The Main Themes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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The Main Themes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

The short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a woman who is

suffering from depression (probably post-natal) and a nervous

breakdown. Whilst trying to recover in an isolated country house, her

condition deteriorates as her paranoia takes over. Her condition is

not helped by the fact that her husband has forced her to inhabit a

room with irritating features, namely the wallpaper. The story

contains themes of entrapment, resignation, paranoia and the male

domination of the time.

The story was written in 1892, before women had gained the right to

vote. Stetson was a keen women's right campaigner and felt that

blatant male dominance was wrong. It was written eight years after

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Charlotte Stetson at the time) was, herself,

suffering from post-natal depression. Stetson was, at the time, told

to rest one hour after every meal, only have two hours of intellectual

life a day and never to touch pen, brush or pencil again. This was

described as the 'rest' cure. Stetson had always been a very creative

person and so she felt stunted by her husband's prescribed cure. She

said later on in her life that this 'cure' was so bad that she was

left to live a 'crippled life'. She wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" to

show how 'destructive such attitudes to women could be.' So this story

was most certainly written about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's own

personal experience. After reading a brief biography after reading

this story, one can tell that her own experiences have been heavily

inflicted into the story.

A subject close to Gilman was that of the injustice of m...

... middle of paper ...

...s in this story can be perceived as fairly different but also

similar. Gilman creates sympathy for the wife by making it see as

though she is scared of her husband. The story could probably have

worked without this element; however, Gilman has put this in as a

political protest. The paranoia aspect of the story is, however, vital

for the storyline to work. It is the main theme of the story and is

directly linked with the plot. The two themes are related because the

paranoia fuses from the male dominance at the time. The resignation is

also a result of the male dominance as without it there would be no

reason for her to be feeling helpless. In this way, the story is

interesting to study because of its many layers. It isn't just a story

it has cross references to the social climate at the time and Gilman's

personal life.

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