Yellow Wallpaper Gender Inequality

Gilman was living and writing during a time period between the 19th and 20th century that witnessed a hierarchy in society between men and women. Social inequality was a huge deal in marriage, labeling men as the superior and women as the inferior. Women were idealized to the notion that they were the less competent sex versus the dominant man. Men created this vision that women needed to conform to their ruling. Their main purpose was to marry the man, fulfill house hold duties, and create children; nonetheless causing women to be dependent on the society of man. In the story, the husband of the narrator, John, is a physician who self-diagnoses his wife with a “temporary nervous depression, a slight hysterical tendency.” (Gilman, 648) He refuses

In the end, his wife saw that the woman within this “mysterious yellow wallpaper” surrounding the room she was entrapped in was only the reflection of herself being confined by her husband’s borders. John finally caught on and realized it was too late, that his wife had found her individuality and gained back her feelings as a woman again. By this alone, Gilman’s claim is that even though the superior of man tries to dominate the women of society, it can lead to the self-destruction of the female which can cause them to get lost mentally get lost in themselves or cause them to recognize their social equality in the world without man trying to control

She, as the narrator, starts off with revealing that she is very open to how she see’s things. Her description of this summer vacation leads to the recollection of herself remembering her nightmares growing up, and she insists the house they are staying at this time is haunted, “I use to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.” (Gilman 650) She can’t rely on John so she turns to writing instead, causing her to be secretive instead of confiding in what is supposed to be her life partner. She then proceeds with the growing mystery of this “yellow wallpaper”. With john’s notorious attitude towards her about this infatuation, “He said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies” (Gilman 649), her character played like she was not interested anymore only to satisfy her husband’s demands when really she is still persistent on the issue. She begins to be devious around John, causing climax in the end with the realization that it is herself that she helped “escape” from behind the bar designs within the wall, “I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?” (Gilman 656). With that being said, the author illiterates that the use of control on this woman not only drove her to madness but was produced by being in such