The Yellow Wallpaper Patriarchy

John has placed his wife in a prison. The disturbing stained and yellowed wallpaper is used, faded and repulsive. The color is one that is unwelcoming, uncomfortable, and uneasy; its color mirrors the narrator's relationship with her husband, and ultimately, with herself. The narrator is uncomfortable and anxious in the barred sulfur colored room where she is fussed over by her husband. John preens his wife, his possession, making the narrator draw further and further away from him. She realizes that her husband lacks the understanding that she craves. This is emphasized as John refuses to accept his wife's condition; "John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him" (248). As the narrator begins to recognize herself as her husband's caged belonging, she becomes more attached to the symbol of the wallpaper. Instead of attempting to understand, John reduces his wife to the status of a child. He repeatedly refers to her as his "blessed little goose"

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

Every request the woman in the story has made to her husband has been dismissed and her depression continues to worsen because she has lost control of her own life. John fails to understand how it feels for his wife to be trapped in her room all day. “He forces his wife into a daily confinement by four walls whose paper, described as ‘debased Romanesque,’ is an omnipresent figuring of the

How does John lead the narrator to her state of oppression? John has been treating his wife cruelly. By the cruel treatment, it’s not physical abuse, but mental abuse. The mental abuse is not cursing or name calling, but an unusual way to treat a wife. Most of the time, John demeaned her and her rights as a human being by treating her like a child.

The narrator feels very imprisoned in the house and tries to find a way to escape it. During the narrator’s rest cure treatment, she has attached herself to the wallpaper: She would “lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately”(260-261). This was the narrator’s way of escaping the oppression she was in. The wallpaper often seemed confusing to her, but she was determined to figure it out: “I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself”(301-302), everytime John takes of her illness lightly, her interest in the wallpaper grows. This is a direct reflection of her loneliness and isolation from her treatment. The speaker’s rest cure treatment directed her not to do any activities that would make her think intellectually or imaginatively, so she is forced to stay isolated from people, books, and chores. However, as her loneliness grows intensely, she finds relief in writing, something she was told not to do. The narrator would often have to hide the fact that she writes when nobody's around, and when someone comes while she is writing she records “I must not let [them] find me writing”(141-142). The oppression the narrator has been put through has made her stronger mentally, she starts to become more and more possessive of the wallpaper and tries

Although tender and caring, John played a significant role in causing the narrator’s descent into ‘madness’. By taking on the role of a physician and a husband, John symbolises the stronghold power men had over women in the past. Instead of respecting his wife’s request for some form of mental stimulation, John insists that she takes on the ‘rest’ treatment. The treatment only focuses on the physical condition of the patient, and not the emotional or mental

John is an antagonist of the story. He feels he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, the reader soon realizes, this treatment is only worsening her mental state. He is never home with her; he always has patients to see in town, leaving her locked in this house; alone with her thoughts. He ensures that she gets rest and fresh air to get well. To him, it may seem as though he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, this seclusion she experiences causes serious damage to her mental state. Her husband has control over her that women

The husband, John, is a good caretaker and is an accomplish physician because of this, many trusts his word and he believe all should, especially his wife. In this era, women were suppressed solely on their gender. So, John was a very authorize on what she should do, what should be done, and how something should be done, “John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can” (Gilman 6), though this may not be the best option at the seriousness of her sickness. Instead, makes her seep into depression more and keeping her up at nights, to look and obsess over the yellow wallpaper. This links into how far oppression was going in this time when this story was written.

John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on

A glance at a few of the conversations between John and the narrator will help clarify the roles of husband and wife as the story represents them. Rather than see the husband and wife as equals, the story clearly places the wife in the role of inferior. Nowhere is this made more explicit than in the use of condescending names when referring to his wife. Early on, when the narrator complains of the unsettling décor in her room, John "called [her] a blessed little goose" (Gilman 2); later, when she cannot sleep, he calls her a "little girl" (Gilman 5). When the narrator protests that she is not improving under her treatment, John patronizingly states: "'Bless her little heart!' said he with a big hug, 'she shall be as sick as she pleases!'" (Gilman 5).  Such language use suggests that the narrator is akin to a child, rather than an adult partner of the speaker. Even the narrator herself, within the confines of her own writing, notes that one of her biggest disappointments is that she is unable to fulfill the obligations that come with marriage and motherhood: "It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!" (Gilman 2).

Within this short story many of the health advice the narrator is taking comes from her male relatives that truly wish to cure her of her disease. In spite of the fact that they wish to help out the situation, they end up causing permanent damage to the narrator’s well being. Women were treated as unequal beings, “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious (Gilman),” this quote represents the unjust treatment of the narrator. While she is confined in her bedroom, John has the freedom to leave whenever he wishes. Not only does this show the maltreatment of the narrator [women in general], but as she leaps into the uncertainty of craziness it displays the emotional toll such abusive actions have upon

“I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus- but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” This quote gives a good example and proves that her husband keeps her contained from society and has manipulated her to think that society will make her illness

This short story tells about a woman who has a mental and emotionally illness during the 19th century. At that time women were much more restricted in their activities and also were governed by their husband. Gilman’s story described the protagonist as a married woman who has recently had a baby and was suffering from postpartum depression. The story reads in first person. The un-named protagonist enjoyed writing, mixing with people and going to work.

The narrator suffered from postpartum depression after giving birth to her child. The narrator is married to John, a physician. Her husband is a successful doctor, while she is not able to satisfy her obligation as a woman. The husband rents out a house for the narrator, away from everybody he is demanding her to rest and not do anything. When they arrive at the place the narrator tries telling her husband she does not feel comfortable being there, something is strange about the place and the vibe is off.

The times were hard for women; "John does not know how much I really suffer." (p. 14). John also treats her more like his daughter than his wife; "and calls me a blessed little goose" (p. 15), helps to show how he does this he also read her to sleep as you would an infant. Finally the room which John chooses for him and his wife is the old nursery for the house. The bed is immovable, "it is nailed down (p 19). The windows are barred which gives it a setting of more like a prison or a mad house for the insane.