Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper

Gender stereotypes have been around for centuries, dating as far back as the ancient Greeks. It was once believed that men’s lives were made up of many stages, known as the “ages of man”. These stages began with the physical and emotional maturity processes and ended with the man’s involvement in work and public affairs. However, the stages of a woman’s life were not mentioned at all. A woman was thought to be a daughter, wife or mother; either married or to be married. Not only were these stereotypes common in society, but they were also portrayed in literature as well. Two works that exhibit these cliché ideas of what is to be expected of men and women are “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro.

One of the many political battles that became a worldwide movement involved women’s suffrage. In the United States and England alike, women were fighting for their right to be recognized in society and to have their voices heard. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was first published in the New England Magazine in August of 1892. Although Gilman initially wrote the story relating to her own psychological illness, it was also her way to protest the mental and professional oppression against women at that time. The narrator in her story was a woman who had been diagnosed with a ‘temporary nervous depression’ and was forbidden from any kind of work, even including writing. She said “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (130). When she does attempt to express her feelings, her husband tells her that she ‘neglects proper self-control’ and she takes ‘pains’ to control herself in front of him (131). Unfortunately, most people in this time period believed that women were more susceptible than men to experience nervous breakdowns and/or illnesses. Women who were married and ‘rebelled’ risked being committed to an asylum; unmarried women were often prescribed ‘a husband’ as