"The Yellow Wallpaper" was printed in 1892, when women
were still oppressed. In fact, even though they earned the right to vote in the 20th
Century (1920), they were still oppressed. Things did not start to change until the
1960s with the Women's Rights Movement and the hippie movement. Birth control was first
approved by the FDA in 1961.
Even after the 1960s, women
were not treated fairly in the home or in the workplace. In 1967, President
Johnson issued an executive order requiring federal employers to take affirmative: equal
treatment and opportunities for employees regardless of gender, race, color, or
religion.
In this story we see how a woman is controlled by
her husband, a male doctor, and a sister-in-law who is under the control of her
domineering brother.
Our protagonist suffers a mental
decline which is promoted by the neglectful ignorance of her husband and her doctor.
She would have received no sympathy from the police had she complained; for many years,
and in some cases still today, women were considered property; in the past women were
subject to whatever treatment their husbands saw fit, however the
laws today provide more protection for women in abusive situations. It was not at all
unusual for women to be institutionalized in lunatic asylums (whether insane or simply
"inconvenient"), which were inhumane places until there was reform in the mental health
industry in the 1900s.
There is no question that our
protagonist was victimized in the story. Her treatment was not therapeutic, but drove
her into complete madness.
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