Society and Social Structure
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” Stetson demonstrates how society and social structure in the late 1800s was for women. While reading the audience wonders what is making the woman act in the manner that she does. There is a certain obsession with the wallpaper that the woman has. She says that the color of the papers is repellent and revolting to her and has an unclean yellow smell to it (Stetson 649). Her obsession with the wallpaper intensifies her mental anguish.
The wallpaper represents how the woman in the story and Stetson viewed society at the time. The oppression of women is the overall theme that can be viewed throughout the entire story. The wallpaper is smothering the woman and in a sense holding back her recovery from her mental illness. The woman feels the room she is made to live in is so horrible that she is actually happy that her son does not have to live in it (Stetson 652). When the woman in the story, Jane, looks at the wallpaper she sees a woman who is trapped, creeping about, and trying to escape (Stetson 652). The woman that Jane sees that is trapped is actually herself who feels imprisoned in the room with the yellow wallpaper.
In the late 1800s society was strictly male dominated, this is present throughout the entire short story. The only doctor that the woman is seeing for her depression is her husband who is a doctor. Her husband also consults with her brother who is a doctor on how to treat her. This conflict of interest demonstrates how society was male dominated. Instead of bringing the woman to a impartial doctor he keeps her in the house in a room she does not like because he believes that the treatment he uses will cure her. The oppression of women is present in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and relates to one of the main themes of society and social structure in the late 1800s impeded women's right to the choice of their own treatment and recovery.
The wallpaper represents how the woman in the story and Stetson viewed society at the time. The oppression of women is the overall theme that can be viewed throughout the entire story. The wallpaper is smothering the woman and in a sense holding back her recovery from her mental illness. The woman feels the room she is made to live in is so horrible that she is actually happy that her son does not have to live in it (Stetson 652). When the woman in the story, Jane, looks at the wallpaper she sees a woman who is trapped, creeping about, and trying to escape (Stetson 652). The woman that Jane sees that is trapped is actually herself who feels imprisoned in the room with the yellow wallpaper.
In the late 1800s society was strictly male dominated, this is present throughout the entire short story. The only doctor that the woman is seeing for her depression is her husband who is a doctor. Her husband also consults with her brother who is a doctor on how to treat her. This conflict of interest demonstrates how society was male dominated. Instead of bringing the woman to a impartial doctor he keeps her in the house in a room she does not like because he believes that the treatment he uses will cure her. The oppression of women is present in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and relates to one of the main themes of society and social structure in the late 1800s impeded women's right to the choice of their own treatment and recovery.