Virginia Woolf mentioned that women need their own room and small amount of money to write a fiction and poem and her idea can be found in The Yellow Wall Paper as well. In The Yellow Wall Paper, the narrator seems to have her own space and time but she feels like she is imprisoned. What her husband does look like he cares about his wife, but in truth, he ignores her feeling and treats her at his will. I think the status of her husband and her brother worsen the situation. As both John and her brother are a physician of high standing, their opinion on her symptom dominates and leads to ignoring what she feels and wants. Her symptom gets worse but John thinks that his wife is improving.
I think both Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Stetson well describes many women’s circumstance in late 19th and early 20th century. Many women had less power and freedom than men and women tend to have a less access to education and lack of financial support. I think this gap creates intense difference between two sex. In The Yellow Wall Paper, the status of John and narrator’s brother, the prominent physician, make narrator less powerful and less freedom. I think this unequal status between her and her husband, and lack of freedom that she had was the main cause of her illness.
