Summary Of ' The Yellow Wallpaper '

A “True Women’s” life before the war was to make a clean, comfortable, nurturing home for her

Janie was the kind of woman who was always striving for better things. While living in a small town, she always dreamed of living in a better place. From a young age, she was bold enough to be sure she wasn’t going to stay with her grandma for a long time. This was because her Nanny was always sure to shrink her horizons, and Janie didn’t appreciate that. She was like that with Janie because when she was growing up, she never had the chance to better herself so she learned to settle for what she had. In fact,

She vowed never to return to the abject poverty that she had lived into in her own country. Aren further enrolled in a child care class and upon graduating, she was able to secure a job as a nanny for an affluent

different occasions so she could gain the opportunities needed to live a better life than what

She had to do many things to complete the needs in her house. Furthermore, she had to set big changes in her life for her children and herself. She got a job offer from Langley and worked there to get more money, because she really needed

Before setting out, she gave herself a list of rules she had to follow so that her experience would be as real as it could be. Her first rule was when looking for a job she couldn 't mention the skills she had learned from her education. Second, she had to take the highest paying job that was being offered to her. Third, she had to live

However, in Hekker’s column, “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)”, which she wrote 29 years after she wrote her first column, “The Satisfaction of Housewifery and Motherhood”, she was divorced at 60, had no money, qualified for food stamps, regretted not getting an education, and eventually found a job where she was mayor. Hekker explains that if she could have done it all over again, she still would have married the man she married, have her five kids, but she “would have used the years after [her] youngest started school to further [her] education.” Hekker explains that she “could have amassed two doctorates using the time and energy [she] gave to charitable and community causes and been better to support [herself].”

     Since the narrator is limited to the same room day after day, she starts to study the wallpaper. "I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion." She refers to the pattern as the control that men had over women. During that time, a woman was the property of her father until she was married. She was then under the control of her husband with no rights. Her husband made her decisions and basically took over her life. As time goes on, her mental illness gets worse. She starts to get paranoid about her husband and Jennie. "The fact is, I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes and even Jennie has an inexplicable look." In her mind she starts to actually see the woman from the

Her American Dream was not going as planned. Even though she had a lot of furniture to her name, she wasn’t making a big enough profit, making life tougher for her. She began wondering

Jennie reveals that some women at this time are ok with the basic domestic role because she is the house keeper for Jane and John. The fact that Jennie happily cleans up around the house shows the narrator what a wife should act like. Jennie stands for all the women the author was trying to reach out to because women like Jennie are happy were they are at and do not want more for themselves. Conrad Shumaker believes that John fears the imagination of Jane when she askes him to take down the wallpaper (591). John did not fear that question but feels undermined that his wife would not listen to him because he already told her the room is fine.

The writer Donna Smith-Yackel’s mother did lots of work throughout her life. She was a mother of more than half dozen of children. While her children were growing up she had to do many works, tasks and household chores to sustain or to keep family going. After her marriage, she helped her husband in farming. She learned to set hens, and raise chickens, feed pigs, milk cows, plant and harvest a garden and carry every fruits and

Surely, she craved to write—meaning to work here—endangered her husband’s position as an authority. He would not have control any longer toward the narrator—his wife. In the 19th century upper class and middle class women were not expected to earn their own living. Women rarely had careers and most professions refused entry to women. In the middle of the 19th century it was virtually impossible for women to become doctors, engineers, architects, accountants or bankers. After a long struggle the medical profession allowed women to become doctors. It was not until 1910 that women were allowed to become accountants and bankers. However, there were still no women diplomats, barristers or judges. Women were allowed to become teachers majority of women became teaches but this was also a low paying job.

With some past experiences, Gilman weaves this theme successfully into the short story.“The Yellow Wallpaper” uses symbols like the unequal relation between John and the narrator, because of gender inequality created by society, and how pressure of society can change the individual's living to give an understanding to the readers about how dominant a society can be and how it can impact

Women also had to live up to their family heritage and what their family’s thoughts were of a woman in the workforce. Some women felt that family issues had delayed the dawn of their careers. Barbara White, in Women’s Career Development, describes these women as late starters. Late starters are women who have been held back because of other commitments, beliefs or opinions. Some of today’s ‘profssionals’ made late commitments to their careers. Thirty-one percent decided that they would work at an early age because of family morals and traditions (White, 104).

Furthermore, Beatrice Webb a writer back in 1887, stepped out of her upper class life and into an East London textile factory to do some research on the though life of poor factory workers for her upcoming book— A Work-Girl’s Diary. After that, she started a campaign for improved factory working conditions and supported trade unions. It makes you wonder though, what if she wanted to be a stay at home mom instead, then she would never have started her campaign and maybe someone else would be celebrated for her