The Yellow Wallpaper

             Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a strong social protest. When Gilman fell into a deep depression after the birth of her only child, her husband, Charles Stetson, sent her to be treated by S. Weir Mitchell, a famous Philadelphia physician. Mitchell's method of treating female psychological disorders, which consisted of nothing but bed rest and isolation, had some success, but served Gilman to the point of near insanity. She managed to escape her situation and move to California alone, and it was there, years later, where she was able to transform her experience into literature.
             The short story is written in first person and it is from our nameless character's writings that we are introduced to her world and her life. It is through this that we see our main characters transition into a world that only she has access to. She changes dramatically from our first meeting while everyone else stays very flat and unaffected. This method is very effective in that this story from someone else's perspective would not be as real and understanding. The outside world would have written about a crazy woman who slowly goes mad for no reason. Only through her eyes can we see the true reason for her, not madness, but epiphany.
             The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This con...

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The Yellow Wallpaper. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 02:38, April 20, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/17284.html