Patterns of Entrapment and Emancipation in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the various patterns of female entrapment in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Medical entrapment is specifically an expression of social and cultural patterns confining women in the 19th century. This is the focus of this paper. Having little or no knowledge at all of women’s particular psychological nature, or certain misconceptions about them and their specific illnesses, men doctors dominating the medical field at the time, sometimes led their women patients to insanity, instead of curing them. The confinement of these women and the unprofessionality of those doctors were exposed by Gilman’s professional writing. Using what can be called her ‘patterns of entrapment’ of various types in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman provides a woman’s perspective into this issue of woman’s insanity; prevents the suffering of more women, and also revealing some chances of emancipation from their confining conditions