Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” exposes the gradual decline of a woman’s mental health as a result of the gender-biased rest cure and her husband’s overbearing oppression with an intricate and unreliable narrative. The rest cure, founded by Silas Weir Mitchell, was used on nineteenth-century women with conditions from insomnia and depression to headaches and indigestion (Stiles 3). Women undergoing the rest cure regimen had to endure bed rest, a fattening diet, massages, electricity, and they were forbidden to read, write, sew, feed oneself, or have contact with friends or family (Stiles 3). Gender roles dominate "The Yellow Wallpaper," displaying stark contrasts between the societal expectations and limitations on each gender (Hughes). This unpredictable narrative clearly depicts a woman’s descent into madness and the restrictions put on women by a male-dominated society.   

The societal ideals of men and women differ between genders, with the expectation of men to be strong, assertive, independent, and provide for the family while the women have the expectation to be devoted to her husband, submissive, pure, and domestic. The fixed gender roles are evident in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the narrator’s husband and physician, John, patronizes his wife when he “laughs at” her and “would not hear of it” when his wife “wanted a room downstairs” (Gilman 299, 300). Along with his failure to listen to the narrator’s comments and requests, John’s continuous use of condescending nicknames, such as “blessed little goose” and “little girl” discloses his lack of respect for the narrator (Gilman 302, 306). The names John calls his wife reveal his self-identification as more intelligent and more knowledgeable of her condition. He continues to play the male’s strong and assertive role when the narrator writes that he “hardly lets” her “stir without special direction” (Gilman 300). John traps the narrator in a male-dominated world where she is unable to act for herself. The narrator expresses that “It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so” exposing her obedience and submissiveness towards her husband’s authority (Gilman 305). The narrator feels entrapped in her role as a submissive and devoted wife that she does not doubt John’s authority and supposes that he is superior and in control of her. 

In the nineteenth century, the Declaration of Sentiments was drafted to fight for the equal treatment of men and women (Women’s Rights Movement). The Declaration of Sentiments listed the areas of life where women were treated discriminatorily, for example, “women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine” and “husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity” (Women’s Rights Movement). When the narrator asks John if she could “make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia” since she has been “awfully lazy” he said that she “wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it” exhibiting the oppression set on the narrator by John (Gilman 305). It is evident in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the narrator is aware that she is not fulfilling her role as a woman who takes care of the family at home while John is fulfilling his role because he “is away all day” when she “meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already” (Gilman 301). The narrator hints at her belief of Mary being “so good with the baby” making Mary a symbol of the ideal woman of the nineteenth century, while the narrator is a woman fighting for equal treatment of men and women (Gilman 301). 

John’s use of the gender-biased rest cure caused the narrator’s imprisonment and applied cruelty, not allowing her to write in her journal, to smother her artistic capability and live the life she desires (Hume). When the narrator first sees the house, she describes the house as “a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate” (Gilman 299). She observes that the house as an isolated building “standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village” surrounded by “gates that lock” (Gilman 300). These observations of the house surrounded by “gates that lock” are the first signs that this house is not an ordinary, abandoned building (Gilman 300). When John brings the narrator to the room he isolates her in, an aspect of the rest cure, she says that she does not “like our room a bit” but John did not allow her to move to a separate room (Gilman 300). She goes on to say that it was a “was nursery first” because “the windows are barred” and there were “rings and things in the walls” (Gilman 301). She describes the paint and paper with “flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” with a “repellant” color and “a smoldering unclean yellow” continuously reiterating her disgust with the room (Gilman 301). The wallpaper in the room acts as the imaginary bars of the narrator’s personal cage and a symbol of the imprisonment and oppression of women. The most significant piece of furniture in the room is the bed bolted to the floor, where she is ordered to lay in for the whole time she stays there, drawing a suspicion that this room is not an old nursery room. The locked gates around the house, barred windows, and rings and things in the wall leads to the conclusion that the house is an old, abandoned asylum for mental health patients. The narrator did not question that the house is an abandoned asylum, because she is subservient to her husband’s actions. The gradual decline of the narrator’s mental health is continued when she claims she has thoughts of “burning the house—to reach the smell” and having hallucinations of that “a great many women behind” the wallpaper (Gilman 308, 309). The narrator believes that the women is “all the time trying to climb through” but “nobody could climb through that pattern – it strangles so” (Gilman 309). She envisions the woman “gets out in the daytime” which is what she desires to do. The narrator yearns to escape the room she is isolated in and the oppressive rest cure and male-dominated world John has trapped her in. The overfeeding, isolation, and bed rest causes the narrator’s descent into insanity to progress until she bites the nailed down bed, peels “off all the paper” she “could reach standing on the floor” and locks the door to her room (Gilman 311). When John finally breaks down the door, he finds the narrator “creeping” causing John to faint and the narrator to “creep over him” (Gilman 312). When the narrator creeps over her husband, she is completely free of her lack of control over her life and John’s dominating lifestyle. 

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays the hardships women were made to endure from a male-dominated society which shoved women of the nineteenth century into a subservient class of person. The gender-biased rest cure of isolation, overfeeding, and bed rest results in a woman’s descent into madness. The isolation of the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” resulted in a narrative of her pathway to insanity, but the escape to freedom and a life of control and power. 

 