The Yellow What?

So this was definitely the weirdest, most absurd story we have read all year. The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Gilman is not something I could not fully understand just reading it one time. At first it seemed like some psychological thriller that was about the effects of postpartum depression, since she kept mentioning her baby randomly. But then after reading her biography, I saw it as more a feminist piece. It really made me think she was satirizing the lives of women at this time. They were expected to do all the house chores, take care of their children, and all the other womanly duties, but the narrator in this story finds it "too tiring" to do anything. The only thing she has enough strength to do is write, which her husband has forbidden her to do. It seemed like she was supposed to do all the things she was not physically able to do, but then not allowed to do the things she yearned to do. Although this woman went completely insane, to some degree many other women in these positions would go a little bit crazy also. After being cooped up in a house all day, talking to no one else but small children and not being allowed to be creative, it is hard to imagine not going a little bit coo-coo.

The whole idea of the resting cure also felt a little bit overdone. Everyday the narrator would do the same thing, eat and sleep. Obviously that was not helping her get better since she started to see things move in the wall paper, but her husband was stuck in his ways and would not try other things. I think that was another criticism on the medical community. At the time they were not as willing to try other things that could help, especially in psychiatric care. They thought they knew what they were doing, and refused to see any other way.