Charlotte Gilman uses her experience with postpartum depression to create a short story called “The Yellow Wallpaper”, that describes a woman with hallucinations from confinement. The narrator's husband, John, is a doctor who belittles his wife as if she’s a child, which is only normal for this time period. While the narrator is trapped in a room with yellow wallpaper, she realizes there is more than one woman trapped behind the wall, it symbolizes she is not the only individual dealing with this problem. By writing this story, the author is not only condemning the narrator's husband, John, but the whole society of the 19th century. In Charlotte Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator and her husband have an unequal relationship, her husband is controlling and domineering, and themes in this story prove society of the 19th century was not much better. …show more content…
Gilman dealt with abandonment since she was a child, her father left his family at an impoverished state, but this was only normal for this time period. She lived her childhood lonely and isolated, receiving no affection from her mother, getting the least bit of entertainment from books. In 1884 Gilman married an artist named Charles Stetson, only a year later bearing a child, Katherine. Months after giving birth to Katherine, she suffered a severe case of postpartum depression. During this age women were seen as “weak” and “nervous” beings, so her claims were only ignored. Her treatment was for her to do absolutely nothing, and especially no writing. As she escaped this dark illness, she also escaped the cause. She divorced her husband in 1894 and began her life as a women's