Yellow Wallpaper American Culture at the Turn of the Century

¶ … Yellow Wallpaper," American culture at the turn of the century,

Consider "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a feminist text. What does the work say about women and American culture at the turn of the century? How does the wife defeat the patriarchal culture represented in the attitude of her husband?

At the beginning of Charlotte Perkin Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," a new mother, evidently suffering from postnatal depression, is placed on an enforced 'rest cure' in which she is supposed to have no stimulation of any kind. During the 19th century, intellectual activity was thought to be dangerous for women, particularly in regards to their reproductive capacities. The woman is driven mad by her 'cure' and her lack of an outlet for her creative energies.

The 19th century created an ideal image of middle-class femininity, often called the 'Angel in the House.' This was an image of a woman who was pure, good, and completely contented with taking care of her family as a means of self-fulfillment. As a new mother, the unnamed narrator is clearly expected to fulfill this ideal. At the beginning of the story, she has evidently just had her child. The woman seldom mentions the child in the story, indicating a detached and ambivalent view of her new role that she cannot fully express. "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." Rather than viewing her depression as rooted in her mixed feelings about motherhood or even a biochemical reaction to childbirth, her husband (a physician) attributes it to her mental activity outside the realm of the maternal.

Gilman deliberately makes the powerful male figures in "The Yellow Wallpaper" physicians, to indicate the powerlessness women had over determining how their bodies and minds were viewed. "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 depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing...am absolutely forbidden to 'work' until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?"

The fact that the woman is capable of writing and has an urge and a practice of writing, even though she is forbidden to do so, highlights the changing roles of the genders that was beginning to alter the idea of the 'Angel in the House' with the concept of a 'New Woman.' The narrator clearly has an education and a longing to use her intellectual abilities, but these capacities are viewed with profound mistrust by men and even some women. As a result, the narrator feels trapped, and unable to clearly express herself in words, she instead projects her misery onto the wallpaper of her room, viewing an alternative woman or self as trapped beneath the paper. The narrator's impulse to free the woman is a subconscious impulse to free herself from her miserable situation.