Theme of “The Yellow
Wallpaper”
“The
Yellow Wallpaper” has multiple themes but I think that the most prominent theme
is the way that women are viewed in marriage. In the 1900s, when this short
story was written, women did not yet have any rights. The men were the dominant
role in everything, from jobs to relationships. In respectable marriages the
woman always obeyed her husbands wishes and I think that this is what the
author was trying to get across in the story. The author believes that in a
relationship like this, where the women practically live to make the men happy,
it can effect the development of the woman. Women in the 19th
century were stripped of their own personal development because they were
expected to carry out the domestic functions in the marriage. The men were in
charge of going out and working and providing the women and children a place to
live, and that is what the narrator’s husband, John, believes that he is doing.
The wives are so wrapped up in
making their husbands happy that they have no time for themselves, and in
return they are driving themselves insane. This gender division is making women
ignorant to the world around them. They have no achievements of their own
(little or no education and no special skills). Living to please her husband
made it to where the narrator could not develop in her mind or as a person in
general.
Although John thought that he was
helping his wife, he was doing exactly the opposite. John was belittling her,
and only making her illness worse. He trapped her inside of herself, a woman
that would never be freed from her thoughts. John thought that he knew all
there was to know about his wife’s illness because he was a physician. Though I
believe that John truly wanted his wife to be healthy, he was driving her mad.
Because of him, she lost touch with the world around her. He would not let her
out of her room, he would not allow her to be with her child, he would not
allow her to have visitors, he would not allow her to write in her diary, and
he would not allow her to do small everyday things. She was secluded because of
him. He patronized her, in subtle ways that ended up being major. He denied her request to switch rooms
and to remove the wallpaper. He called her names that he may not have meant to
be hurtful, but that is how they came off. John used his role as husband and
doctor as a role of authority and ignores that his wife is not only his wife,
but is a human being with thoughts, feelings, and issues of her own. When he ignored
that she was a real person too, he kept her inside of herself and drove her
crazy. In her confusion between reality and fantasy she became caught up in the
woman in the wallpaper. All of this insanity is due to the "subordination of
women in marriage. " (sparknotes)
Www.sparknotes.com
