into intense detail, to explain the struggles women faced to gain intellectual, social, and political freedoms.One of the things Charlotte Perkins, tries to convey to the audience is patriarchal power and oppression, and how harsh it really is and was. There are multiple times the male characters showed dominance over the unnamed narrator.They did this by treating her in a child like manner,they stripped her of all intellectual freedoms, and coerce her into believing what they believed.(that she was not as intelligent as they were.)

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, many times the narrator’s husband, John, is seen

She has no way to express herself and let the emotions she feel escape. Dr. James W. Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin says “Expressive writing—writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events—has been shown to have a number of health benefits, from improving symptoms of depression to helping fight infection.” Even though this was recently discovered it still shows that writing helps. In the story, the narrator explains that her husband doesn’t support her writing and she is not allowed to do it. This is him stripping her of her intellectual freedoms. “There comes John and I must put this away,-he hates to have me write a word”, says the narrator on page three. This quote explains that John doesn’t like her to write; and she immediately puts her writing away to please him. Charlotte Perkins, continuous to show Patriarchal power with having the narrator say this, she says, “... and am forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” This quote adds to the fact that she wants to work and is denied this. She wants to express herself, but is denied this. And, has no choice but to listen because of her gender role in the nineteenth