Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) is an excellent short story about the psychological breakdown that can result from a woman's feelings of being trapped and powerless. It is considered a standard text of early feminist literature.

Getting Out (1979) is Marsha Norman's play about a young woman struggling to break free from her younger, primitive self. The play uses two actresses to portray a single character and was highly successful when it premiered at the Humana Festival of the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Sophie Treadwell's play Machinal, originally presented in 1928 and published the following year, is an excellent example of an innovative use of style and form. The play is written in nine episodes and uses offstage sounds to suggest the mechanized world that keeps its heroine, the Young Lady, trapped.

Daily Life in a Victorian House (1993), by Laura Wilson...