The Little Room

I thought The Little Room was an allegory showing the oppression of women in a much more covert way than The Yellow Wallpaper. In The Yellow Wallpaper, it is easy to see the way Jane slowly descends into madness, and begins to literally and figuratively see herself trapped by the wallpaper, but in The Little Room, the only hint we have to go off of is that fact that the room changes from one to a china closet, and then to a little room. There is a correlation between the women and what the room becomes. When the narrator’s mother is a child, she sees the little room, however, when she grows up and becomes married; the little room becomes a china closet. This holds true again when the narrator, Margaret is a little girl, and again when she is a married woman. The little room can be thought of as a representation as all the opportunities that women, or as a place where she can be rest and relax. The china closet can be thought of as a place of work for the woman; a place where she is restricted by society to be a “slave” to the kitchen and to her womanly duties.