Women in the late nineteenth century were generally viewed as homemakers, "the economy and the society dictated that women should work in the home, taking care of home and hearth" (IVCC). They had little influence on the lives of those around them or their own lives. Viewed as weak, passive, and susceptible to madness, women in 1890 were belittled and seen as second-class citizens with few rights. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper, the unnamed main character represents the different aspects of woman's culture in the late nineteenth century through soliloquies, symbolism, and character digression. 

Written in a first-person narrative, much of what the reader is getting to hear and picture is a soliloquy. Only the reader can understand the thoughts of the narrator as her feelings are expressed through the hidden writing only the reader can see as told and thought by only the narrator. As she shares her feelings about her desires and how she feels about her husband, the reader can begin to form the image that her opinions and desires are undervalued if not completely unrecognized by her husband.  This is typical, as Her husband, a physician named John, believes her to have a temporary nervous depression and slight hysterical tendency. The narrator believes the opposite of what John says. She "believes that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do her good" (154) and expresses her inability to share her desires with her husband because "he is careful and loving, and hardly lets her stir without special direction" (155). He constantly turns down her desires to change the wallpaper and leave the house and have company over. In the nineteenth century, "it was a wife's duty to care for her husband's interests" (TeachUsHistory.org), and therefore, she chooses to respect her husband's wishes for her more than her own. She goes on to talk much more about his control over her and complements how "he is so wise, and loves her so", but she finds "it is so hard to talk with John about her case" (159). She eventually gives up on sharing her desires with him after they discuss going away three weeks before the rental is over. At this point we receive only her thoughts that constantly remain inside of her. She "is getting a little afraid of John" (161) and starts to make up for her lack of control of her desires by focusing intensely on the wallpaper and finding a pattern within it. She eventually gets so lost in this control and suppressing her thoughts that she seems to have become the pattern. She "shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard" (165). She is now in control and has become the woman behind the wallpaper that she was desperately trying to get to.

This woman behind the wallpaper symbolizes what the narrator wants to be. She feels trapped and controlled by her husband and wants to be free and creep about as she pleases. "Women were forced to remain at home because their husbands were expected to go out into the world" (TeachUsHistory.org) in the late nineteenth century, but many women wanted something more. The narrator "believes that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do her good" (154), showing that she wants some kind of control in her life. Women's lack of control in the 1890's is depicted in the story multiple times as the narrator's desires are constantly being ignored and overlooked, along with the fact that her husband "hardly lets her stir without special direction" (155). She requests to have the room repapered and although John "meant to repaper the room, he said that she was letting it get the better of her" (156) and dismissed the idea in an instant. Her lack of control is symbolized by the crazy designs in the wallpaper. They represent the many different desires and emotions that she has that are all stirring, and she is the woman stuck behind the wallpaper that represents control. "The wallpaper is torn off in spots" (157) representing that she has given up on some desires and "the woman behind", being the narrator, "shakes it" (163) to try and escape the control. "She is always creeping" around during the daytime trying to write and avoid the control around her from her husband and at night, she is stuck behind the control when her husband is at home. She finally attempts to escape the control at the end when she locks herself in the room and she wonders, "if they all come out of that wallpaper as she did" (165). This is a strange part of the story as coming out of the wallpaper represents her newfound freedom and control. The narrator seems to have entered an almost childlike state in which she disobeys John by locking herself in the room and seemingly having control of a situation. 

Women in the 1890's were generally viewed as weak, passive, and susceptible to madness. Children are generally related to the same qualities and live in a certain fear and respect for their fatherly figure. John constantly makes decisions for his wife and puts her in the room that once held children. This foreshadowing of character digression relates the narrator to the same characteristics of a child as her time passes within the room. Her "imaginative power and habit of story-making" lead more to the belief that she is like a child. John calls her 'little girl' (160) when she wakes up in the middle of the night to look at the wall. She also builds a small fear for John, like that which a child would have for a fatherly figure. As her childishness and imagination progress to higher levels, she begins to form the image of a woman behind the wallpaper. Children generally lack control in a household, and search for ways that they can have it, as the narrator does in the story. She eventually disobeys the rules when she "locked the door and threw the key down into the front path" (165), showing even more her progression of childishness as she seemingly pretends to be the woman stuck behind the wallpaper. "In spite of you and Jane" (166), "you" referring to John and "Jane" referring to her old adult version of herself, she has escaped the control of adults represented by the wallpaper.

Stereotypes about women in the nineteenth century ultimately led women to attempt to escape the prison that was marriage shortly after 1890. The lack of control in the narrator's marriage drove her to keep all of her emotions and desires pent up inside of her. That along with her lack of control ultimately led to her characteristic digression from an adult to that of a child and she seemingly loses her mind. She had little influence on her own life and, in an effort to find control, she loses control of herself. 
