The 19th amendment of America's Constitution, ratified on August 18, 1920, states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."  One sentence is all Congress needed to give women voting rights.  One sentence culminated a tireless campaign by countless women to secure the privileges of citizenship they were born into.   Yet, one sentence is not nearly enough to adequately summarize the struggles and hardships of the many women who fought for women's rights for years before this and years to come.  While it is easy to read the Constitution with the singular objective of finding out more about the laws that make this nation great, a thorough knowledge of the culture and history surrounding the drafting and ratification of those laws can give one not only a more enriching reading of the Constitution but a greater understanding of the laws themselves as well.  The same thing might be said about any written work.  For example, if one were to look at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" without any foreknowledge of the women's suffrage movement of the late 1800's, one would think it merely a macabre tale of a women who is slowly driven mad.  However, a close look at the historical context tells one much about why "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written the way it was written.  Such foreknowledge about the author's own experience with mental illness, the suffrage movement during this time period, and the intended and actual effect it had on readers, greatly enhances one's experience of "The Yellow Wallpaper".

For literature lovers, perhaps one of the most valuable commentaries on their favorite works are the ones written by the authors of the works themselves.  Luckily for those who love "The Yellow Wallpaper", Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote just such a piece.  In "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper", she talks about how she went through a very similar experience as her main character, saying, 

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went  to a noted specialist in nervous diseases... This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure and sent me home with solemn advice to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived. This was in 1887.

Going on to say that she "came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that [she] could see over," it is clear that Gilman knew what she was talking about as it regards the circumstances of "The Yellow Wallpaper".  Writing from personal experience probably helped Gilman not only to get her point across more effectively but also to write her story in a realistic and believable fashion.  The fact that Gilman's own struggle with depression greatly influenced her story shows how valuable foreknowledge of an author's history can be to the reading and interpreting of a text.  

Another way to better understand an author's motivations or ideas for a piece is to look at the historical context surrounding the time period in which the piece was written.  In 1892, the same year in which "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written, Elizabeth Cady Stanton made a speech entitled "The Solitude of Self".  On the necessity of women receiving a higher education Stanton remarks, "No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they must know something of the laws of navigation."  To paraphrase what Stanton is saying, no other person can live for another because no other person is exactly like another.  Stanton, as the old adage goes, was striking while the iron was hot.  With the Progressive Era just beginning, women everywhere were starting to come out of the home and into the public sphere more often (NWHM).  Several years before "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Solitude of Self" were written, the first vote on women's suffrage was held in the Senate and was shot down (NWHM).  America was ready to have women take a larger place in society, politics, and education.  Taking the historical and cultural context into account, it does not come as any surprise to discover that "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written during this time period.  Throughout the story, allusions are made to the fact that nobody listens to the main character because she is a woman, that the cultural norm is for women to be gentle and submissive to their husbands, and that women are little more than children totally and unequivocally dependent on their husbands for everything.  It is clear that Gilman is crying out against all of these things due to the rather chilling way the story ends; which, although ambiguous and vague, seems to imply that the main character killed herself.  A thorough understanding of the events and culture surrounding the writing of a work of literature can be highly important to a thoughtful interpretation of that work.

In examining a text, it is often helpful when interpreting said text to look at the intended versus actual effects the text had on its readers.  Unlike many other authors, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is not loathe to state clearly what her intended effect is for "The Yellow Wallpaper".  In "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper", Gilman elaborates being cured of her depression, saying, 

Being naturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal (I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledged it... Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading "The Yellow Wallpaper". 

From this, it can be inferred that one of her intended effects indeed came to fruition: that of the conviction of the doctor whose bad advice inspired Gilman to write her story in the first place.  Reading on in "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper" leads to another motivation Gilman may have had for writing such a tale, "The little book has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate--so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered."  She later goes on to say, "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked."  To prevent others from suffering a similar fate as both herself and the main character of her story, Gilman wrote this macabre and chilling tale to inspire men to change the way they treated women and women to speak out against the norms that were holding them back.  It was intended to have the effect it had; that is, to shed light on both the importance of taking a woman's opinion on her own life seriously and the risks of the then popular "rest treatment".  Looking at the effects, both intended and actual, of a story upon its readers can reveal much about the authors motivations for writing the story, which in turn can help the reader to better understand the story itself.  

At the time Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper", the 19th amendment was still 22 years in the future.  Women were still very much subservient housekeepers and baby factories, all but owned by their husbands.  While change had been set in motion, it would not come to fruition for many years after these events.  Therefore, for Gilman to have written such a controversial tale was groundbreaking in the extreme.  Gilman was one of very few women writers at the time, and one of still fewer who were brave enough to speak out against the status quo.  A forerunner and hastener of change, Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" certainly did what it was meant to do: shock the world into action.  Knowledge of these facts about Gilman, women's suffrage, and the intended effects "The Yellow Wallpaper" had on its readers adds new meaning to her story which would otherwise seem to be little more than a morbid tale of a crazy lady.  While perhaps not necessary for every single work of literature, such research into the background of a piece is, a large portion of the time, invaluable.  Think how different one's perception of the laws of America would be without proper historical context.  The 19th amendment is but one example among many.  While it took but one sentence for the fate of women in America to change, it takes far more than one sentence to accurately sum up what the women of this country went through to get there. 

