Power in The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

Power in Charlotte Perkin Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"

"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the idea of inequliaty between men and women. The story shows how power affects one person which is portrayed through the narrator and her dominant husband John."The Yellow Wallpaper" suggests that a male dominant relationship leads to a downfall in marraige.

John's dominant power over the narrator suggests she is incapable of expressing herself. The narrator says "There comes John, and I must put this away,- he hates to have me write a word (79). She says she cries for nothing most of the time but not when "John is here, or anybody else, but when [she] is alone" (82). John's dominance clearly affects the narrator as she immediately stops writing and puts her journal away. Her action of putting the journal away shows that the narrator abides to John's rules and that John's attitude reflects on the narrator's ability to do things as she wants emphasizing on his dominant trait.The statement refering to her cries shows how she can only express herself when she is free of company. The narrator feels she can only cry and be herself when she is absolutely alone acknowledging his power as the dominant partner in their marriage. John's superiority over the narrator highlights her state of being an inferior who is unable to express herself as she pleases while giving John the power he believes is solely his in the marriage.

John's belief in his knowledge reveals his ignorance causing the narrator to feel powerless. John claims the narrator is not sick but rather suffers from a "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency" (77). The narrator says she persoanlly "disagree[s] with their ideas"(79) claiming the "nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing" (79) and that "John does not know how much [she] really suffer[s]" (79). John believes he knows what is best for the narrator because he is a physician with status and does not listen to what the narrator has to say about her condition. John gives the narrator a diagnosis he believes to be the only diagnosis because he is a "physician of high standing"(77). He strongly believes he is right and asks her to "trust [him] as a physician when [he] tell[s] [her] so"(85) in which the narrator does even when she knows she does not have a nervous depression. She says she "disagree[s] with their ideas" (79) but John seems to be oblivious that his wife is really hurting inside because of his social status. As the narrator tells John she is not getting better and no longer wants to stay in the room, John continues to tell her she is becoming better and fails to grant the narrator her wishes of moving out of the yellow room prolonging his ignorant behaviour.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the author Gilman presents the idea of inequality through the husband John and the wife Jane in the story focusing on the efftects of male dominance in a marital relationship. The short story is effective to the readers in that it is able to show the repercussions of unbalanced power on one in marriage by the topics of dominance, ignorance, and control. However because the story is written in the first person's point of view, the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" may be seen as an unreliable source. With more voices in the story and having read more books on the topic of gender stratification, the readers might get a sense that marriage in the 1800's was actually not as depressing and unfair for women as the story portrays it was through Jane.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 40 Short Stories: A portable anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Beverly Lawn. New York: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2009. 77-92.Print.