Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper

comes John, and I must put this away,­­ he hates to have me write a word.”(Gillman 3), The fact

The forceful tone throughout the passage I chose, and story, shows that Gilman was forcefully trying to get her point across through the narrator of the story, that resting, and confinement were not the answers to curing mental health issues, such as postpartum depression, in the late nineteenth century, “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them, but it does exhaust me a good deal- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman, P. 462). She is forceful. She does not agree with the ideas of rest and confinement as a cure. The narrator wants to be able to be free and live with the normal excitements of life. In addition, she states forcefully, that she writes in spite of her husband and brother. The narrator knows that writing helps her and wants the reader to know that she continues to do it anyways, because she knows that it is in the best interest of her health, to be able to clear her head, by writing down her

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.

John attempts to control even her inner life, her writing. She says that "he hates to have me write a word" (482). He says the writing is not good for people who are sick. He tells her that it will slow down her healing. Writing is the only thing that’s keeping her sane, but she is unable to do it freely. She has to hide her words so John does not find them. This shows that John has mental control as well as physical control.

Like the narrator, women of that time were directed to suppress their creativity as it threatened the dominating male's sense of control. By having the narrator be forced to write in secret, "There comes John, and I must put this away -- he hates to have me write a word," Gilman was able to show that even the simplest things, like wanting to write were forbidden, lest the male approved (392). Prohibited from working and not being able to contribute to the household as a proper wife, the narrator begins to feel helpless: "So I… am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas" (390). The narrator’s husband and brother both exert their own will over hers, forcing her to do what they think is the appropriate behavior for a sick woman. She has been given a "schedule[d] prescription for each hour in the day; [John] takes all care from me" (391). The way that she is required to act involves practically no exertion of her own free-will. Instead, she is expected to obediently accept the fact that her own ideas are mere fancy, and only the opinions of the men in her life can be trusted. The fact that she is not allowed to think for herself is narrowing the extent of her authority in her life and of her autonomy.

John attempts to control even her inner life, her writing. She says that "he hates to have me write a word" (482). He says the writing is not good for people who are sick. He tells her that it will slow down her healing. Writing is the only thing that’s keeping her sane, but she is unable to do it freely. She has to hide her words so John does not find them. This shows that John has mental control as well as physical control.

“What is it, little girl” he said. ”Don’t go walking about like that- you’ll get cold.”(Gilman, ) John’s “love” to her was like a father to their child. It’s as if he’s trying to “protect” her, but she does not feel protected. As a matter of a fact, she is starting to feel oppressed.

Analysis: The above quotations clearly display the similarity between John and the Narrator’s relationship to that of a father and a daughter. John controls the majority of the Narrator’s behavior to the point she feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for her incapacity as John’s wife. The Narrator is restricted in her actions and is therefore unable to fulfil her wifely duties, forcing her to consider herself as a burden. When is reality, John treats the Narrator as his daughter and does not permit her to complete her duty. For instance, the Narrator dislikes the yellow wallpaper and wishes to have it removed; however, John does not allow her to do so and acts as if it would feed into a child’s stubbornness. His continued belief in his superiority disregards the Narrator as is wife and instead infantilizes her. He believes her identity exists only through him, which merely encourages his paternalistic

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.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through

Just as Emily is destroyed by her father's over-protectiveness, the first-person narrator of "The Yellow Wall-Paper," is secluded from both life and reality by her over-protective husband. The narrator is both creative and eccentric; her husband is "practical in the extreme" (160). She believes that "congenial work, with excitement and change, would do [her] good" (160). Her husband, however, believes in the strength of conventional medicine such as the "rest cure" for nervous diseases (164). Like Emily's father who denies her a family and a life of her own, the husband of Gilman's narrator denies not only her desire to write, but also her craving for "society and stimulus" as she struggles to find a creative outlet (160). This appears a type of solitary confinement for such a creative being, and it should come as no surprise that she is crazed after months of lying in bed with no company other than

She thought that writing her feelings in a journal would help her sickness while John disagreed. She did her best to keep herself from going insane. She often saw herself in the wallpaper and was constantly obsessing over the wallpaper. I believe that the wallpaper symbolizes the trapped life she has. She never has a say in anything.

     The narrator of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is driven to madness after she withdraws into herself. “I am alone” (Gilman 44), she tells us. Desperately trying to express her feelings to John, she says “I told him that I really was not gaining here and that I wish he would take me

She speaks as though her opinions to do not count anyway, but she is very accepting of this. She belittles herself several more times throughout the story. "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and her I am a comparative burden already" (Barnet 747). Having read the text through to the end we know that she is in a mental hospital, a reader could most likely begin to imagine what John may have been thinking to have witnessed his wife go through such disturbing mental anguish and that he was only going off of the knowledge available at this point in time. How would the story be different if it had been written from John’s point of view?

“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 to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” The narrator desires to think for herself but instead she submits to her husband. She also does not have confidence in herself she just takes over the idea that she has a “condition”. This also