Yellow Wallpaper Sexism

Sexism and its Influences on Psychological Abuse The central theme in the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is the distinctive differences of gender roles. Gillman creates an aura of sexism with the deteriorating mental health of the female protagonist due to the male persona. Men dismiss the idea of depression being the culprit of the protagonists’ issue, and rather misdiagnose as if she has hysteria. The entire act of ridiculing the protagonist, isolating her, and furthering her obvious depression, leads to serious psychological problems, which is, in fact, a violent outcome. Within the first few lines of, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gillman introduces the audience to the beloved John, the husband to the protagonist. Instantly, he mocks

The narrator is constantly crying, has no appetite, and has insomnia, all of which are symptoms of postpartum depression. The room she abides in, is an old nursery which promotes her deep detest for the room. The indication that she had possibly gave birth, and cannot see her child, expands on the perception of domestic abuse. One may insinuate that the narrator gave birth and her reaction afterwards was deemed as irrational, on the brink of hysteria. John takes it upon himself to say that she is being overly dramatic and places her into solitary confinement, in his poor attempt to heal her. Depression seeps into psychological dysfunction, she begins to hallucinate, seeing images in the wallpaper. “The front pattern does move - and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.”(Gillman 85). She then imitates her illusions, crawling on the floor in circles, until John finds her and faints on the spot. It can be argued that due to the perspective of the story that there is a bias. Obviously, the narrator is in no condition to provide an accurate story, however, because Gillman chose the protagonist to tell the story, it demonstrations how her thinking alters overtime, how her mental state is obliterated because of her living conditions.