Setting

Physical: Readers are made aware that this text takes place in the United States.
Gilman gets this across most obviously in the phrase Well, the Fourth of July is over
(Gilman 4). Since this is an American holiday not celebrated anywhere else readers
can assume that this is the country where the story is taking place. It can also be
inferred that this is happening in a fairly small town. This is because our narrators
husband, John, is kept in town very often by serious cases (Gilman 4). Normally
this is a tendency associated with doctors who find themselves working in small
communities where there might not be other doctors to call upon. John also
mentions sending the narrator away for a while to see another doctor again
reinforcing the idea that there is no other physician around hinting at the small size
of the town.
Temporal: It is very likely that the story was written with the time from of 1890(the
year it was written) or a few years prior in mind. This is mostly a reference to
Gilman using the story to retell her own experience in a similar situation which she
experienced around that time. It is also easy to tell that the time frame is late 1800s
to early 1900 based on the language used. The term physician used instead of
todays more common title of doctor or the use of the word queer to explain
something strange which has mostly fallen into the realm of controversy in this day
and age. The method of treatment for the narrators depression also reflects the
time as simply leaving a patient in a room by themselves for every hour of the day
in hope that rest alone will cure them is seen as a barbaric an a moral method of
treatment in todays society. This time setting allows readers to understand the
flaws in both medicine and treatment of women shown throughout the text.
POV
The story is told from an interesting perspective, that of a diary of the protagonist.
This is shown initially to readers after the first batch of short paragraphs where the
narrator states There comes John, and I must put this away, -- he hates to have me
write a word (Gilman 2).
This POV is used to allow readers a better understanding of what is going on inside
of the narrators head which in turn allows for a better understanding of her decent
into madness. It also allows readers to conjure the image of her final entry more
clearly as she states that she is writing while it is taking place meaning that as she
is creeping along the wall, over her fainted husband, shoulder against a smooch
she is still writing again helping reinforce the idea of how far this woman has fallen.
THEMES
Blind Faith

Over the course of the story the narrator puts her faith into her husband for a
number of reasons despite the fact that the treatment he is giving her is making
her state worse.
Primarily this blind trust in her physician is shown when the narrator tells readers
that If a physician of high standing assures friends and relatives that there is
really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depressiona slight
hysterical tendency what is one to do(Gilman 1).
This expresses the faith that patients, both in the time frame and today, put in their
doctors. In this example it is that despite the fact that the narrator later tells him
directly that she feels the method of treatment he is using is making her worse off
he tells her that it is making her better and she believes him. In todays world for a
more recent example, if a doctor tells a patient to take a prescription, the patient
will most likely do it without asking to many questions because the doctor, by
definition, is there to make you better and there for would never do anything that
would hinder that sole purpose of his career.
Secondly the narrator puts faith in her husband when he tells her that everything
will be alright in the end and that she will get better despite her obvious signs that
just the opposite is happening. The narrator does this after asking John if she can go
visit her cousin and him telling her that she isnt able to go, nor be able to stand it
after [getting] there [then] dear John gathered [her] up in his arms and laid
[her] on the bed (Gilman 5). John shortly thereafter reads to her and tells her he
loves her several times and comforts her until she falls asleep. This shows Johns
manipulation of his wifes blind faith in him due to their love, and his using it to his
advantage in forcing his wife to be treated his way despite what the results are
becoming.
Thirdly the narrator expresses blind faith in the only prominent male character
within the text who is, once again, John.