Charlotte Perkins Gilman s

1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman�s

2. The main character is believed by her husband to have a nervous disorder which in turn leads to a retreat in an old mansion that houses the �yellow wallpaper�. The wallpaper becomes the focus of the main character as her health declines and as her attention reveals a hidden woman behind the designs on the wall that demands liberation from her prison that reflects the sentiment of the narrator of her husband�s prognosis. The narrator becomes the woman trapped in the wall and achieves freedom when she �creeps� out of her prison.

3. The narrator is presented as a women who is plagued by a �nervous disorder� and becomes perplexed by a wallpaper design and attempts to find out why it captures her imagination only to discover that it contains a women inside who she must release. John, the husband/physician, plays the stereotypical male of the era and diagnoses her with the nervousness and subscribes to the inferior theory by suggesting the common treatment for women at the time which was rest and �air�. Jennie, John�s sister, is the foil to the narrator in that she embodies the ideological woman of the time by being submissive to the male and does not see the woman in the wall.

4. The wall in the story represents sexism, in that it is a barrier that the woman could not find a way through, and her only choice was to tear it down. The obscene yellow color on the wall shows the disgust the author has for the whole sexism.

5. The narrator of the short story shows a woman�s perspective through the writings in her private journal. This allows the audience to see the effects of the comparison to sexism throughout the short story.

6. The narrator starts off as a submissive character, with a questionable disorder. By the end of the story, the narrator turns rebellious and suffers from a psychotic disorder, which leads to her death in the end.

7. The narrator suffers from a �nervous disorder� and is passive in everything she did. By the end, the narrator is a complete psycho and sees an imaginary lady in the wallpaper trying to get out. The psychological disorder eventually leads to her death as she hangs herself.

8. Scientific sexism and the belief that a women�s reproductive system was her most valuable asset and should be the her sole responsibility. The separate spheres ideology. The urge for freedom and liberation.

9. The allusions in the story relate to scientific sexism and its common beliefs of women�s �inferiority�. The husband addresses her as a victim of her condition and constantly orders her to rest her mind.

10. The narrator uses several symbols in the text to represent sexism and her sentiment towards sexism such as: Repeating �personally� A �nervous disorder� The husband, brother, and the other �highly qualified� men in the story are doctors. The �yellow wallpaper� and the �crawling� women.

11. The author�s goal is to present scientific sexism from the perspective of a women and prove the manner in which women were treated as unfair and irrational.