A Cry For Independence

A Cry For Independence In the last half of the nineteenth century, Victorian ideals still held sway in American society, at least among members of the middle and upper classes. Thus the cult of True Womanhood was still promoted which preached four cardinal virtues for women: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Women were considered far more religious than men and, therefore, they had to be pure in heart, mind, and, of course, body, not engaging …

…The Yellow Wallpaper caused early reviewers to greet it with hostility. Thus the nation was not ready to wake up to the truth about feminine passion and independence. Gilman saw no happy end to the woman's urge for freedom. The narrator's achievement of independence brings them despair rather than fulfillment and happiness. The Yellow Wallpaper is about the beginnings; it begins a painful process of " bridging two centuries, two worlds, two visions of gender" (Dyer 116).