ConstraintConstraint is present in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and in “The Boarding House” by James Joyce. In both tales, society has placed the main characters and their lives under its evil grip. All the characters live under a blanket of limitations that society has imposed on them and the stories show their struggle to free themselves from society's constraints. Both authors explore social constraints to convey a message to the reader. This common theme in both stories is used to show the real hold that society has on us and how it affects different people. Society has always had an influence on the way people think and act. Many beliefs and actions that are considered unique are often avoided by members of society. This constraint on being an individual is explored in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Joyce's "The Boarding House." Both authors show how the constraints of society put stress on the lives of individuals. In some cases this stress is good for the characters, but for others the constraints of society are too much. Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to illustrate the control men have over women in modern society. The wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” goes through a nervous depression during the story. Gilman never comes out to explain the reasons for his wife's mental state, but throughout the story he constantly refers to the woman's sense of inferiority compared to her husband John. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", John is used to represent all men and their feelings towards women. Even though men don't consciously take control over women's lives, they do so anyway. It has always been the nature of man to take responsibility and be the dominant gender. The wife always wants to please her husband and listen to his word as if it were law. She never wants to displease her husband or go against his advice. This is evident when the wife stops writing, which calms her down, only because her husband thinks it would be better for her. The wife follows the man's advice in this situation, because that is what society has taught her to do. In her mind she is not herself, she is just John's wife. When John decides that the best treatment for his wife would be a period away from their normal life, he rents an old villa for the couple to live in during the summer..