For the majority of our country's history, women have not been had access to the same rights and privileges as their male counterparts. In the late 1800's women were treated so unequally that is hard to imagine something like that being socially acceptable, especially considering the time we live in now. Which is why when analyzing works like "The Yellow Wallpaper", you need to not only pay careful attention to the words themselves, but also the time period the piece was written. When studying the short story today "readers seem to have ignored or avoided the connection between the narrator's condition and patriarchal politics". (*Primary) People tend to focus more on the narrator plunging into madness rather than the internal struggle she is facing regarding women's role in society domestically and socially. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about the oppression that woman faced in the early 20th century and one woman's struggle to overcome it.

Written in 1892, "The Yellow Wallpaper" depicts a universal struggle that most American women were facing at this time. The United States was a complete patriarchy and women had trouble rising up and being heard. At this point in time, more and more women started entering the work force, more so than they ever had before. But even so, few were actually able to support themselves. Because of this, many women were forced to rely on the support of their husbands. So as the men go off to work, the women were burdened with domestic duties. (*Secondary). This further fueled the oppression that women faced as they found themselves trapped within their household sphere and forced to live dependently on a man. The unbalanced power that the man had in a family's domestic life is accurately portrayed in the story when the narrator interacts with John, who is her husband as well as her physician. Throughout the story, John continually treats the narrator as if she is a step below him, he keeps her "infantilized and immobilized" (*Primary), as if she can't do anything on her own. When referring to the narrator, he makes comments such as "little girl" and "Bless her little heart" (*YW215). The narrator is being treated like many women were in that time period. Treated as though they are unequal to men, as if they are just objects owned by their husbands. Women weren't given the independence that everyone should enjoy in life. John wouldn't allow the narrator to do even the simplest of tasks on her own, when faced with going up and down the stairs, John "gather[s] [her] up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed" (*YW 214). The narrator is lacking the independence that women at the time deserved, and much of the reason the narrator doesn't have it is because of the power that John's voice carries. This fact alone is why many historians consider "The Yellow Wallpaper" a feminist classic. They see the language of the narrator a perfect representation of "women's language or the language of the powerless". (*Primary), which was prevalent with women in the 19th century. John constantly shrugs off the narrator's remarks and insists that "[he] is controlling her for her own good" (*Primary). For the most part, the narrator listens to John, seeing as he is her husband as well as her physician, she says aloud she agrees with him even when she doesn't. Only in her writing does her true feelings come out. Before becoming obsessing with the wallpaper and descending into madness, there is only one point in time where her feelings of John arise, and they are at the very beginning of her bed-cure treatment. She writes in her journal, "John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)-perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster."(*YW209)  While the narrator still has her wits about her, she questions John's true intentions but, because of the oppression that she faces, she would not dare speak up to question his actions. In her time, she is in a position where that is unheard of, she is the clear subordinate. Writing was the one way the narrator kept sane throughout her treatment and it was also her primary way of coping with the oppression that she faced. But, when she John prohibited her from writing, her qualms had to be expressed in some medium. The new medium turned out to be the yellow wallpaper that covered her room.

The wallpaper that the narrator obsesses over is a symbol for her trying to escape the marriage that she was trapped in. While being banned from reading or writing in her journal, she begins to study the wallpaper in order to find an escape from the imprisonment that her marriage has put her in. One of the first remarks the narrator about it is "This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!" (*YW212). From the very beginning, the narrator knew this wall paper was special, which can partially contribute to why she is tormented by it. The "vicious influence" that the wallpaper posses, is what it symbolizes, the oppression she, and women like her, is facing in her marriage. Figuring out the wallpaper puts the narrator in the danger of having to go against her husband, society, and the social norms of the early 19th century. At first, it was hard for the narrator to see what the shape behind the wall paper and what it represented. Early on, she saw a "formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design." (*YW212). This quote is referring to how men were the face of the family, as well as the country all while women were forced to hide in the shadows. But as she begins to tear the wall paper off piece by piece, she begins to see the truth. Her eyes are opened by the wallpaper, she remarks, "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will." (*YW214) She has become aware of the mistreatment that she and all women have been facing. By deciphering the wallpaper, it "allows the narrator to escape her husbands sentence and to achieve the limited freedom of madness which . constitutes a kind of sanity in the face of the insanity of male dominance" (*Primary). The narrator finally succeeds in tearing down the wallpaper and in turn freeing the woman who was trapped behind it, saying as though she had freed herself. She had to succumb to insanity in order to deal with, and eventually thwart the male oriented world that she lived in. 

Still, some aspects of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is shrouded in mystery. Many literary historians have analyzed it but "much of what happens in the story seems distorted or unexplained" (*Secondary). Much of that has to do with how unreliable the narrator can be at times. The crazier she gets the vaguer she becomes, and her increasingly erratic behavior make it difficult to understand what is actually going on. Because of this, the story is open-ended can be interpreted to mean a number of different things, ranging from the oppression women face to the ineffectiveness of aged medical techniques, such as the bed cure. But even still, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is herald as a classic piece of American literature as well as one of the best American feminist pieces to date.

