Never Again...

Realism has a definition as plain as the word itself. It is the real deal on life. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a tale called “The Yellow Wall-Paper” that described certain realism within the female society. Gilman uses a simplistic object to protrude her ideas about the woman’s place in a household. Her ideas are leaked out throughout her story and have a very sensible depiction although easy to read.
From beginning to end she describes this hideous wallpaper that is in a room she usually sleeps in. It has lurid patterns and a disgusting yellow that make you deny yellow as a color of something gracious. It is so disturbing that she also gets angry every time she sets her eyes upon it. This, in fact, is her imprisonment. She was suppose to do everything her husband told her to do and could not to rebel against him as a woman in that era. She uses this wallpaper to show her imprisonment as a terrible thing that she detests and it makes her sick. Her husband constantly denies her illness because he does not see that he is the cause of it; so he lets it go along telling her that she is improving. She angers herself constantly while trying to solve the mystery of the wallpaper because she is beginning to realize her situation in social imprisonment. She soon realizes it because the paper, “becomes bars,” at night and she sees a woman behind them (Gilman 9). This calmed her since that she knew as she says after she found out, “I feel ever so much better now!” (Gilman 11). She usually sees this woman in a surface that reflects images back at the observer like the windows hinting that is actually herself that she sees trying to escape that hideous prison.
She also begins speaking of the woman rattling the cage trying to get out. Obviously this is Gilman attempting to be free, which is done with her paper as well as the rattling of the figurative cage. All of her thoughts, emotions, and feelings reveal themselves in that rebellious biography she writes all the time. The cult of true womanhood is once again attacked here. Charlotte does not like the idea of being second-hand to her husband and it makes her sick. She loves her husband and does what she must, but like other women, her sacrifices were not enjoyable. She is speaking her pain by saying, “John does not know how much I really suffer,” and is telling the audience that her brother is also a doctor and says she is fine as well, showing that it is not just her husband, but all men who are like that (Gilman 3). Also notice that she never speaks down about her husband, but she just says he does not understand and he never hurts her, but just does not think anything is wrong. Anger and hate were not always involved in the feelings of women and their spouses, but men just did not know how it felt to be in their shoes. At the end her husband faints when the prison is torn away from her. This is symbolic toward the realization of a problem. Many times when people find out an overwhelming truth about something, it is so much to think about that they are left unconscious. He did not realize his wife was so imprisoned so, in his misunderstanding, he is bombarded with thoughts in his mind. He cannot believe what has truly been going on.
Gilman gave a very similar message when she wrote “The Yellow Wall-Paper” that told the world about an unfortunate situation in society. She sought freedom from the bars symbolized in her writing. Also, in a way, the room is hidden thoughts of her mind and the wallpaper is the barrier keeping her from breaking free. It is said that bottled up (or imprisoned) emotions are bad for health. At least she found a way to release herself and become free.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/us/politics/03intel.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper