Yellow Wallpaper
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"The Yellow Wallpaper", a short story by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman, is not about a young woman who is living a life of insanity or confusion, but woman who is living a life of oppression and struggling to use talents other than being a wife and mother. Dependent on her husband and confined to her bedroom with hideous yellow wallpaper, Gillman illustrates how the narrator refuses to bow to society and their ideas of appropriate behavior. By removing the wallpaper little by little she finds the true woman within, and the strength to stand up for her rights.
At the beginning of the story we are informed by the narrator that her husband, John, a physician, is treating her for hysteria. The narrator does not agree with her husband's treatment, but no one pays any attention to her. "Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?" The narrator shows what power the man has over the woman. The immovable bed, barred windows, and a gate at the stairs represent the limitations of society and male domination...