“The Yellow Wallpaper” uses situational irony to reinforce the author’s criticism of Victorian-era gender roles. It is evident that John cares deeply for his wife, Jane, but he also dismisses her needs. Jane recognizes this contradiction in a diary entry that summarizes John’s “cure”:
[John] is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction [...] he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get.
John clearly loves his wife, and he acts with every intention of curing her postpartum depression. He’s a physician, and he believes that social isolation and inactivity (“perfect rest”) are what’s best for her. Yet Jane intuitively senses that this treatment isn’t what’s best for her, recognizing that she “feel[s] basely ungrateful” instead of embracing his cure. But because John is a powerful, knowledgeable man, he has the authority to deny Jane’s true needs and desires and to make decisions on her behalf.
The irony in this situation is that despite John’s certainty that he’s doing the right thing by confining Jane to her bedroom and isolating her from other people, this treatment plan actually worsens her condition, pushing her to have a full-on mental breakdown at the end of the story. In this sense, the situational irony highlights that this pattern of men making decisions on women’s behalf can be harmful to women, even if the intention is to protect them.
