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In order to read and understand this story, we must consider many things. First the time frame in which the story was written, and that society's attitude of the story content at that time. "Written in 1892, a woman suffering from depression was not clearly understood and was treated with isolation." ("Women, Madness, and American Literature." 15.) This would clearly drive any person mad. The narrator made attempts to bring to her husband's attention what she felt was a better way of making her better but he refused to listen and ignored her wishes to involve herself in more activity. As a female in the twentieth century, reading this story, I had this overwhelming desire to free this narrator from her husband and the rest of the males in her life. She wanted company, activity and stimulation. Which any woman of that time or this time should be freely allowed to have. Gilman did an outstanding job of illustrating the position that women of that time, and to an extent, of this time as well, hold in their society. This story should hold a place in every woman's heart who is struggling to find her place.
The modern woman now has more liberties and social freedoms and the men have also been released from the prehistoric model of force equating to reason and a right to rule; in the end the evolution of social structure has allowed both sexes to see without jaded eyes the universality of the human condition sans bias. "Much as the narrator comes to the realization that control over her life is ultimately her responsibility, a reader, who often times is 'controlled' by a story, must come to the realization that a work of literature only becomes a personal experience when he/she finally determines his/her interpretation or 'control' over the story. It is this realization of control or the reader's interpretation that is the final block that gives the building that is known as a story, depth and meaning to every reader.