
Being informed of the historical background behind a text can be extremely useful when it comes to understanding the message the writer is trying to send. Older texts tend to be harder to analyze due to the fact that the reader may not understand the writer's culture or the state of society when the author wrote the passage, therefore lacking the ability to identify the symbolism hidden throughout it. When reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I noticed a major difference in how people spoke to one another, how they treated one another and how women were treated with a different respect level than of the women of modern day society. This short story was published January 1892, which happened to be The Victorian Era (1837-1901). Reading the short story after my research on this time period, it was much easier to comprehend why certain things were said and done throughout the text.

During the Victorian Era, men were dominant. They called the shots and were seen as good thinkers. They were more aggressive, more powerful and more independent than woman. The women were expected to just be the emotional and caring figures in society, rarely doing more than baring children and taking care of home. Women didn't get a lot of respect because men believed that all woman thought with their emotions, thus, making them irrational and should just stick to their household duties. They were expected to silently fall into the social hierarchy created by the men of this era. The men were so powerful because they were believed to think more logically as opposed to thinking with emotions.

 "After a woman married, her rights, her property, and even her identity almost ceased to exist. By law she was under the complete and total supervision of her husband: thus through marriage, husband and wife became one person; whatever view he presented was the unquestionable truth" (Perkin 73). Along with this, marital rape and abuse was legal during this time. Relationships and marriage were rarely genuine during this time because both men and women felt is was a necessity to marry at a reasonable age, therefore rushing the process and not getting to actually know and love one another. Instead, many Victorian men wanted a wife to compliment their house. One Victorian man wrote a letter to a friend discussing his plans stating "Of course at a certain age, when you have a house and so on, you get a wife as part of it's furniture" (Kent 91). In the eyes of men, women were nothing more than overly emotional and senseless people ruled by their sexuality. Women were obviously never taken seriously during the Victorian Era and this was especially exhibited when it came to women and mental illnesses. Women that were labeled insane, rather diagnosed with depression, alcoholism or even moral insanity, were locked up in a madhouse. Women in the lower social class that had less power or less money were usually the most vulnerable in these situations. 

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," a young, middle to high class, newlywed woman is taken on vacation by her husband to an eerie, old mansion. She believes she suffers from nervous depression and seems to not be very happy in her marriage. Her husband, John blows off her complaints of her illness and it seems that he blows off almost anything she comes to him about. Going back to the research of the women's role in the Victorian Era, it would make sense why her husband doesn't take any of her feelings into consideration. This is because to him they don't matter. He feels as if he has all the answers and whatever he decides is best for her, even if it is not truly best for her, shall be done. Throughout the story, she talks about how practical and logical he is where she uses her imagination more and is sensitive. This is another reason why her husband belittles her illness and emotions; he thinks she is being overdramatic and irrational. Her doctor believes that the wife has slight hysterical tendency so her treatment is to not read, write, work or do anything active. Once again, the men are trying to compress any areas of potential power to keep the women low in the social hierarchy. A woman with a strong imagination and desire to learn is a threat to these men and they must treat her as such. She believes that reading, writing and being active would actually help her condition, so she goes against her doctor's orders, starting a secret personal journal in order to help soothe her mind and toxic thoughts. As she begins to write, it starts off positive but sometimes slipped into supernatural occurrences in the mansion that only she could see and hear. Her husband John, is also a doctor and once he finds out about her journal entries, he forces her to stop writing. Once again, the Victorian Era was about men controlling their wives. In modern day society, the woman would probably not have stopped writing because she knew it was for her well being but because of this time period, whatever her husband says, goes. She begins to crave better company because she is sick of her husband's controlling and condescending behavior. She is constantly complaining to John about the yellow wallpaper because she sees disturbing things in it and becomes slightly obsessed with it but despite her begging, he refuses to repaper the walls and expects her to get over it. The husband treats her with so little respect because he feels like he is superior and smarter than the narrator. At the end of the story, the young woman's husband walks into the room he has been keeping her and discovers her creeping around the room, touching the wallpaper, and passes out. 

The way the story ended seems as if the author was trying to prove a point, men aren't always right. Her husband spent so much time trying to fix his wife his way instead of listening to her needs and ends up making this unfixable in the end. The author also suffered with mental illness and abandoned her child and husband because he condition would not get better in her marriage and in the end, leaves her husband because this seems to be the only thing that makes her better. The relationships that men and women had during this time was disturbingly unhealthy and this story was proof. 
