Experience Told Through Charlotte Perkins's Writing Essay

When asked the question of why she chose to write 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Charlotte Perkins Gilman claimed that experiences in her own life dealing with a nervous condition, then termed 'melancholia', had prompted her to write the short story as a means to try and save other people from a similar fate. Although she may have suffered from a similar condition to the narrator of her illuminating short story, Gilman's story cannot be coined merely a tale of insanity. Insanity is the vehicle for Gilman's larger comment on the atrocities of social conformity. The main character of "The Yellow Wallpaper" comes to recognize the inhumanity in society's treatment of women, and in her

The "Yellow Wall Paper "by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression. The setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the driving force in the story because it is the main factor that caused the narrator to go insane.

The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

The essay, "Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was written primarily for the purpose of explaining the meaning and reasoning behind her semi-autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper". Before stating these reasons, Gilman explains that she had been suffering from a "severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond" (Gilman, 1913). After three years of this torment, she decided to go see a specialist in nervous diseases. The doctor she went to was named Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell advised Gilman to be put to bed and to apply the rest cure, along with living a domestic life with limited amount of intellectual interaction and to never "touch pen, brush, or pencil again" (Gilman, 1913). As intimidating as this sounded, Gilman took the advise of her doctor, and followed his every suggestion for about three months. She had reached a point of almost complete mental ruin at the end of these three months, that she had to cast aside the specialist's advice. Instead of following his instructions, she began to work again. Ultimately, this is when and where "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written.

  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can by read in many different ways.  Some think of it as a tragic horror story while others may find it to be a tale of a woman trying to find her identity in a male-dominated society.  The story is based on an episode in Gilman's life when she suffered from a nervous disease called melancholia.  A male specialist advised her to "live a domestic a life as far as possible.. and never to touch a pen, brush or pencil..."   (Gilman, 669).   She lived by these guidelines for three months until she came close to suffering from a nervous breakdown.  Gilman then decided to continue writing, despite the physicians advice, and overcame her illness.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story about a mentally ill women,written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at age 32, in 1892 is a story with a hidden meaning and many truths. Charlotte Perkins Gilman coincidentally also had a mental illness and developed cancer leading her to kill herself in the sixties. The story begins with Jane, the mentally ill woman who feels a bit distressed, and although both of the well respected men in her life are physicians she is put simply on a “rest cure”. This rest cure as well as many symbols such as the Yellow Wallpaper, her journal, and her inevitable breakdown are prime examples of the typical life of a woman in this time period and their suppressed lives that they lived even with something as serious as a

The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight" (Gilman 834). The particular color of yellow in the story, according to one of my art teachers represents inferiority, strangeness, cowardice, and ugliness. All of these adjectives can so easily be used in the story of "The Yellow Wall-paper". Even though Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not suffer from hallucinations during her depression phases, she can relate to the character in the story very well. To save herself from staring at the unsightly walls, the woman writes down all of her thoughts in secret. "We have been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that first day" (Gilman 834). In a sense, both Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the main character of this particular story are writing down their thoughts into stories to stay sane; all the while they are staring into the face of insanity themselves.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through

Neurasthenia is the nervous disease the narrator is suffering from. Gilman expresses if the narrator is ill or if the “rest cure” treatment she is on is making her crazy(Wilson). Weir Mitchell was the authors/narrators doctor who prescribed her the “rest cure” treatment, which did not succeed(Gilman). The narrator tells her husband to help her and change the treatment, but he refuses her desires. As a result, the narrator became insane because her husband forced his wife to be in an oppressed situation with her health(MacPike).

Gilman allows the readers to see how the depression has sunk its teeth into Jane and will only let go when Jane has given up on everything that she has ever lived for. Her downward spiral into mania begins when she states, “I pulled… and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper…I declared I would finish it today” (319). Her entire stay in the rest home has built up to her destruction of the paper. Instead of escaping from behind the paper, her depression, Jane decides to rip it away from her life. She rips away the paper to release the Jane that she once was from her riddling depression. Once she starts removing the yellow wallpaper, Jane’s anger takes over her. She starts to think desperate thoughts and can even see herself jumping from the window (320). Jane sees that the quickest way to relieve her seemingly never ending pain and suffering in life is to end it. Through this, Gilman explains how Jane is not only ripping the paper from the wall, but also healing herself from her depression by ripping herself out of this

The Yellow Wallpaper: The Consequence of Separating Illness and Disease The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman living with mental illness, which her husband describes as “temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 460). The woman and her husband John, a physician, are staying in a colonial mansion during the summer for three months. This unnamed woman is confined to a room with ugly yellow wallpaper for most of the day and is not allowed to do much physical activity besides roam around the house’s perimeter and garden. Her child has been taken away from her, and her husband wants her to solely focus on recovery in the three months they are staying in this house.

    "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1890 and eventually published in 1892 in the New England Magazine and in William Dean Howells' collection, Great Modern American Stories (Shumaker 94). The story was original not only because of its subject matter, but also because it is written in the form of a loosely connected journal. It follows the narrator's private thoughts which become increasingly more confusing. The structure consists of disjointed sentences as the narrator gradually descends more and more into her madness as her only escape from an oppressive husband and society.

husband's so called therapeutic treatment of her aliments during the late 1800s. The story begins

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and American writer published the “Yellow Wallpaper”, in January 1892. The yellow wallpaper follows about a woman, Jane who is suffering from depression and lives with her husband who is a doctor who demeans both her illness and her thoughts and concerns. Her treatment requires that she does almost nothing active, and she is especially forbidden from working. The feature of it is a journal, which shows the audience the feelings and emotion that the narrator is going through. Stenson used the themes of gender inequality, mental health and the language features of foreshadowing, tone and metaphors, in the Yellow wallpaper.

First published in 1982, The yellow wallpaper is an engaging narrative , written in first person in which the narrator suffers from some type of nervous disorder . Her husband who prefers to refer to her condition as a temporary nervous depression or a slight hysterical tendency recommends that the narrator seeks solitude so as to recuperate . The short story mimics the form of secret and private entries on journals by the author. The haunting short story chronicles that descent of the narrator and protagonist into maddened and paranormal activities. Some people however interpret it as her chronicles to freedom .The author effectively employs the use of literary