As with any social movement there has to be a start somewhere. Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is a social commentary about the treatment of women in the late 19th century. At a time when women’s roles were to have and raise children and tend to domestic work, mental illnesses such as depression or hysteria, typically feminine issues, were not taken seriously. Gilman uses her own experiences with depression to write this chilling tale. Jane, the story’s protagonist, is trapped in the confines of a typical marriage of the time. She feels she is unable to disagree with her husband for the sake of preserving the illusion of a perfect marriage. The wallpaper is symbolic of the trapped feeling Jane and many other women at the time felt in their marriages. The fact that Jane has to hide that she writes in a journal and cannot outwardly disagree with her husband enforces the idea that she is trapped. By looking at the rushed nature of Jane’s writing and the increasing obsession with the wallpaper, we can see the symbolism between feeling trapped in the wallpaper and being trapped in typical marriage dynamics; this is important because it addresses the underlying issue of women’s rights in the late 19th early 20th century. We can see Jane’s mind unraveling, slowly gaining speed as the summer progresses. She goes from very well written sentences into fragments that don’t make any sense unless we infer what they mean. 

It is important to know that during this time women’s illness such as depression were not taken seriously. They were often dismissed and went untreated. The period of The Yellow Wallpaper predates women’s suffrage and a lot of the women’s rights movement. In a way, this really sparked some controversial discussions in regard to women’s places in society. Nellie Bly, who proved herself to be a very skilled writer, was made to write pieces about gardening or cooking or cleaning when she first got a job at a newspaper. Bly’s outspoken nature put a crack in the glass ceiling for women interested in investigative journalism. Instead of accepting her place as a domestic writer she challenged her boss and went on to write amazing pieces like her record breaking trip around the world and Mexico’s censoring of journalists.  The idea of a woman branching out of domestic work and child-rearing was very progressive. Women were routinely patronized and condescended and kind of put in their places. Anything that deviated away from what the patriarchy deemed as “normal” was viewed as a threat to the nuclear family and declared unfit. For upper-middle class women of this time they would often be placed on bed rest at the first sign of divergent behavior. This was a way to subdue them and force them back to the domestic sphere of work. Gilman had a unique view of this “cure” and branched out with The Yellow Wallpaper to address some of her issues. 

A brief history of Charlotte Gilman proves that she did not conform to the gender norms of her day. After writing The Yellow Wallpaper she went on to leave her first husband and child and move in with another man. This was particularly scandalous because divorce laws hadn’t been predominately established across the states (The History Of Divorce Law In The USA | History Cooperative). Gilman wanted to change how the world viewed women. Her purpose for writing this was truly to spark a discussion around traditional marriage roles especially in regards to everyday relationships. 

Gilman’s own experience with the “rest cure” helps to add a sort of authenticity to the story. In her own words, she was “so near the border line of utter mental ruin that [she] could see over” (Gilman, Why I Wrote The Yellow…). In the story, Jane has been put on the “rest cure” by both her husband and her brother. The fact that she feels she cannot disagree and thus ruin the image of her “ideal” marriage enforces the stigma behind typical gender roles. The whole story is about maintaining a façade of a perfect marriage and trying to so perfectly conform to gender norms that it drives the narrator insane.

At the beginning of The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane is describing her situation. She and her physician husband, John, have rented a house for the summer. Jane emphasizes the differences she and John have by stating that he is “practical in the extreme” (Gilman, Dale). John is a physician and does not believe that Jane is sick and Jane believe that’s why she isn’t getting any better. In this statement alone we understand that Jane doesn’t want to outwardly oppose her husband’s opinion because she is writing on “dead paper” (Gilman, Dale). Jane goes on to say that she disagrees with most of what John believes about her sickness, but that there isn’t anything she can do about it. These simple statements push the idea that women were unequal to their husbands. Jane is experiencing gender role conflict, which is described as “Efforts to follow social standards will often lead to some negative results and this have some physical and psychological consequences” (Hajloo). Prior to discussing the house Jane expresses that she believes interacting with other people and engaging in activities would help her condition, but since John disagrees she subjects herself to his treatments.

Going on through the story, Jane focuses on safe topics particularly sticking to the wallpaper in her room. Jane wanted to stay downstairs in a room with lots of light and air, but John thought it was better to be upstairs in the nursery. The nursery has bars on the window, typical of that time before screens to prevent children from falling out, and the bed is bolted to the floor. The room seems like a prison cell. Specifically, the yellow wallpaper is what distresses her the most. She hates the color and there doesn’t appear to be a pattern to it. 

Jane can only write when her husband and sister in law, Jeannie, aren’t watching her. Every journal entry she writes is after a good passage of time. After the first journal entry she waits two weeks to write again. This journal she writes about how she feels like a burden and more about how the pattern makes her angry. She’s always tired, but tries to do what John says and constantly writes about the advice he gives her, but he doesn’t listen to her or her own opinions about her health. It’s very patronizing. Jane’s obsession with the wallpaper continues to grow. At first it was just about the lack of a pattern, but she begins to see a purpose to it. She sees a woman crouching and creeping behind it wanting to escape. This is a metaphor for her feelings towards her marriage. She creeps around her husband to avoid any confrontation. Towards the end of the summer she locks herself in the room and dedicates herself to peeling back the wallpaper and freeing the woman. When John finally breaks into the room he sees his wife creeping around the room and insanely talking about herself in the third person about not being put back in the wallpaper. This is the final break in Jane’s sanity which emphasizes Gilman’s point that the rest cure is not helpful to patients with nervous disorders. 

The Yellow Wallpaper is a story about a woman with a type of depression that is trapped in her marriage where she feels like she can never get better. Based off Charlotte Gilman’s own experience with the rest cure it is directed to the doctor who prescribed it to her. Prevented from any sort of stimulation or human interaction, Jane is forced to fixate on the wallpaper. The wallpaper is described by Jane as trapping a woman creeping and crouching behind it. This symbolizes Jane’s feelings towards her marriage. She tries to conform to typical marriage roles but she constantly feels at odd with John. She can’t get well because her physician doesn’t believe she is sick. This writing sparked a discussion on the way mental disorders for women are treated and how typical gender norms are not always a good thing. 
