In the nineteenth century women were expected to play a certain role in society. They were expected to stay at home, obey their husbands, and care for their children. Within a marriage, the husband decided where the family would live and how the household would be run. The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about being restrained, about control. Because men are considered privileged for having an education and a job, they are to make all the decisions. Seeing that men govern everything women do, John, the narrator’s husband, is presumed to have total control over his wife. The narrator in the story becomes delusional because she does not have the power to contradict anything her husband tells her to do. Men’s complete control over women, as well as women’s voluntary obedience shown in “The Yellow Wallpaper” explain why the narrator was driven to such an intense state of madness.  

The narrator and her husband, John, have moved to a secluded home in the country for the summer. The two had just had a baby, and since her pregnancy, the narrator has suffered from post-partum depression. John, a physician, believes that his wife needs to stay in bed and do little to no work so that she can get better. The narrator is to have no responsibilities, to do no writing, and to go nowhere. She is to have complete and total bed rest. As the summer continues, the narrator’s conditions begin to worsen. Because she is confined to her room and permitted to do no activity, the narrator becomes delusional. She starts to imagine that a woman is trapped behind the wallpaper of her room, and believes that she is trying to escape but cannot because the yellow wallpaper is strangling her. In the end, the narrator finally escapes from her husband and the imposing restrictions of her life by peeling all of the wallpaper from the walls of her room, thus becoming completely insane.

The preconceived notion that the only thing women need when suffering from a disease is rest can be traced back to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s “the rest cure.” In the 1800’s, Dr. Mitchell coined the term “the rest cure” when he had a female patient that showed no signs of organic disease but was clearly suffering from something. He decided to send her to a secluded house 200 miles away and prescribed her only complete rest for her. After a couple of weeks, Dr. Mitchell started to see promising results. Soon after this, many women were being prescribed the rest cure (Bassuk 246). In the story, John mentions that if his wife does not start to show signs of improvement faster, he will have to send her to Dr. Mitchell. This could be seen as a comparison to author Gilman’s personal experiences.

Before she wrote this book, Gilman was one of Dr. Mitchell’s patients. After the birth of her child, she, as does the narrator in her story, suffered from hysteria. She was given the rest cure which consisted of six weeks of bed rest and isolation. When she was sent home, Gilman was to live a domestic life and to never pick up a pen or pencil again.  She tried to obey her doctor’s orders for three months until she started to relapse. Gilman decided to go against her doctor’s orders and start working and writing again; she was then able to cure herself of hysteria (Herndl 52).  Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to express her personal experiences and tells a tale that describes a woman’s descent into madness.

Throughout the nineteenth century, women have been obeying and reporting to men. In Gilman’s story, the unnamed narrator follows almost every single rule her husband John has created for her. Because her husband is a physician, the narrator believes that what he is doing for her will help, and because she knows he loves her, she never voices her opinion to him. When the couple arrives at the house, John specifically tells his wife that she is to stay in bed, and to never write, something that she loves to do. The demand to never write has a direct correlation to how the narrator acts. By not having the ability to express her thoughts, the woman cannot stand up to her domineering husband and tell him that rest is not what she needs to get better. John refuses to acknowledge any of her requests, emphasizing that he has complete and total control over his wife. The narrator believes that she is letting her husband down by not delivering her duties as a wife and mother. Her obsession over the wallpaper in her bedroom is a direct result of her forced obedience towards her husband.  

The narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a symbol for all women in the nineteenth century. In the 1800s women were expected to have and raise children, tend to the house and do as they were told at all times. How decisions are made and responsibilities are distributed within the domestic sphere can hold a significant effect as to who has the ability to effectively impact society. Many people viewed these inequalities as appropriate because it was the norm at the time. In the story, the narrator has no say in even the littlest details of her life. She states, “He {John} is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction…he takes all care from me, so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more (Gilman 301).” This is an example of treating women as second-class citizens. John is under the impression that he is superior to his wife and must plan out every detail because she cannot do it herself. His wife considers this a manifestation of his love and that he does only to help her.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is not simply a tale about a woman who lets her imagination drive her to insanity; it is a story that expresses how women in the nineteenth century were trapped by male dominance which meant that they not only could not think for themselves, but could not stand up to their overbearing husbands. By willingly obeying her husband and trying to cure a nonexistent disease with rest, the narrator was led to complete insanity. The information given by Susan Okin and Diane Herndl give further evidence that women in the nineteenth century were restrained by their husbands in many different ways. Because she was confined to her room, the narrator was not able to carry out a normal routine while maintaining sufficient interactions with others, which led to her madness. The woman’s authoritative husband is blinded by her insanity because he is focused on making sure his wife stays within society’s standards of her. 
