Women's Rights: Theme

The theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is simply that women were treated unfairly by men. In the short story, Jane's husband locked her up in a room for countless hours. He told her that she was sick and needed to get better. In the story, Jane says that her husband is loving and caring but if you look past all of that and notice how he treats her, it's not very good. She tries talking to him and telling him her feelings but he doesn't believe her (1-2). Jane does get angry at her husband but is convinced it is only because of her condition. In the story, Jane writes, "John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall" (4).  As you can see, Jane gets treated poorly by her husband. The overall message of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is that men had power over women. Women were treated unfairly and they deserved to be treated better. Gilman did not state this directly in her story but it takes some thinking to figure it out.

 theme: a unifying or dominant idea 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theme?s=t - I used this website to better understand the meaning of theme.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/themes.html - Sparknotes helped me figure out that the theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is all about women's rights.