The Yellow Wallpaper To Find Herself Analysis

Tearing Down the Wallpaper to Find Herself
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a woman who struggled with mental illness throughout her life. She grew up in a time when women were very oppressed and turned towards writing to express her views on the topic. The Yellow Wallpaper is a story of a woman driven to point of insanity due to the isolating restraints put upon her by her husband. According to Smaranda Stefanovici, “Nineteenth-century American women, although having different views, had to comply with patriarchal expectations and roles. The ideological prison (the nineteenth century American ideal of 'a true woman' as domestic and submissive) is presented by daylight, in which the masculine order prevails, while the rebellious, 'new woman' gets out from behind the bars by moonlight through the empowering unconscious and delusional imagination”. This speaks volumes in this piece of writing. While during the beginning of the story we are painted a picture of a woman who is suffering from some sort of post-partum “nervous depression”, as the story progresses we start to see a woman who is trying to dig deep within to discover who she really is. According to Barbara Suess, “Earlier readings of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ provide valuable insight into the
She sees women as individuals who should not have to abide by the 19th century ideas of who a woman should be. Gilman believes that women should not have to be submissive and that they shouldn’t allow society to restrict who they are as people. That is why at the end of the piece we are left with an image of the narrator tearing down the wallpaper that has imprisoned her all this time. Her final goal of being able to release the woman who is trapped within the wallpaper is complete and she can “creep” around the room and over her husband for once. The narrator has finally found her identity and is expressing that in the final