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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

567 Words3 Pages

"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, is a short story with themes of gender inequality, oppression, and mental health that still affect countless individuals today. It is about a woman who is confined to her room by her husband, a physician, as he attempts to "treat" her issues by taking away all of the control she has in her life. As her mental condiiton worsens she begins to see a pattern in the wallpaper of the room and has hallucinations of it being a living creature, a woman trying to escape the walls. This causes her delusions to become even more drastic and severe as she starts to tell herself that the way to free herself is by freeing the woman in the walls. The story has many themes, however, some of the more prominent ones would be both mental disorders as well as the constant oppression of women. …show more content…

In this story, the protagonist's husband stops her from being able to take medication for her illnesses, despite the fact she is quite capable in that field. Not to mention that she was forbidden and prevented from doing her hobbies such as writing, and not even allowed to leave her own room. This symbolizes how women were not allowed to pursue their interests or express themselves freely. All of these things happening in the story apply to how women were treated during that time and it was likely the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman went through very similar situations during her life, before and after writing the short

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