“The Yellow Wallpaper”

Temmi Adeyeni
Period 11
Ms.Brown
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
In Charlottes Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, she tells the story of a woman who was considered a “true woman”. Though this story holds many main ideas, the one that sticks out the most is that being part of the “cult of true womanhood” can have some mental effects on the woman. In this case, the woman in this story is drained by the fact that her husband was putting her up on a high pedestal. Charlotte Perkins Gilman proves this argument through the use of detail and imagery.


By Charlottes Perkins Gilman using a plethora of detail and imagery, she is evoking the idea that this woman is miserable and tired. She is tired of being smothered by her husband. He does not really want her to do anything and she just sits around and watch the day go by. The woman describes her house and estate in a very distinct manner that helps the audience come to the conclusion that she is bored with the relationship. Each day is slowly dragging along with no significance. “It makes me tired to follow it”, “I did nor feel able”(Gilmer 7). The woman has turned into a lazy person, who expects everything to be done for her. She hates this idea, because she knows it is changing her as an individual. Having to live up to the standards of “cult of true womanhood”, was tiring, draining and most importantly weakening to her well-being. She is being mentally affected in the sense that she knows she is getting weaker and to get her power back, she “attacks” everything that reminds her of her situation. This is where the Yellow Wallpaper comes into play. In the story, the Yellow Wallpaper is being described as “repellent”, and “unclean”; she goes on to state that she should hate the wallpaper herself, since she had been in the room long enough. This reinstates the fact that she was sick of being lazy and not having anything to do. She did not want to be in the lap of luxury. These mental effects went as far as affecting her marriage. It seemed like her husband loved her a lot but the feelings were not reciprocal. She is aware of the fact that she is unfair to him, because she keeps on mentioning that he cared for her a lot. She feels that if she drew closer to her husband, the fact that she was being treated like an insolent would only get worse. This makes her angry, because if she tries to get out of the relationship nothing good could come out of it. She would lose her title as a “true woman” and therefore be shunned by the society. Nothing good would come out of it.


In conclusion, Charlottes Perkins Gilman thoroughly explains to the reader the mental effects of being a “true woman”. She shows that it is not only draining to the women on the outside looking in, but also to the women on the inside.