For the women in the twentieth century today, who have more freedom than before and have not experienced the depressive life that Gilman lived from1860 to 1935, it is difficult to understand Gilman's situation and understand the significance of "The Yellow Wallpaper". Gilman's original purpose of writing the story was to have gained personal satisfaction if Dr. S. Weir Mitchell might change his treatment after reading the story. However, as Ann L. Jane suggests, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is "the best crafted of her fiction: a genuine literary piece...the most directly, obviously, self-consciously autobiographical of all her stories" (Introduction xvi). More importantly, Gilman says in her article in The Forerunner, "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked" (20). Therefore, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a revelation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's own emotions.
             When the story first came out in 1892 the critics considered "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a portrayal of female insanity rather than a story that reveals an aspect of society. In The Transcript, a physician from Boston wrote, "Such a story ought not to be written...it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it" (Gilman 19). This statement implies that any woman that would write something to show opposition to the dominant social values must have been insane. In Gilman's time setting "The ideal woman was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good humored"
             (Lane, To Herland 109). Those women who rejected this role and pursued intellectual enlightenment and freedom would be scoffed, alienated, and even punished. This is exactly what Gilman experienced when she tried to express her desire for independence.
             Gilman expressed her emotional and psychological feelings of rejection from society for thinking freely in "The Yellow Wal...