Yellow Wallpaper Sexism

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In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman uses the wallpaper in the couple’s bedroom as a symbol to represent the oppression of sexism and the dialogue within the diary resembles the effect a man can have on a woman’s mindset. Gilman wrote this piece in the progressive era when gothic literature was popular and woman’s rights were debatable.
Gilman was a young adult that experienced post-partum depression after her first born, like the girl in the story, and because of her own views on society she wrote this piece. Gilman was a strong believer that the society in that time period was fast to oppress women’s equality. So as the author, Gilman writes in the voice of a woman that is trapped under her husband’s authority and told to stay in her bedroom …show more content…

The woman loves the home, but despises the old nursery that the woman is ordered to stay in. She makes sure to state in her diary, “I don’t like our room one bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened up on the piazza and had roses all over the window… but John would not hear of it.” If moving into the mansion was to help the woman’s condition then why do all of her requests go ignored? Unfortunately, the woman constantly describes the room and the hideous wallpaper as if that’s all that she can think about. “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper to trap the woman in her own insanity and make the reader experience what it is like to have something like wallpaper literally drive a human crazy. Eventually, with time, the wallpaper begins to symbolize her own lifestyle within the home and her own marriage. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” She starts to believe that there is a woman that is trapped in the wallpaper just like herself. Gilman uses the decaying yellow wallpaper to symbolize the oppression of sexism by stating how frail and vandalized the paper really appeared. Sexism was common in the 90’s and according to Gina Masequesmay, “It functions to maintain patriarchy, or male domination, through ideological and material practices of individuals, collectives, and institutions that oppress women and girls on the basis of sex or gender.” This piece amplifies the effect that sexism will do to a woman that has absolute no say in what she does with her own

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