The psychologically stirring story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the dark and twisted side of American society in the nineteenth century. Through the use of theme, Gilman creatively captures the cultural subordination and struggles that women regularly face. The first theme present in the horrific and heartbreaking story is the subordinate position of women within marriage. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator's wish that his house was haunted like those where “frightened heroines suffer Gothic horrors” (DeLamotte 5). However, this desire is essentially to empower herself. The narrator is already afraid of her husband and is suffering mentally and emotionally. He desperately desires escape “through fantasy, into a symbolic version of his own situation: a version in which he would have a measure of distance and control” (DeLamotte 6). Throughout the text, Gilman reveals to the reader that during the time the story was written, men acquired the working role while women were accustomed to working within the confines of their “female sphere.” This gender division meritoriously kept women in an infantile state of oblivion and prevented them from achieving any educational or professional goals. John, the narrator's husband, establishes a treatment for his wife through taking on his own superior wisdom and maturity. This narrow-minded thinking leads him to patronize and control his wife, all in the name of "helping" her. The narrator soon begins to feel suffocated as she is “physically and emotionally trapped by her husband” (Korb). The narrator has no control over the smallest details of her life and is consequently forced to retreat into her fantasies... middle of paper... in which the narrator might be physically restrained or imprisoned at some point when her husband regains consciousness. At that point you will have no choice but to send her back to the doctor or to a mental institution. However, the narrator's mind will always remain free, emulating the freedom savored by the woman in the background. Unfortunately, this escape from reality means that the speaker will never recover any kind of rationality. By the act of freeing the woman in the background, the narrator unintentionally ensures the lasting burden of madness. All in all, the heartbreaking and goosebump-inducing story of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the reader on a psychological roller coaster ride. Through the rapid use of theme, Gilman ingeniously illustrates the struggles faced by women during the nineteenth century.