The composition of home life altered radically between the beginning and final decades of the nineteenth century" (17).

             The narrator loves her baby, but knows she is not able to take care of him. "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a deer baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me nervous" (Gilman 359). The symbolism utilized by Gilman is somewhat askew from the conventional. A house usually symbolizes security. Yet, in this story the opposite is true. The protagonist, whose name we never learn, feels trapped by the walls of the house, just as she is trapped by her mental illness. The windows of her room, which normally would symbolize a sense of freedom, are barred, holding her prisoner.

             It is painfully obvious that she feels trapped and unable to express her fears to her husband. "You see, he does not believe I am sick. And what can one do? If a physician of high standing and one"s own husband assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do?" Her husband is not the only male figure who dominates and oppresses her. Her brother, also a doctor, "Says the same thing" (Gilman 357). Fleissner says, .

             "Naturalists feminists like Gilman saw the production of gender subjects as the chief effect and purpose of homes. Homes represented the last vestige of an earlier revolutionary moment in which excessive 'sex-modification" prevailed; by contrast, modernity would usher in a new 'gynandrocratic" era in which the sexes would move evolutionarily closer together" (72).

             Because the story is written in diary format, we feel especially close to this woman. We are in touch with her innermost thoughts. The dominance of her husband, and her reaction to it, is reflected throughout the story. The narrator is continually submissive, bowing to her husband"s wishes, even though she is unhappy and depressed.