Analysis
![Picture](/uploads/2/5/0/0/25002658/4116326.jpg?280)
“I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells on my mind so!”
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Gilman illustrates how proper women in the late 19th century depended upon their husbands to make important life decisions, even decisions about their own health.
The narrator in the story does not feel she needs the rest cure. She tries to tell her husband, John, she’d feel better if she had more interactions with society and more activities to stimulate her mind.
John tells her these things would be harmful. In the end, John’s opinion over-rules hers. She is powerless to sway his decision.
She says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depressions—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?”
As women were taught to do at that time, she let it go, even though she disagreed with him. This was an important illustration of the inequality in marriages during the late 19th century. Husbands had all authority, while the thoughts and opinions of wives were discarded. In fact, wives were encouraged not to think for themselves. They were to do as their husbands instructed.
The narrator in the story does not feel she needs the rest cure. She tries to tell her husband, John, she’d feel better if she had more interactions with society and more activities to stimulate her mind.
John tells her these things would be harmful. In the end, John’s opinion over-rules hers. She is powerless to sway his decision.
She says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depressions—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?”
As women were taught to do at that time, she let it go, even though she disagreed with him. This was an important illustration of the inequality in marriages during the late 19th century. Husbands had all authority, while the thoughts and opinions of wives were discarded. In fact, wives were encouraged not to think for themselves. They were to do as their husbands instructed.
John believed he was doing the right thing. The thoughts and ideas of his wife were not valued because she was a woman. It was a given he knew better than she. Incorporating more of the things she enjoyed (writing, for example) into her life seems like a logical way to lift her spirits. Yet, men felt that intellectual activities were too much for a woman with a nervous condition.
Each time she had a suggestion for what she wanted to do, John vetoed it. The narrator writes, "Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished." The narrator has every right to feel frustration and anger at her husband, since he is constantly rejecting her opinions. Yet, he makes her feel she has no right to those feelings. She says, “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.” Today we’d consider John controlling. Yet, women in Gilman’s time period were taught to consider power part of the role of a good husband. The narrator says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” |
She feels ungrateful if she gets irritated about not having any say over her situation. She feels a burden for even having a nervous “weakness,” as if she isn’t being a good wife. She believes she should be caring for her husband, not vice versa, since this was a major role for wives in this era.
Not being able to express herself and stick up for what she thought was best ended up draining her. She finally gave up and resigned herself to staying put until John said otherwise. This, of course, was the beginning of the deterioration of her mental health.
She begins to cry often. She loses energy and sleeps her days away. She loses the ability to think straight, and begins to obsess over the wallpaper. She sees things that aren’t there. She talks to the wallpaper.
Gilman’s story was intended to illustrate how “the rest cure,” common during this time period, could be detrimental to a woman’s health. It is like being in solitary confinement, a punishment used for the most dangerous or deranged criminals. This "cure" only compounded her existing health problems.
Gilman wanted to advocate for women to have more equality in their marriages and take more control over life decisions, especially their own health matters. She wanted women to know that men shouldn’t take control just because they are men. This story demonstrates that men can be wrong, even doctors, as the narrator’s health declined from being isolated from society.