The Message of The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper was writen in a time where woman were not equal to men by any means. "The ideal woman was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good humored." (A Autobiography of Emotions, 1). This piece of literature was a glimpse into the "sick and twisted" mind of a woman who was not taken seriously by people, especially her husband. It would seem that her husband John, in the story, would often make fun of her and talk down to her. "John laughs at me, of coarse, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman, 1). She was deemed mentally unstable, with a woman disease. The theme of The Yellow Wallpaper is that woman were unequal to men, and not taken seriously because of gender and sometimes their "sickness". Charlotte Gilman was believed to have post pardom depression after the birth of her daughter and a nervous disorder. At the time it was believed that the cause of this was her frequent writing. She was told to "live as domestic a life as possible and never touch a pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live" ( An Autobigrahpy of Emotions, 3) and that would fix her issues. Her husband treated her very child like, "He took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose" (Gilman, 2) and isolated her to an attic-like bedroom in the top floor of their rented house, which was once a children's mental hospital. "No wonder children hated it!" "Up in this atrocious nursery" (Gilman, 2).

Websites:

http://dictionary.reference.com 

I used this website to look up "Atrocious".

https://www.kidspeace.org/childrenshospital.aspx?ekmensel=77931891_50_60_938_1

I used this website to learn a bit more about children sanitariums. 

Definition:

Theme is the central topic of a text or the moral/ important message of a story (text).