Charlotte Perkins-Stetson's The Yellow Wallpaper

Ever felt trapped in your own life, or oppressed from society? Charlotte Perkins-Stetson’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper illustrates how trapped women felt in the oppressive society they lived in. The narrator lived in a haunted house setting and got through it by writing in a symbolic journal, but eventually went a little mad and started seeing a symbolic woman behind the wallpaper. By examining the setting of the ‘haunted house’, the symbolism of her journal, and the symbolism of the woman behind the wallpaper one can see that the narrator feels trapped and suffocated, and is trying to free herself from an oppressive society. By examining the setting of the house, one can see that Perkins-Stetson wrote this story to demonstrate how the narrator feels when trapped and suffocated in a society that constrains and inflicts hardship on women and the sick. The narrator describes the house as a haunted house as they arrive, as it is a mansion that is set apart from the road, village, and society around it, giving off a feeling of isolation and abandonment. From the scratches and gouges on the floor, the bed being nailed to the floor, to the isolation from the world makes it a creepy haunted house where something is bound to go wrong. She describes the shady trees and bushes surrounding the house further enclosing it from the outside world and creating the image of a prison, where she is locked in. The fingernail markings on the floor and bite marks on the bed indicate
In Charlotte Perkins-Stetson’s The Yellow Wallpaper one can see how trapped the characters feel from the society oppressing them. By examining one’s surroundings, one can see how to escape the oppression of society, and no longer feel suffocated from one’s own