
The women’s rights movement began in the 19th century to give a voice to women. Historically women have been oppressed by a male dominated society. During the 1800s American women became tired of this and set out to find a better life for themselves. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by an American author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman written in 1892. Gilman was an important feminist writer who wrote about women’s health and their mental welfare. She wrote this at a time where being a successful woman was very unorthodox. Gilman argued that maternal roles for women were very old fashioned and it was time for equality of men and women. This piece was written at a time when change was needed for women and, Gilman uses The Yellow Wallpaper to give a voice to women’s oppression in the 19th century. 

The history of women oppression goes all the way back to biblical times and still happens in many places in the world today. For centuries women have been seen as the weaker sex because of their physical appearance and the fact that they bear children. In the 1800s women were not able to make decisions for themselves or their families; they could not own property and could not vote. Females were commonly diagnosed with psychological disorders and sent away to insane asylums if their husbands and families did not want to deal with them. 

The Yellow Wallpaper is about a woman, Jane, who is forced to stay in a summer home by her husband. Jane suffers from what seems today to be postpartum depression after giving birth to her baby, but her husband ignores her illness. He acts superior to her and thinks he is helping her. Her husband forces her stay in a room covered with yellow wallpaper that makes the narrator feel uncomfortable. She spends hours in the room looking at the wallpaper and secretly writing in her journal about the experiences in the room. The more time the woman was forced to spend in this room, the more her mental health deteriorates. The isolation in the yellow room makes her dwell on the wallpaper and as a result only focuses on the markings on the wallpaper which eventually led to her insanity. At first the wallpaper is a bunch of confusing designs that bother Jane. As time goes on Jane sees a woman in the wallpaper. She talks about how the woman is trapped and trying to get out. Finally, Jane sees herself in the wallpaper and rips it all off. 

There is a large amount of symbolism in this story. Karen Ford, writer of 

“‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Women’s Discourse”, writes about how the color yellow itself can mean rebirth and happiness; instead the narrator talks of the “unclean yellow” that is unpleasant and depressing. The patterns on the wallpaper start too close in on Jane and symbolize her feelings of being trapped. When Jane rips off the wallpaper it symbolizes how Jane’s husband trapped her in this yellow room and she was not allowed to do anything. Jane’s way of getting out of this was to rip off the wallpaper, so that she could be free. The journal writing represents Jane’s need for independence and shows the different levels of Jane’s sanity throughout the story. At the end Jane hovers over her husband’s body as a symbol that she has defeated him.  

Gilman’s inspiration for writing this short story was because she herself suffered from depression (Karen). Similar to what Gilman wrote in her short story about Jane, Gilman got married and had a baby, so she was already susceptible to depression. Gilman sought out a physician named Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the doctor Gilman puts in her short story, who suggested that she do a “rest cure.” This “rest cure” required her to be as domestic as possible and was not to write or have much stimulation in her day. After three months of doing this she decided to stop and realized that she was about to have a mental breakdown. This is when she began to write The Yellow Wallpaper and Gilman discussed her experiences but exaggerated them. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman references Mitchell when she talks about Jane’s husband wanting to send her to see him if she does not get better. The narrator then says that “he is just like John and my brother, only more so!” pointing out that Dr. Mitchell has the same views as the husband only worse and would not help Jane at all (Gilman). Gilman sent her story to her Doctor, but never sent a response. Mitchell did not change his treatments either but wanted hospitals to prescribe his “rest cure.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this short story to show the need for better treatment of women. In the article “Managing Madness in Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’” the author, Beverly A. Hume, states that Gilman wanted to expose the extreme lack in medical judgment for women.  They were often misdiagnosed because psychiatry was a male-dominated profession (Hume). Hume interviewed Gilman about what she was feeling during the time she wrote the story and she responded with “near borderline of utter mental ruin” showing how her postpartum depression was so severe. Hume also states in her article about Gilman that people saw hysteria as an attempt to avoid being a wife or mother. This is another misdiagnoses of women during the 1800s. According to Jason and Daniel Freeman, “Social and cultural pressures caused women to seek treatment”, because of the overwhelming male dominance in this society. Another fact found in Freeman’s work is that women were more likely to have mental illnesses than men because of their social situation. Many women were mistreated by their husbands or fathers and this can cause insanity (Freeman). In The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane was forced in the room because of depression which did not help her illness. This caused her to become more ill because she was not surrounded by people or doing things she loved. In the 1950s psychology professor Donald Hebb proved that isolation can cause disorientation and hallucinations (Pouba and Tianen). This shows that doctors at this time misdiagnosed their patients and that led them to more insanity. Hebb held a very controversial study where volunteers would be sent into isolation and deprivation conditions. This was funded by the CIA and was done in secret. The experiment led to the fact that isolation can cause hallucinations (Pouba and Tianen). According to Katherine Pouba and Ashley Tianen, authors of Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women’s Admission to Asylum in United States of America, Mental Illness during the 1800s was not taken very seriously. If a person was diagnosed with a mental illness, they were usually isolated somewhere so no one could see them. Families would ignore the problem and was very embarrassed of that person. Mental hospitals were exposed for their horrible treatment of patients and bad conditions. People were starting to do something about the treatment of mentally ill. Treatments would usually be the same for each individual even if they had a different disease. This obviously does not work because for every disease there needs to be a certain treatment that helps that disease (Pouba and Tianen). By the late 1800s a scientist named Emil Kraepelin began researching different mental illness to find a treatment. According to Jason and Daniel Freeman, men in the 19th century blamed mental illness on women’s reproductive and sexual systems and that they are emotionally unstable. This is not true because mental illness can be caused by genetic, biological or environmental factors. Throughout history one can see that once a person is diagnosed with a mental illness it is really hard to become a “normal” person because of society’s judgement. This is another reason woman were often misdiagnosed because their husbands or family would not want to have a reputation of having a mental insane person close to them. By writing The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman wanted to make sure the mentally ill had a fair treatment. 

Gilman wanted to change society’s minds on how they viewed the roles of women. According to Hume during the 19th century women were oppressed and domestic violence happened very often. Jane’s husband was very condescending, and this did not help Jane situation. Because men were more superior to women during this time Jane could not stand up for herself and tell her husband that keeping her imprisoned was wrong. Jane’s husband forbids her from writing because it would form an identity for her and that was wrong at this time. Jane’s husband is a huge reason she lost her sanity. He would talk to her as if she was a child and mentally abused her. Since she was a woman, he believed she could not think for herself. He threatened to send her to the doctor, and Jane would do anything for this not to happen because she was scared of the doctor. This is showing how doctors were not trustworthy during this time. Doctors were seen by patients that were going to die, so they were much feared (Hume).

Gilman believed that writing was the only existence for women because they had so little rights. In the 1890s thing were changing for women’s rights; it was the beginning of a long journey for women to get rights (Karen). One including the National Women’s Suffrage Movement which started in the late 1800s and reformed social issues in the United States. Treatment for all mentally ill patients was terrible during this time. People were finally realizing the horrible conditions of asylums and were trying to fight this (Pouba and Tianen). The mentally ill were treated like animals in filthy and abusive environments (Pouba and Tianen). Phillipe Pinel, a reformist for this issue, said that “mentally ill patients would improve if they were treated with kindness and consideration” talking about this horrible issue in the late 1800s (Freeman). Husband and fathers would place their daughters and wives in mental facilities so they could basically ignore the problem. There were many domestic violence laws passed and the right to vote was becoming a huge discussion. The first gathering devoted to women’s rights was held in the late 19th century around the time Gilman wrote this. There was an absence of job opportunities, education, and political voice for women. In the late 1890s middle class women became activists for this cause (Freeman). Gilman felt the need to write this to be a voice for women’s rights. 

Medical treatment and diagnoses for mental illness has come a long way since the 1800’s. People are evaluated and prescribed proven treatment.  However postpartum depression has only recently recognized by the medical community. The depression that happens after child birth has been proven to be a hormonal shift in women. This can be treated with medication and psychotherapy not isolation and “rest cure”. There are still many society’s and cultures that feel that this disorder is just a woman being neurotic or insane and are ashamed.

Gilman uses the rhetorical strategy of pathos in The Yellow Wallpaper. Pathos is the emotional appeal to the audience. Gilman uses emotion and values to get the point across to her readers. The reader becomes very invested in the narrator’s feelings toward her husband and the obsession with the wall paper. Gilman uses an individual story to connect with the audience because the story is so close to what happened to her. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane is a victim and is being treated very badly by her husband. In basic ethics women and men are supposed to be equal. This is not true during this time or story, so Gilman makes an extreme circumstance to show how much this needs to be changed. The story is narrated in the first person by Jane and this also makes the readers connect to the story. By using the first person, the readers are sucked into the story and really feel for what she is going through.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman had a strong belief for women that they needed equal rights. Gilman is a huge advocate of women because of what she did for the mentally ill and domestic affairs. With her story, The Yellow Wallpaper, people began to realize the cruel and unfair treatment of the mentally ill and women. The story was a voice for women who were too scared to speak out about their conditions. She connected to the audience emotionally by telling her own story. In the late 1800s women were not taken as seriously and especially if they had a mental illness, Gilman gave them a voice and helped the cause. She showed how husbands treated their wives like children or animals. Inequality of men and women is still alive today in America and throughout the world. Many women that have postpartum depression are ashamed of their feelings and do not seek help or live in cultures that hide the illness. We have come a long way but still have a way to go to have equality for all women.
