Yellow Wallpaper Feminist

During the 19th century, women had little power. They were dominated by men in every aspect of their lives, and they had poor status with no right and no voice. As a result, women started fighting for change that could lead to a better life. They joined political meetings to protest against repression and all forms of inequality. These active women were the origin of early feminism, which was considered to be a turning point in their social situation. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an American feminist, novelist, and sociologist, was one of the leader of this social reform, and her contributions to the independence of women were greatly preponderant. Married to an artist named Charles Stetson, Charlotte was unhappy and depressed with her marriage.

The narrator is then confined to her room with the Yellow Wallpaper and slowly becomes her only obsession. “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream” (Gilman 798). The young woman is absorbed by the wallpaper to madness, and it had a huge impact on her life. Literary works are not produced in a vacuum or simply in the biographical context of their author. Authors who write literary texts often articulate certain intentions, ideas, and interests, which can be more or less identifiable on the surface of the text. In his article, “Hanging "the Yellow Wall-Paper: Feminism and Textual Studies,” Jean Shawn discusses the key roles played by the feminist literary works in the emergence of feminist voices in society. He touches on the evolvement of Gilman’s short story from a disruptive magazine piece to the most prominent tool of social change. According to the author, Gilman’s story inspired the feminist debates and brought a taboo topic into discussion. The