Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening story of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set in the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed in that era and the narrator's reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about his own anguish while undergoing similar treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of his daughter Katherine. The rest cure described by the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as a reflection of the feelings of women like her who have suffered as a result of such treatments. Because of his experience with the rest cure, Gilman can also be said to have loosely based the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" on herself. But I think expressing his negative feelings about the popular sleep cure is only half the message Gilman wanted to send. In the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of women's rights especially within marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the background to express his personal opinions on this issue. The two common threads that connect Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the narrator in her story are postpartum depression/depression and entrapment in their roles as women. Specifically, Gilman and the narrator try to escape the function that society has assigned to them. First, after fulfilling their expected duties as a wife and mother, both Gilman and the narrator become depressed after the birth of their son. It is this depression that leads them to the infamous rest cure... middle of paper... in the form of all "those creeping women" trying to escape the old age that has trapped them, have acted as a premonition of changes in the movement for women's rights (Gilman 89). For Gilman and his story "The Yellow Wallpaper" life is about imitating art. Works Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The yellow background." Images of women in American popular culture. Ed. Angela G. Dorenkamp, ​​et al. Port Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1995. 78-89.Kessler, Carol Parley. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1860-1935." Modern American women writers. Ed. Elaine Showalter, et al. New York: The Sons of Charles Scribner, 1991. 155 -169.Scharnhorst, Gary. "Gilmann." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. 209-210.Wagner-Martin, Linda. "The yellow background." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. 981- 982.