The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis In order to maintain control over women, men in society attempted to prevent women from expressing themselves and reaching their intellectual potential. Treating women as children, men had complete authority over them. John, the narrator’s husband in the Yellow Wallpaper, patronizes and rules over his wife in the same way that many husbands did during this time period. He sends her to isolation, cutting off all outside contact and discourages individualism, which worsens her mental conditions. In the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s descent into insanity is due to the subordination of women in society and occurs in isolation where the importance of self-expression is discovered.
The narrator is driven to madness due to her isolation from society. After spending long periods of time in the room, she develops increasing signs of insanity and eventually sees women in the wallpaper. “I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?”(Gilman). At this point in the story, the
Due to the resting cure, she is forced to become completely passive and is forbidden to exercising her mind in any way” (Gilman). He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, my nervous weakness is will lead to all manners of exited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense” John warns her multiple times that she must use her self-control to rein in her imagination. Of course, the narrator’s eventual insanity results from the suppression of her imagination. Also, she has a relentless desire for an emotional and intellectual outlet, even keeping a secret journal, which is a relief to her mind. Self-expression is an important outlet in life and is a necessity in order to avoid self-destruction and