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Feminism In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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In Charlotte Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on an unnamed female protagonist that suffers from “temporary nervous depression” that her husband, who is her primary doctor, treats her illness with the resting cure. Which does not allow her to do any activities that could overwork her or her mind leading her to keep a secret journal about her true feelings and motives? Gilman skillfully uses of tone, style, theme, and symbol conveyed a feminist ideal, presenting a first-wave feminism masterpiece. The understanding of the tone of a story gives readers a particular message of what the author feels about the subject. The tone of a story can be closely linked to the style of the story, Gilman has the narrator 's tone as passive, disturbed, paranoid, and intimate. An example of this tone in the story is, “John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.”(Paragraph 86) this quote conveys the passive attitude that the narrator has. With having the narrator torn between sanity they cling on and sickness/insanity; masculine and feminine roles; and the freedom of nature and the prison of the domestic bedroom that …show more content…

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the theme could be the questioning of the position of women within the institution of marriage, especially the subordination of women in marriage as the society then already held women in such tight social constructs. The narrator bound in this role of submissive is due to her husband and is her doctor gives him more power over to decide for her, having superior wisdom and maturity that leads him to misjudge, and even patronize, dominate his wife, all in the name of “helping” her. The narrator is reduced to acting like a cross, petulant child, unable to stand up for herself without seeming unreasonable or disloyal. Even if he loves towards her this power ultimately leads her to

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