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Relationship Between Narrator And Husband In The Yellow Wallpaper

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In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, presents a feminist approach within the story. Gilman writes about a woman, the narrator who is not identified, who moves into a new house with her husband to help with her “rest cure”. While at the house, the narrator becomes very interested with the yellow wallpaper in her room and starts to fantasize about a woman being trapped behind it. Within the story, feminism is present in examples with the relationship between the narrator and her husband, the purpose of the narrator not having a name, and the symbolism of the wallpaper.

The narrator is married to a man, John, who is a physician. He treats her for her mental instability with a “rest cure” which restricted her of physical and intellectual activities. John being a physician and treating with this cure also shows how poorly women were treated for medical purposes. Without any human interaction or normal physical activities, it allows for the narrator’s mind to become almost childlike to the point she imagines, at first different patterns in the wallpaper, but eventually a legitimate woman who is trapped behind bars. The relationship between narrator and husband represents gender inequality. The story was written in 1892 and this was the time of men being superior to …show more content…

You know of her mental state and her activities, but you are never given a name. Throughout the story when other characters communicate with her, they never address her by name. This is another factor that is important to the time period when this story was written. In 1892, when Gilman wrote the story, she clearly gives you insight to what it was like to be a woman in this time. By not giving the character an identity, it represents how women were viewed within society. Their status was not that important to men. Women were meant to listen to men since they were the superior sex and basically looked at as having a higher

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