The Yellow Wallpaper: A Feminist Prison

“Perhaps because of the wall paper” (Gilman). “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was a great writer about feminist writer but would not call herself a feminist. She wrote ten novels and two hundred short stories like the Yellow Wallpaper. This story was about a woman named Jane trapped in a relationship trying to get out by using the ugly wallpaper with a women trying getting out from behind it to represent that. She ripped down all the paper just to prove to her husband that she could do it and not be put back.

“The yellow Wallpaper” shows many different ways in which feminist criticism happens in.”John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman). Jane expects to be put down by her husband. John doesn’t see any harm in laughing at his wife, when it really does affect her enough to say it in her writing. Also, “…dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired me head” (Gilman). John is treating Jane like a child by putting her to sleep because he thinks she is really sick and needs her rest.

He is telling her she is sick and making her think she really is when she is not just like her brother did. John is showing how he thinks women should be treated in that way. John wouldn’t even let Jane just go lay down like any other adult would.Next, Jane says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman). Jane just lets her husband tell her what to do. John wants to have total control over her and in the beginning of the story she didn’t care.

Towards the end she was realizing that it was her relationship that was making her sick. Jane had to hide that she was writing because her husband said it was her writing that made her sick. Jane thought that her writing helped her with being “sick”. “When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now” (Gilman). Jane doesn’t understand that john is controlling her by not letting her see her family that she wants to see.

He is keeping her in the house all alone when he works over night and all day. It was more that he was embarrassed of her and didn’t want the family around her to see what has happened to her.Jane thinks that, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as If she wanted to get out” (Gilman). Jennie said she thought she was seeing a woman in the wallpaper trying to get out by shaking the bars. Jane was trying to represent she was a women under the control of her husband trying to get out of that type of relationship.

Jane said, “I’ve got out at last,” I said, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman)! Jane is saying that now she ripped off all the wallpaper that she is free. She didn’t listen to what her husband said about her being crazy. Jane’s strong will finally came out when she ripped that wallpaper down after her husband told her he wasn’t taking it down. The ripping of the wall paper symbols that there was a strong women deep down in her that finally came out.

To sun it all up, feminist is happens throughout the entire short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” using characters actions and symbols. This is an example of how bad some people let a misogynistic male control their life and treat them like a child. Also it show how a women will break out and seem “Sick” and do things she would not normally do. No women should let a male talk down to them like a child, they need to be independent and stick up for themselves.Work CitedGilman, Charlotte.

The yellow Wallpaper.1899.Liukkonen, Petri. Charlotte. Pesonen kuusankoken.

2008. 28 October <2011http://kirjasto.sci.fi/gilman.htm>