“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story written about an unnamed woman who battles with an array of separate but coinciding issues, including post-partum depression, which in turn, leads her to become a completely different woman that she is not. Although the story of the unnamed woman is a possible parallel to Gilman’s own personal battle with post-partum depression, social norms, and the effects the rest cure had on the body, the reader must not compare Gilman’s work to her own separate personal battle and treatment. Moreover, “The Yellow Wallpaper” has several different strong and apparent themes, such as; the inferiority of women in the 19 Century, the effects of Silas Weir Mitchells, the rest cure, and the descent …show more content…
Feminist theory is a big underlying factor in this since John is the patriarch of the story and the marriage, dictating what type of treatment she will receive and what she will and will not do while being treated. Charlotte Perkins Gilman produced this piece of literature in the 19 Century, a time in which women were not treated as equals with men and “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems to be a direct response to the fixed gender roles and social norms of not only a male dominated medical institution, but society as a whole. Many different examples are presented in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that tell that the narrator is not in control of her treatment, such as; “John is a physician, and perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster”, and “ If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression,—a slight hysterical tendency,—what is one to do?” along with “So I take phosphates or phosphites,—whichever it is,—and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely 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