"The Yellow Wallpaper"

I was mystified by Charlotte Perkin Gilman's text, "The Yellow Wallpaper," as it contrasted significantly from anything else I'd either ever read, or ever analyzed. Nevertheless, I found that Gilman's text was filled with ironies about marriage, insanity, and womanliness. Most notably is the quote," 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? So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again." It's incredibly ironic that the two things that would most likely cure her depression- work and stimulation are the two things being denied to her, and by her own husband at that. Throughout the text her husband seems more concerned at maintaining control over his wife than bettering her health and her state of mind. This, too, seems ironic, as in the end they both suffer as a consequence of his dismissive, uninterested and controlling behavior towards his wife.