Society and Gender Role Expectation - Essay Example

Today, Gilman is best remembered through her written short story which is 6,000-word in length entitled “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which primarily depicts her real life experience. The story is narrated from the perspective of the main character whose husband is a doctor. The narrator’s husband diagnosed her with “temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” common among women in the 19th century. The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” talks about the loss of voice of a woman within the society in the 19th century.

The author emphasizes this by mentioning that the narrator was put in isolation and controlled over by her husband. Isolation was not the best thing for the narrator because she knew it only worsened her condition, which her husband was entirely oblivious about. She was confined in an old nursery room where she learned many things about her isolation and hated it in the first place. “No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long” (Gilman 5). However, prior to this, she made necessary suggestions that the old nursery room would not contribute positively on her condition, but it would be other things instead.

“Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (2). . “I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already” (Gilman 5). The narrator just wanted her freedom and the ultimate treatment for her nervousness and depression was not the isolation in an old nursery room. It was the ultimate suggestion she desperately explicated to her husband though. The author tried to emphasize that the loss of voice of a woman in 19th century was due to the existence of a male-dominated society.

Society expected much more from men than women which substantially put the former in control over the latter in almost every aspect, just as how the narrator’s husband locked her wife up in an old nursery room. It was a strong depiction of how men inflicted limitations against every woman’s capacity to prove her self. “It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now” (Gilman 7).

The author also tried to emphasize the old nursery room as a way of treating woman incapable about something great just like how the infants rely their survival on adults. “Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able – to dress and entertain, and other things” (5). The author pointed out that the narrator’s mental problem was a depiction of how women struggled to fight the prevailing society’s expectations of gender role and it was a revolutionary way to gain significant voice of women in the society.

In fact, this is evident from the fact that in 1930’s women did not experience greater economic