The Yellow Wall Paper

I chose The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman, 1892) as my choice. This intense short story by Charlotte Gilman uses symbolism to describe the dismissed attitudes toward women and mental sickness during the 19th Century. The woman writes in a secret journal describing her deteiorating mental health. Her husband (the protagonist), and her brother are doctors and they both agree she is physically well and just need’s to relax. Their solution to isolate her from work, and life lead her to her mental down fall. This poor woman has a baby boy whom she cannot get close to. She complains of not having the energy to even get dress; its clear she suffers from a severe form of post partum depression. When she locked up in her room at the summer home they rented by her husband she begins to allow the wallpaper to drive her mad. She is obsessed with the wallpaper in many entries of the journal and believes there is a woman behind the wallpaper that she must free. At the end on the very last she decides to lock herself in the room to rip off the remaining areas left to free the women. When her husband finally is able to open the door he sees her madness as she goes in circle on each wall. He than passes out and she simply steps over him. This story has remarkable irony. The doctor husband locked her in that room, kept her from writing, and kept her from her son to help her recover. Instead, it leads the way to her insanity.