The Yellow Wallpaper: A Reflection of Rigid Gender Roles in 19th Century America

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American authors from the Colonial period to the present
For the European adventurers who exploreed the America of the sixteenth, seventieth and
eighteenth century had no real culture. The native Americans could not write and without any
legal principles. It was through the traditional boarding schools that the Native American first
experienced a letter (Lopenzina 18). Native children enrolled in those schools were forced to
abandon their traditions and language. The aim of the paper is to representative works of
American literature from the Colonial period and its various genres. Identity and
Transformations were of the genres that add to our understanding of American literature and the
issues that represented the era. The author and story picked for discussion are “The Yellow
Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The Yellow Wallpaper
“The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a short story was published in
1892. It is based on the personal experiences of the author. In her real life, Gilman suffered a
nervous breakdown, and the character in the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays her
experiences as she was forced to rest and live a protected life. She was not allowed any activity
and even her favorites like to paint or write as her husband and family through that it was not a
good idea as she must rest completely. Gradually, the narrator becomes obsessed by the Yellow
Wallpaper in her room and seeks her freedom within the patterns of the wallpaper. She feels that
she can get free by peeling it down. The story reflects up the identity and transformations in the
role of women in the society of the 19th century America when the husbands controlled the

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women and the women were restricted by male influences. The story is about how a husband
treats the psychological difficulties of his wife and believes that compete rest and isolation are
the therapeutic treatment for her.
Rigid gendered roles and rules of the 19th century America
Gilman is best known for the short story” The Yellow Wallpaper.” The story enlightens
the readers about the social conditions of those times as well as gender relationships and
feminism during the 19th-century America (Marland). As the story is based on Gilman’s own
health crisis, it can be said to be semi-autobiographical in nature. This is perhaps that adds more
credibility to the message behind the story. The compulsive writer did earn the reputation of an
advocate of women's rights worldwide throughout her career. Gilman's life story itself is a
paradigm of feminine anger, as she abandoned marriage and motherhood due to her ailments.
She renounced the nineteenth-century housewifery and motherhood and stayed true to her world
of feminism and social commitment (Johnson 530). The short story depicts the challenges of
being a woman during the nineteenth century (Marland). Any woman who became more literate
or challenged female dress codes or tried to live creative lives was seen to be breaking female
roles and conventions.
The Yellow Wallpaper, although printed in 1892 remained ignored for more than five
decades. The fact itself shows the unjust treatment female authors got by the literary critics in
North America (Godayol 81). The revolutionary literatures on the situation of women were often
ignored in the male-dominated system. When one of the leading physicians of her time, S. Weir
Mitchell diagnosed Charlotte Perkins Gilman of” nervous prostration,” he prescribed the popular
and necessary recuperative regimen for her and which was a rest cure treatment. Thus, Gilman
was kept away under strict isolation for a month at his Philadelphia Sanatorium. She was

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forbidden any creative activity like writing or painting (Bak 39). Gilman dramatizes her
experience of the treatment under her physician in “The Yellow Wallpaper" and how the
isolation only deteriorates the condition of the patient. Gilman’s deep depression and with no
freedom to write during her time in the sanatorium made her almost mad. Her married situations
and position made her aware of the submissive role of women in society and marriage. This is
why one finds a superb dramatic precision in the story of the woman's mental breakdown in The
Yellow Wallpaper as stated by Godayol (81). All women during the 19th century were seen as
weak and vulnerable to ill health and mental collapse by physicians. Those women with creative
and aspiring streaks were considered even more at risk. Such women were seen as pacing
themselves at dangers of nervous collapse if they tried to step into the roles and realms set for the
male gender. Gilman writes of a “dragging weariness ... absolute incapacity. Absolute misery”
following the birth of her daughter (Marland). The doctors were sure that the form of mental
illness was activated by the mental and physical strain of giving birth.
Societal confines for women
Looked upon as a feminist masterpiece, the author penned the story when men exercised
full authority over the women in their family and lives. As stated by Bak (40), the story has
become a feminist text that draws attention to the men in the narrator’s life who are responsible
for her subsequent mental demise. The women were confined within the four walls of their
home. Gilman draws attention to the lives of women in the society of her times and how they led
a captivated life. Thus, it is no surprise that these women did not experience any creative growth
or developed intellectualism. Her story depicts the space and confinement of the women within
the male-dominated confines in that era and thus touches the issues of identity and
transformations for women under male dominance.