The Feminist Struggle In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper," is a story detailing a women's freefall into a state of mental illness. Through this story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman reprimands and warns the reader of male domination and fixed gender roles, which includes the dutiful wife role. Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes a marital life where both husband and wife are imprisoned in their allocated gender roles. In Janice Haney-Peritz's article entitled "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at the Yellow Wallpaper," Peritz discusses her belief that "The Yellow Wallpaper serves is used to remind contemporary readers of the enduring import of the feminist struggle against patriarchal domination" (Peritz 114). She believes that if John were so self-consumed

with himself and his career as a doctor, that he may have been able to assist his wife. Had he been a listening ear, he may have been capable of helping her to avoid the mental illness that overtook her. Peritz also points out that John "assures his wife that there is really nothing the matter with her; John also prescribes a regimen which will help her get well" (Peritz 115). If the wife wasn't so quick to make the assumption that her physician husband, John wasn't always right, she may have better been equipt to help herself. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator states, "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so (Gilman). Peritz feels that if the wife had more backbone, she would have been able to stand up for herself instead of just presuming that her physician husband knows all and knows what is best for her. Instead of questioning John, she doubts herself causing her condition to get worse and this happens because they both are convinced that John is so wise. Peritz explains that the gender roles in this story cause loss on both ends.