"The Yellow Wallpaper"

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is my favorite reading so far because it holds a deeper purpose rather than just to simply terrify the reader. Using mysterious and sinister imagery, Gilman reveals her opinions on the oppression of women, particularly through her distaste of the “rest cure”.

 

This reminds me of the movie “Sucker Punch” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Punch_(film). Both focus on the dominance that man has over woman through fantastic events. In the movie, the main character is blamed for the murder of her sister by her stepfather and she is deemed to be insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital be lobotomized, much like the “rest cure”. She reveals a fantasy world with the supernatural, and where she works in a brothel and fights monsters. The domineering male owner kills the girls he dislikes and sells their virginity and dance routines for money, while the girls must also work in the kitchen and clean.

Both main character of “Sucker Punch” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, in the end, are driven completely insane and begin imaging supernatural beings while rebelling this oppression.