“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was originally read and interpreted as a horror story, but from the author's perspective, it was an accurate representation of the problems faced by most women of her time. went through there. The text is most often viewed from a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective that highlights the apparent symbolism of the story, digs beneath the wallpaper, and understands the purpose behind the story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story. about a 19th-century middle-class white woman, but it addresses the situation of "women" in that women as a group still have to struggle against male power in matters of medicine, marriage, and, in fact, in most, if not all, culture. (Hedges, 231) In the late 19th century when “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, society was predominantly run by men. Men set the standards for women with their ideals of “true womanhood,” expecting the women in their lives to express virtues such as purity, piety, domesticity, and submission. Of course, strong-willed, independent women like Gilman seemed to be ahead of their time and realized that most medical practices like the rest cure were primarily a way of ensuring that the wife remained submissive to her husband. She portrayed this idea through the narrator and protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. “Gilman projects mental derangement onto a familiar literary figure, a middle-class wife and mother. She places the source of madness in the sacrosanct sphere of respectful women: the home. " (Golden) By placing the narrator in a familiar setting and in a scenario familiar to most women of the time, Gilman conveys to her audience the reality of the powerful...... middle of paper .. ..any form of strenuous physical activity, prolonged socializing, and any type of creative outlet like writing in the case of the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Instead, they were encouraged. to rest for a while with the idea that bed rest and seclusion would cure them. Our narrator's husband, John, was a medical professional who prescribed a course of rest for the narrator to treat what. we now call postpartum depression “For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholy - and beyond... I went, with pious faith and a slight momentum. of hope, to a renowned specialist in nervous diseases This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which he concluded that I did not have much, and sent me away. home with the solemn advice to “live as domestic a life as possible”…” (Gilman)