The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper is a feminist short story, telling a story about the struggles a woman deals with navigating male-centric thinking and societal norms’. The story might seem vague if the reader is unfamiliar with Gilman’s personal story but still the reader is moved by the husband’s condescending treatment of the narrator and hopefully celebrates with her when she is finally freed of the wallpaper and her husband. History has shown that women were considered second-class or lesser than men for most of the nineteenth century. Women were oppressed by men and seen as “weak”. This idea of oppression is illustrated in the story in a couple of ways: John and the narrator’s brothers are both physicians and both under the
John, as a “high standing” physician is able to name the narrator’s condition with no room for the narrator to question or argue his decision. The relationship is already one of oppression. John is able to decide everything for the narrator down to who she can visit with, what she can do with her spare time and where she can rest in the house. The only real mention of the narrator’s brother is that he whole-heartedly agrees with John, while a small part, this helps illustrate the idea of male oppression. The power John has over her can be taken as him taking care of her, as she is unable to care for herself. However, oppression is also seen when John will not allow the narrator to be very educated on her own treatment, “So I take phosphates or phosphites – whichever it is”. His decision to not educate her on her treatment illustrates the idea that men believe women don’t know what’s best, even for themselves, and need strict direction to be able to get better. This role divide also allows John to treat the narrator as a child, ““And 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 my