Relationships In The Nineteenth-Century

Over the last couple of centuries, the way that relationships are viewed and treated has changed, drastically. In the present, most relationships are viewed as something amazing and something to be appreciated, even though there are a few outlying relationships that are still like they were centuries ago. Women in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries were viewed as property. Therefore, when they got into relationships, they were treated just as that—her husband’s property. Specifically, during the nineteenth-century, men were the main focus of society, and usually women and their views were muffled. Women were expected to freely provide the nurturing services and emotions that men want. After marriage, men went back to work while women stayed …show more content…

However, in this particular story, the narrator gradually loses her sanity after being isolated per her husband’s orders. It is presumed that the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression, however, her husband does not think there is anything wrong with her other than a little depression and anxiety. He orders a rest cure for her and bans her from doing anything that can potentially exert herself: writing, caring for her child, cleaning etc. The narrator’s sister stepped in for the narrator to care for her child while the narrator was ill. The main thing that caused the narrator to lose her sanity was the room she was confined to. The room in which the narrator was living in has yellow wallpaper and bars on the windows. At first, the yellow wallpaper that was on the wall was annoying to the narrator, but the longer the narrator spent in the room the more she came to accustomed to the color and odor. “But now I am used to [the odor]. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell” (Gilman 163). The narrator also noticed the wallpaper moving due to “the woman behind shakes it” (Gilman 163). Throughout the story, the narrator works on freeing the woman behind the wallpaper by scratching of chunks of wallpaper off of the walls. She eventually gets the woman free, however, at the end of the story I feel like the narrator has transformed herself into the woman she has so desperately tried to free from the wallpaper. For example, the narrator states, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!” (Gilman 166). The narrator starts talking about herself as if she is the woman trapped behind the wallpaper. This transition that she makes just provides further evidence for the trapped