Gender confinement: oppression and depression Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes "The Yellow Wallpaper" to express how women's rights are oppressed, how society deals with depression and how gender inequality was prevalent in the 19th century. This short story is set in a time where women are not treated equally to men and women have few rights. The author uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to convey this point to the reader. Over time, women have experienced confinement through gender, depression, and oppression. Through each of these modes of confinement, Charlotte Perkins Gilman attempts to show how gender, depression, and oppression lead to the narrator's confinement in "The Yellow Wallpaper." In "The Yellow Wallpaper", Charlotte In the article Controlling the Female Psyche: Assigned Gender Roles in "The Yellow Wallpaper", English professor Elizabeth Carey notes that John, the narrator's husband, is a respected doctor and a "rational thinker" and the narrator is the "dutiful wife who does not question her husband's authority." The narrator easily falls into her role by trying to do everything her husband tells her to do. Their marriage is a typical 19th century marriage where roles are established based on their gender. Despite the narrator's objections, she accepts treatment for depression because her husband wants her to receive treatment. The narrator is described as submissive to her husband. When he tells her to do something she obeys him without question. During this time, men are seen as the dominant sex. They are the main providers of the family while women are seen as weak and weak. When the woman says “he takes care of me, and therefore I feel cowardly ungrateful for not appreciating him more,” (Gilman 793) she feels guilty for not listening to her husband. He provides for the family and she feels she must do whatever it takes to make him happy. According to her, men generally control women's actions. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses detailed descriptions to describe the room the narrator is confined to by saying, “I lie here on this great bed still—it's nailed down, I think—and follow this pattern from hour to hour” (Gilman 796). . This is an example of his confinement both physically and symbolically. The narrator feels physically confined to her home, which leads her to feel isolated. The nursery is set up in a way that makes her feel more isolated from the real world "because the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls" (Gilman 793). The narrator slowly slides into madness. With the confinement of her environment, the woman is gradually subjected to the male oppression that symbolizes the norm in that period. By confining his wife to the nursery, John allows his dominance over her to prevail. The narrator then becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper as she feels out of control. Visualize the pattern on the yellow wallpaper which resembles a trapped woman just as the narrator feels trapped by the people in her life who are trying to control her. As author Beverly A. Hume states in Managing Madness in Gilman's 'The Yellow Wall-Paper,' “Charlotte Perkins Gilman's narrator evokes sympathy, not