Understanding Women Literature: How Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” Influenced by Feminism and Women’s Role in Nineteen Centuries

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilmans in 1892 during the Women’s Movement, talked a story about a woman who was diagnosed as “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 300). by her husband and brother who were both physicians. The overall tone of this story was flat, it was just a woman describing the time she spent in a house to recuperate. It was a general representation of other women’s life in nineteen centuries. This story, which is a typical women literature during Victorian Period, was full with women’s helplessness and their determination to break the yoke of women in patriarchal society. Connecting with the history of Feminism and women’s role in nineteen centuries’ patriarchal society, the helplessness and dissatisfaction in this story could be explained.

“My” husband is an important role in this story. He “is a physician of high standing”, and “does not believe I am sick” (Gilman 299). He believes “I” should control myself even if “I” feel painfully to do so (Gilman 300). And there are two sentences from the story which might cause discomfort. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me” (Gilman 300-301). As the primary impression, John is a very good husband, he takes care of his sick wife and loves her in deep. But readers in modern society felt uncomfortable with John’s control of “me”. The reason here is people in modern society gain more knowledge about gender equality, so readers, especially females, do not like John’s behaviors. John is only a representation of men in patriarchal society. They have the absolute authority in the society and the family. So, it is not difficult to comprehend his control of “me”—in his mind, “I” am a belonging of him. He does not care about “my” fear because he “is practical in the extreme, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures” (Gilman 300). He firmly believes his validity, so he ignores “my” illusion, and force “me” to face the fear alone. His thoughts could be recognized everywhere in this story, such as “He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well”. He hopes “I” would recover soon not because “I” felt uncomfortable, but he is not happy about his dependency’s morbidity and disobediently fantasy.

Same as John, there are other roles in this story could reflect women’s miserable living conditions. The first example is the nursing room. As Gilman wrote, “it is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it” (Gilman 301). Monstrous, this is the first feeling as reading these sentences. This room does not look like a nursing room for an adult female, why should the windows be barred? But after deliberation, readers suddenly feel the anger covered by flat narrative technique. “I” was treated as juveniles, who is not old enough to control themselves and do not have enough legal rights. This is also a common living conditions of females in nineteen centuries. The second representative role of women in this story is Jennie, John’s sister. She lived with “us” in the mansion to take care of “me”. She is obliging, and want to help “me” recover from nervous depression. But her thoughts are totally different from “mine”. “I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick” (Gilman 303). Jennie represents the other part of women in the society. They are satisfied with status quo and did not feel anything wrong with them while the other part of women recognizing the inequity and trying to get more legal rights.

Readers can find that except the heroine, other people’s thoughts seem morbid, and the atmosphere created by them and the nursing room is horrific. Some readers will feel confuse about Gilman’s writing style if they do not know any history background about this story. But when looking back to the history from past centuries to nineteen centuries, Gilman’s intention will be explained. In Family Limitation, Sexual Control, and Domestic Feminism in Victorian America, Smith analyzes the women’s role in seventeen centuries till recent America and finds out women only have small control of their life, women only have a little bit legal rights, and the only possibility for them to have bigger rights is when widows playing the roles of died husbands (Smith 40-54). Yildirim also states in “The Woman Question And The Victorian Literature On Gender” that “Victorian ideology of gender rested on the belief that women were both physically and intellectually the inferior sex” (Yildirim 46). During Victorian Period, women’s roles are just daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, people believe God makes women in lower positions and the purpose of women’s existences is serve the family, “A married woman was legally the slave to her husband. She had virtually no rights over her destiny. All the property or money, regardless of their origins, belonged to man. He was the unquestionable owner of the custody of the children” (Yildirim 46-47). Written in that unequal historical condition, it is not surprised to see John’s control of “me” and other people’s attitudes toward it in The Yellow Wallpaper. So, in fact, Gilman describes a true circumstance of nineteen centuries, she shows people the inequality through a flat description, which makes readers fully understand women’s bad living conditions. 

In above is the discussion about historic gender inequality’s influences of the writing of The Yellow Wallpaper, but it is not the only element makes the story thought-provoking. Gilman is a representative personage of Feminism, and she uses the first-person narrative in The Yellow Wallpaper to talk a story comes from her experiences. So, the heroine has some thoughts from Gilman. She wants to write, she feels the inequality, she keeps sanely thinking about her situation……That is a common thing in Victorian Literature, writers create female figures who aware the inequality, let them fight for liberation, and point out their tragedies caused by the gender inequality directly. Women are try to get more rights through writing fictions. According to Yildirim, “Among the many factors contributing to the advancement of women in the Victorian social pyramid, works of fiction played a major role. The social criticism directed towards the injustices against women fostered the awareness of the Victorian female on the path to liberation” (Yildirim 48). Influenced by the environment, The Yellow Paper contains a woman’s accusations of inequality, struggles for liberation, which makes this story unique and remarkable.

In conclusion, The Yellow Wallpaper was influenced by the history elements a lot. As a story written by a woman in nineteen centuries, it builds figures who is unfortunate, who is insensible, who is marble hearted. Long times gender bias makes males and females get use to the control and compliance, and the development of Feminism makes women aware the inequality, these two elements come together build The Yellow Wallpaper, an outcome of a special era.
