Question

How does the narrator’s viewpoint reveal a social attitude of Gilman’s time?
The narrator questions why she should perform certain duties, such as entertaining guests.
The narrator feels an overwhelming responsibility to meet society’s expectations.
The narrator thinks that her husband displays a great deal of nervousness, and she wonders about its source.
The narrator questions her place in society and her role as a mother and a wife. 2Which social attitude of Gilman’s era does this excerpt demonstrate?
Working gives people a sense of competence and control.
Working is something that is done with the hands not the mind.
Working is only for those who have to make money to survive.
Working against a doctor’s advice has negative consequences. 3What does Gilman indicate is the impact of her work?
Women are more likely to seek employment that satisfies them.
Women are more likely to have a voice in their own treatment.
Women are more likely to frighten their families in order to escape them.
Women are more likely to read literature that they can relate to.

Answer 1

1) The best answer is: The narrator questions her place in society and her role as a mother and a wife.
- Explanation: The narrator repeatedly doubts the domestic roles imposed on her and criticizes the limited, infantilizing expectations of women—an attitude that reflects Gilman’s critique of late-19th/early-20th-century gender roles.

2) The best answer is: Working is only for those who have to make money to survive.
- Explanation: The story highlights the prevailing belief that “respectable” women of leisure should not work and that work was associated with necessity or lower classes—a restriction Gilman challenges.

3) The best answer is: Women are more likely to have a voice in their own treatment.
- Explanation: Gilman’s writing sought to expose harmful medical and social practices (like the “rest cure”) and to empower women to speak up about their mental health and treatment, influencing public opinion and medical practice.