Although the modern feminist movement is sweeping the country right now, the original movement took place in the late nineteenth century when women first began fighting for basic rights. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an author who became quite popular during the feminist movement of the late nineteenth century, used some of her own personal experience to pen one of the most famous works of that time, "The Yellow Wallpaper." This short story encompasses the feelings of oppressed women from that time period who longed for equal rights with men. Gilman also touches on the subject of insanity and the unfair treatment commonly used in that day. The imagery she used helped to paint a clear picture of how women were treated, and opened many people's eyes to the reality of the situation. The work was controversial and ended up having a lasting effect on the lives of American women. The author's experience with hysteria and the influence of current events helped to mold her message conveyed in "the Yellow Wallpaper."

The author herself had an experience similar to the one that she writes about in "the Yellow Wallpaper." Jane F. Thrailkill, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in American literature, explained Gilman's background in depth. Although the hysteric episodes and hallucinations that she described in the short story were fictional and embellished for effect, Charlotte Perkins Gilman had her own issues with mental health and male doctors who did not take her seriously. She suffered from a mental illness and was treated by a male neurologist named S. Weir Mitchell (Thrailkill 526). He didn't even consider her thoughts on the issue, and was very rude and dogmatic towards her when discussing her treatment (Thrailkill 526). "As one of her biographers wrote, '(Mitchell) found utterly useless the long letter she had written to him detailing her symptoms; that she should imagine her observations would be of any interest to him was but an indication of her 'self-conceit,' he advised her'" (Thrailkill 526). She was submitted to some of the same treatment that the main character endures in the short story. This experience helped to inspire Gilman's writing and spark her interest in the feminist movement. 

At the time that this short story was written in the late nineteenth century, America was beginning to see slight changes within the home in certain regions of the country. The Northeast, in particular, was beginning to make the transition into the era of the modern American household (Sanderson 305). Women were beginning to have less children, sending the message that they wanted to move away from their traditional roles as homemakers and become more independent in the public sphere (Sanderson 305). "In the late nineteenth century, white women of native parentage living in urban areas of the Northeastern United States did not reproduce themselves" (Sanderson 305). Although contraceptives were still illegal at this point in American history, women were making the decision to have less children in order to assert their independence and have more time to get a job (Sanderson 305). This correlates to "the Yellow Wallpaper" because the main character wants to break free from her traditional role and her husband's strict instructions. She wants to be able to get out into the world and experience new things. As she is removing the wallpaper that controls her mind, the narrator says, "It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!" (Gilman 220). This expresses how much she enjoys being free from the bonds of her husband and being able to do as she pleases. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was born and raised in the Northeast, so the social changes of the time probably had some effect on her work.

In the short story, Gilman uses the metaphor of a woman trapped in the pattern of the wallpaper to represent women of that time period. She creates an image of a group of women who can't escape the grasp of men's superiority with lines such as, "The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out" (Gilman 215). The woman in the story relates to the women she sees "creeping" in the wallpaper and outside in the garden because she, too, feels suffocated in the house her husband wants her to stay in (Gilman 219). During the late nineteenth century, women were very controlled by men and often felt that they couldn't voice their own opinions. This is clearly apparent in the short story, because the main character's strict husband won't let her write (Gilman 210). "There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word" (Gilman 210). In 1893, Cara Reese, a journalist from Chicago and a contributor to the women's suffrage movement wrote, "Years of suffering and sacrifice, of oppression and suppression, had driven the woman of the past to the wall" (Reese). This proves that women of the late nineteenth century were literally going insane due to the fact that they couldn't express themselves freely. This insanity is quite apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper as the main character experiences hallucinations and obsesses over the wallpaper in her dull room (Gilman 217). 

The way the author describes the drastic treatment of the main character's mental illness further supports her point that women were being mistreated. Not only was the woman treated differently because of her gender, but also because she was mentally unstable. In that time period, hysteria or mental illness was very often unfairly linked to women (Vicaro 14). In the story, she explains how her husband wants to keep her locked away to help her recover, but she disagrees. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good" (Gilman 209). In those days, the mentally ill were to be locked up instead of being intellectually stimulated, which ended up making their conditions worse (Vicaro 14). Very often, hysteria and other mental illnesses were swept under the rug and not properly treated (Vicaro 14). A scholarly article discussing hysteria said, "Given what was perceived as a propensity to self-and other-deception, medical doctors often found it best to simply ignore hysterics' testimony all together" (Vicaro 14). This explains why the woman's husband, who was a doctor, thought it would be in her best interest to keep her in confinement. 

The story itself was not entirely well received when it was first published, and didn't gain much attention until years later (Shumaker 588). When it was first submitted to Horace Scudder, the male editor of the Atlantic Monthly, he made the decision not to print it (Shumaker 588). He wrote a letter explaining his reasons to Gilman, stating, "'I could not forgive myself if I made others as miserable as I have made myself'" (Shumaker 588). As expected, the story was not well received by men (Shumaker 588). It threatened their authority over women and their coveted place in the public sphere. Near the end of the story, Gilman introduces a new idea of feminine power that men of that time were not fond of. When the main character's husband walks in to find her tearing down all the wallpaper in the midst of her mental breakdown, she says, "'I've got out at last' said I, 'in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back'" (Gilman 221)! This dialogue is one of the lines that probably struck male readers the hardest when the story was first published in the late nineteenth century. The woman openly defied her husband and finally expressed her true feelings. The husband was so shocked by this turn of events that he fainted, but the woman continued to "creep" over him nonetheless (Gilman 221). 

Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," was used in the late nineteenth century to open the public's eyes to the unfair treatment women were receiving. The author used powerful and embellished circumstances drawn from her past experiences to show just how unfairly women were being treated by men in society. She also defended those who experienced mental illness, and displayed the damage that the common treatment of the day could do to the human soul. Her work helped voice the thoughts of women everywhere who wanted equal rights and freedom from the overbearing men in their lives.

