The Yellow Wallpaper Madness Research Paper

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Prescription to Madness Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” uses the asset of psychological horror to harshly critique the woman’s role in a marriage in the 1800s. Women in the 1880s were viewed upon as being weak and unstable. Their opinions were disregarded and they were often treated ignorantly as children. The narrator in this story essentially goes mad as a result of her problem being ignored. Women at this time were essentially expected to abide by the requests of their husbands, have children, and care for the home. Men were the main bread earners and essentially dominated the world. The narrator’s husband, John, is a physician and represents society. He controls what the narrator should and should not do and makes her decisions for her. John has no sense of faith, a horror of superstition, and ridicules anything that cannot be felt, seen, or put in figures. Everything about John is scientific, factual, logical, and rational, as this is what characterizes a “sane” person in society. John gives his wife a prescription to become well again. However, the narrator disagrees with John’s treatment entirely…show more content…
Much of the time, her suppression is based on John not listening to her; however, when John is attentive, the narrator often fails at effectively sending her message, such as when she approaches John to discuss her desire to visit Cousin Henry and Julia. She states, “I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished,” (775). By crying, the narrator displays a sense of weakness. This provides John with evidence to his claims of her being weak and
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