The Yellow Wallpaper Gender Inequality Analysis

In the short story the Yellow Wallpaper the subject of gender inequality is a huge issue that is being indirectly discussed. Throughout the story we get to know a woman who has been diagnosed with neurasthenia by her husband to stay in bed. She doesn’t want to stay home and stay in bed, she begins to feel as though she is fine. She tries to communicate this to her husband but is kept being told she is okay. This leads to her going crazy and becoming obsessive with the wallpaper. The story is told through the main character who as the story goes on her perception of reality begins to shift and is different from those around her. From this situation in her life she is able to see what the role of women looks like in society as well as marriage.
All of these definitions of crazy can be seen in The Yellow Wallpaper. The lady tells her husband she is fine so many times that she begins to go even more crazy due to the fact he keeps informing her that she is actually fine. John is not only the woman’s husband but he is also a doctor. He believes he knows so much that he disregards trying to understand his wife. The husband is partly to blame for his wife’s craziness. The husband is never home to listen to his wife, and basically is just trying to comfort her with words by saying she is better. A term to use for the way the husband is treating the wife is gas lighting. Gas lighting is when someone manipulates another person in a way that person begins to question their own sanity. After much of this manipulation, it begins to affect your capability to make sane judgements. The woman in this story is so affected by the gas lighting she is experiencing from her husband, she begins to feel paranoid of the things and people around her. Instead of helping his wife and pulling her out of her craziness, John continued to push her towards her insanity. She questioned herself and began to become unsure if she was actually okay or not. The relationship that is seen between the narrator and the husband shows how society has a gender inequality. John’s thoughts and views show the
The further the woman becomes fixated onto the wallpaper the more she disconnects from her own life. This is another way she is disconnecting and fading from reality. She is told to stay in bed and is forbidden to write. She fights between pleasing her husband and being the ideal wife and writing to help with her loneliness. The woman does everything to suppress her own feelings and emotions to be able to please her husband. Hiding her feeling leads to the narrator using a journal to write down things that she does not tell her husband. She writes down all the secrets she doesn’t want to tell him or anyone around her. She lets out all the feelings and thoughts she has of the wallpaper and how much she hates it. The narrator explains the wallpaper by saying,
“Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.” (Gilman