Imprisoned in The Yellow Wallpaper As humans developed more complex social systems, society placed greater emphasis on pregnancy. Over time, motherhood was elevated to the status of "holy". This was certainly true in Western cultures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not share the image of motherhood that society of the time proposed to its members. “Arguably 'The Yellow Wallpaper' reveals women's frustration in a culture that seemingly glorifies motherhood while in reality relegating women to nurseries” (Bauer 65). Among the many other social commentary contained in this story is the symbolic use of the daycare center as a prison for the main character. From the beginning the room called nursery resembles that of a prison cell or a torture chamber. We first learn that there are locked gates outside the house and that the room itself has windows with bars and rings on the walls. The paper is torn all around the bed as much as possible, almost as if someone has been tied to the bed with nothing else to do. A prison yellow is the color of the walls, which makes you think of a basement full of prisoners rather than a holiday home. I think this image of the nursery as a holding cell is first and foremost an analogy to the narrator's feelings of being imprisoned and hidden by her husband. When she repeatedly asks John to take her away, he refuses each time with different excuses. Either their lease is almost up, or the other room doesn't have enough space, etc. Even a simple request to change the paper is ignored: “He said that after the wallpaper was changed, it would be the heavy bed base, and then the barred windows, and… the paper medium. ..r members of the animal kingdom, humans no longer evolved with such a strong maternal instinct. Daycare centers have likely trapped and imprisoned many young mothers who listened to society and did what they thought they should do. And once they got there, maybe they realized that this wasn't how they wanted to live their life. However, they could not abandon their families and their children, and so they remained trapped in the crib, in the toys, in the bottles, in the nursery. Works Cited Bauer, Dale, ed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, From Women and Economics, "She thinks husbands are not pillars", "Dr. Clair's Place", From The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman 317-18.Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. From the life of Charlotte Perkins Gillman. Gilmann 334-44.- - -. "The yellow background." 1892. Ed. Dale M. Bauer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 1998. 41-59.