Yellow Wallpaper

To a large extent the narrator of ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ is a reflection of women in contemporary society. Contemporary society may be defined as the society of when ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ takes place. One may know the story takes place in the nineteenth century, during which women faced inequality in the society. Hence, with the knowledge that the narrator of ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ is under dictation and oppression of her husband and her own perspective of her identity as a women and wife, one may conclude that the she reflects women in the nineteenth-century society. The reflection will be further discussed in the following paragraphs.

The narrator of the ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ reflects inequality of women in the nineteenth-century society as one may notice her oppression and dictation by the male characters in the story. Firstly, the narrator’s inner feelings and imagination is oppressed by her husband. Throughout the story, one may recognize that the narrator constantly mentions being forbidden to write and work in general, ‘absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again‘, ‘he hates to have me write a word.’ The narrator faces ‘heavy opposition’ if she is found writing, this shows her husband’s effort to contain her creativity and imagination, which happens to be positive quantities, however, he is too authoritative and scientific to realize. The narrator’s eagerness to speak her mind shows her husband’s stick oppression on her, ‘If I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me’.   Secondly, one may sense the dictates of the husband over the narrator. The narrator was put on rest cure by her husband and possibly her brother, the narrator shows no opposition or at least one cannot tell from the story that the narrator has ever gone against the rest cure idea, even though she ‘personally disagree with their ideas’. This shows how the narrator abides to the male figures under their dictation. Besides, her husband does not listen...