The Gender Politics of Labor Exposed in Yellow WallpaperNineteenth-century literature cataloged the social, economic, and political changes that occurred during its period. Through him, many new concerns and ideologies were proposed and made their journey through intellectual spheres that have endured and retained their relevance in our current times. Literature has introduced, sometimes quite openly, the questions raised by the changes in society due specifically to the industrial revolution. In this mix of new ideas was the question of work and the functions of women in this rapidly changing society. American authors as well as Victorian authors, such as George Gissing and Mabel Wotton, explored these questions quite explicitly during this period. In the United States, Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed these issues in short stories with strong implications about the dangers of unfulfilling or unfulfilling work available to women. With the emergence of an industrial working class from the farms and countryside, new theories and ideologies about political economy began to emerge. Karl Marx, a political philosopher of the time, introduced the idea of ​​“alienation of labor.” His theory proposes that work has the capacity to create a loss of reality in the worker because the worker himself becomes a commodity or object due to the nature of the work. When it comes to the role of women, it can be argued that the effect is even greater due to the limited choice of work available. This theme is expressed in literature through the writings of Gilman and Alcott. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we discover characters who can be considered representative of 19th century society. The narrator, wife of a seemingly eminent doctor, gives us a vision of the alienation and loss of reality due to her lack of work. But I also argue that this alienation can also be attributed to her infantilization by her husband, which she readily accepts. “John laughs at me, of course, but that’s expected in marriage” (1). The narrator here becomes aware of her place in the order of society and even notes that this was to be expected. She is aware of her understanding that things between her and her husband are not equal not only because he is a doctor but also because he is a man, and her husband. The narrator is banned from work and restricted to rest and leisure in the text because she is said to be stricken with "...temporary nervous breakdown - a slight hysterical tendency", diagnosed by both her husband and her brother, also a doctor. (1).