Summary Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, women’s rights have remained a strong and critical topic in many areas of life. Many politicians, opinion writers, and even authors write or discuss about women’s rights in order to gain sympathy for women or to stir action towards equality. However, in the later part of the 19th century, women were treated as no more than mere objects by men, without any empathy or love. One example that explores the rights of women during the time period is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In her short story, Gilman depicts the hurtful relationship between a powerless wife and a husband who has no regards for his spouse. Although the wife was submissive and obedient towards her husband in the
At the beginning of the story, the narrator has been confined to a yellow-room nursery by her husband, with the thought that confinement and isolation would solve her post-partem depression. As the story progresses, she comes to believe that there are women trying to escape the wallpaper. She then realizes that like the women, she needs to escape her confinement and her husband’s grasp. When her husband discovers her, he faints. The narrator then continues to move around the room, and states, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!” (27). Gilman’s tone is notably ironic because her narrator’s reaction to her husband fainting reveals both mockery and madness. The narrator is mocking her husband’s lack of masculinity due to him fainting in front of a girl. As a man, her husband should have taken action and used physical force to restrain his wife. However, he chose to faint at the sight of his wife, demonstrating that he has lost the power to a woman, which at
Throughout her confinement to the yellow nursery, the narrator began to realize how wrong her perception of her husband John was. She initially thought that John was helping her treat her depression. However, she now understood that her husband was neglecting her in the room, and only created the impression of helping her, while in reality, he is doing nothing. Gilman writes, “He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him” (25). The narrator reveals her husband to be hypocritical, pretending to be a husband while actually leaving her alone. This makes him seem selfish and disrespectful towards his wife. As a husband, he should have made his wife feel as comfortable as possible during her supposed “treatment.” Instead, he treats her as a confused person with little worth. This action makes him look more like a prison guard instead of a caring husband. The narrator, however, was finally able to see through her husband’s deceptions. By saying that “As if I couldn’t see through him,” she understood that her husband is not treating her as she is supposed to. According to traditional gender expectations, a wife is supposed to follow everything her husband’s orders,