Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an example of work designed to expose the flaws of society and criticize them. The central theme of the story is the control of men over women, which gives rise to misconceptions about their mental health and, therefore, harmful treatment methods. Gilman uses such characteristic of naturalism as a sense of doom that permeates the entire story to draw attention to the problem and express aversion to treatment methods and control of men over women.
The peculiarity of naturalism is that it describes reality with an emphasis on the injustice of society and the environment. The main feature of this style is a sense of doom and often exaggeration to show the problems of ordinary people. The main character of “The Yellow Wallpaper” expresses a feeling of fear and destruction in almost every sentence, from the description of the creepy house and her room with bars to her unstable thoughts resulting from the “treatment” (Gilman, 2015). The husband had absolute control over the woman as he was also a doctor. As a result, the husband controls every movement of his wife and completely takes her freedom, which becomes the cause of her mental instability. Thus, this sense of non-freedom and doom is the central naturalistic element of the story.
Gilman uses this approach and an atmosphere of hopelessness to show the problem of oppression of women and mentally ill people prevalent in society. The author had a similar treatment experience, which almost drove her mind, so she decided to show this problem to the readers (Gilman, 2015). However, the author needed to describe this painful experience in the first person accurately and sensitively to convey the feelings of oppressed people that they cannot express themselves. Only this approach was able to push doctors and people in power to look at their attitude to mental problems, especially women’s emotions, and change methods of treatment. For this reason, naturalism is the most appropriate style for writing this story.
Reference
Gilman, C.P. (2015). The collected works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Benediction Classics.