Gilman's views on women today

                 If Charlotte Perkins Gilman would be here to see how most women are today compared to how they were in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she would be happy.  Gilman always argued that women are subjugated by men, that motherhood should not preclude a woman from working outside the home, and that housekeeping, cooking, and child care, would be professionalized.  If she was to see that now there are many women that are in the working class and manage to attend to their husband and children while having a full time job she would be very proud.  Women employment has gone up tremendously since Gilman’s time.  Women today are not subject to what their husbands want, they have a say in what they want in life and won’t be punished for speaking out their opinions.  A few years after Gilman committed suicide; women slowly began getting bigger roles in society, and have had important positions.  Charlotte Perkin Gilman was a feminist and seeing all the changes in women roles today would have made her feel accomplished.

Literary Analysis

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was reality to many women from the late 1800s and the early 1900s, including Gillman herself.  She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” after suffering from post partum depression.  As Gillman explains, during her third year of this trouble she went to the best known specialist in the country for nervous disease.  He applied the resting cure, to which she responded so good to that he sent her home and advised to like life as domestic as possible and to “never touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as she lived”.  However, she didn’t listen, after a few months she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in which she says she wrote with its embellishments and additions to carry out the ideal.   She mentions her Doctor nearly drove her mad. In “The yellow wallpaper” the Narrator’s condition is nervous depression, which seems to worsen by the end of the story, while her husband John is her Physician.               The stories setting took place in the late nineteenth century, in midsummer because she mentions fourth of July.  The narrator suffers from nervous depression so she is taken to a place she describes as “the most beautiful place” (Gilman, p809).  She has to stay for three months so she can get better because according to her husband John, “there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression (Gilman, p808). She also hates her room and describes it as “a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore” (Gilman, p 809).  The yellow wallpaper is the thing she hates the most in the room.                From what we know, the narrator is a young middle class woman.  She is married and just had a child.  The narrator is suffering from depression and has been taken to a place so she can recover.  She is given a treatment that does not work for her, and worsens her condition. Her husband John is her physician, and failed to notice how his wife was worsening as time passed by.  He left her alone most of the time, but he was so sure she was making progress.               As the narrator spends more time alone, and in her room, the wallpaper affects her more, and more.  Little by little she starts stepping out of the reality would, and into her own. At first it was just any awful yellow wallpaper, but as the story goes on she starts noticing symbols and lines.  The narrator stares at it for hours and mentions that at night the figure of a woman would creep around and at daytime she sees the woman outside her window.  Until the end she says she was the woman trapped, and now is free, and she is free because at this point she is completely insane and everything in her mind is what she thinks is right.  The yellow wallpaper with the woman trapped inside symbolizes her life.  She felt trapped, and didn't have much say.  Most of the time, she said she was treated like a little girl.  It was always what her husband said, and all she could do was agree.              The climax happened when she talks about the stuff she found out about the woman in the wallpaper.  She says, “I really have discovered something at last.  I think that woman gets out in the daytime.  I always lock the door when I creep by daylight” (Gilman, p817).  She also says, “I have found out another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time!  It does not do to trust people too much” (Gilman, p817).  The narrator doesn’t trust people either; For example, Jennie.  The narrator starts identifying herself with the woman in the wallpaper.              The falling action happens when she finally says she is the woman in the yellow wallpaper. At this point, she talks as that woman herself, and she’s creeping all over the room.   At the end she doesn’t recognize John either.  John is looking at the way his wife is acting, and is in shocked.  ​             The narrator’s condition worsened day by day.  The whole time she was there the yellow wallpaper was her only distraction.  She was alone most of her time, and wasn’t allowed to write or to think too much, and that had a great affect on her. In the end the wallpaper symbolized her life.  She felt trapped since the time she walked into the mansion.  The narrator wasn’t allowed to express her feelings, she had no say, and the only way she express what she thought was through the yellow wallpaper.  What she saw in the wallpaper was a reflection of her life.  John could have handled her condition differently, and it might have had a different outcome.

Lane, Ann. Charlotte Perkins Gilman. N.p., n.d. Gale. Web. 19 Apr. 2012

Reesman, Jeanne C. The Norton Anthology. 7thth ed. Vol. C. New York: W.W Norton & Company Inc, 2007. 806-19. Print. Rpt. of The Yellow Wall-paper. 1892.

Reesman, Jeanne C. The Norton Anthology. 7thth ed. Vol. C. New York: W.W Norton & Company Inc, 2007. 820. Print. Rpt. of The Yellow Wall-paper. 1892.

Literary Movements of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

              Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist Author, and the literary movement she was involved with was Realism and Naturalism. The term Naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. Unlike, Realism which focuses on literary system, naturalism implies a philosophical position: for naturalistic writers characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings. The Naturalist believed in studying human beings as though they were "products" that are to be studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures. One of the Authors works that fits into the movement is “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In this story she focuses on how women were treated in the early 1900s. Women had no say at all and an example is shown from this story when the narrator had to do what she was told, and had no other choice. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an example of Realism and Naturalism because it showed how women lived during the early 1900s.







Scheidenhelm, Carol. "American Literary History: Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism ." luc.edu. N.p., 14 Aug. 2007. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. <http://www.luc.edu/faculty/cschei1/teach/rrn3.html>.



"1890s-1920s Naturalism." PBS, Mar. 2007. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.< http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/naturalism.html>.

Biography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

              Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American writer, lecturer, and social activist.  Gilman didnt call herself a "feminist"- her goal as a humanist was to campaign for the cause of women's suffrage. Gilman was born on July 3^rd 1960 in Hartford, Connecticut; she was the youngest daughter of Frederick Beecher Perkins, a librarian and writer, and Mary Perkins.  In 1878 Gilman attended the Rhode Island School of Design).

            Charlotte Gilman married an artist named Charles Walter Stetson in 1858, and had a daughter named Katharine Beecher Stetson in 1885.  After Gilman gave birth she fell victim of depression, and had a nervous breakdown that affected her for several years.  In 1887 Gilman attended a sanitorium in Philadelphia by a Doctor named Silas Wier Mitchell, he is actually the Doctor mentioned in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.   She was treated with the ‘resting cure’.  In 1888 she separated from her husband, and also became involved with social reform and feminist groups.   After her divorce she published her fictional story   “The Yellow Wallpaper” based on her experience with her depression.  She still remained close to her ex-husband who married her best friend; and she was criticized for giving up her daughter to him.  She later married on June 11, 1900 to her cousin George Houghton Gilman, who supported and encouraged her feminist endeavors.

            In 1934, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s husband died, and the next year she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  On August 17, 1935, Gilman decided to take her own life, she committed suicide.  Even though Gilman was no longer with us, her work still was.  Some of her work included The Later Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Crux(novel), What Diantha Did(novel), and Herland.

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