Insanity In Charlotte Perkins Gliman's The Yellow Wallpaper

In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, I think the Husband did try to drive to drive his Wife insane. One of the reasons I think that is because within the short story it mentions how awful and repellent the color of the wall, yellow, is. The wife also describes the color yellow and also says other negative things about it, “The color is repellent, almost revolting… No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in the room long.” (649)

It is difficult to discuss the meaning in this story without first examining the author’s own personal experience. “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives an account of a woman driven to madness as a result of the

    "The Yellow Wallpaper" takes a close look at one woman's mental deterioration. The narrator is emotionally isolated from her husband. Due to the lack of interaction with other people the woman befriends the reader by secretively communicating her story in a diary format. Her attitude towards the wallpaper is openly hostile at the beginning, but ends with an intimate and liberating connection. During the gradual change in the relationship between the narrator and the wallpaper, the yellow paper becomes a mirror, reflecting the process the woman is going through in her room.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, dank room covered in musty wallpaper all play important parts in driving the wife insane. The husband's smothering attention, combined with the isolated environment, incites the nervous nature of the wife, causing her to plunge into insanity to the point she sees herself in the wallpaper. The author's masterful use of not only the setting (of both time and place), but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to participate in the woman's growing insanity.

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, which is also her doctor, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness. Everyday she keeps looking at the torn yellow wallpaper. While there, she is forbidden to write in her journal, as it indulges her imagination, which is not in accordance with her husband's wishes. Despite this, the narrator makes entries in the journal whenever she has the opportunity. Through these entries we learn of her obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom. She is enthralled with it and studies the paper for hours. She thinks she sees a woman trapped behind the pattern in the paper. The story reaches its climax when her husband must force his way into the bedroom, only to find that his wife has pulled the paper off the wall and is crawling around the perimeter of the room.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells of the journey into insanity (brought on by postpartum depression?) of a physician’s wife. Persuaded by her husband that there is nothing wrong with her, only temporary nervous depression, a diagnosis that is confirmed by her brother( Gilman, 647). What is telling is that she suspects perhaps her husband John is the reason she does not get well faster. She and/or we are led to believe that they have rented a colonial mansion for the summer for her to get well. She is however isolated in a home three miles from the village and on an island. (Gilman, 648). She wants to stay in the downstairs room with roses and pretty things, but her husband insists on the room at the top of the house ostensibly because it has room for two beds. But the room’s description of barred windows and walls with rings and things in them (Gilman, 648) could leads the reader one to conclude that this is his own private asylum, and not “a nursery first and then a playroom and gymnasium” (Gilman, 648) as the woman believes. It is this room, and more precisely the wallpaper in the room

John would probably say that she was just trying to get more attention from him or that she really is not sick versus what Jane says in her point of view about how she feels. She also points out that “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do” (Gilman)? Even though the readers do not know what John thinks of her illness, clearly he believes that the medical treatment is correct and working. Not only would the perspective show more of Jane’s madness, but it would make him more of the sympathetic character and make the story a tragic love

When people think of insane people, the image of a person strapped down to a chair and not being able to move might pop in to their head. Although that is a form of insanity, that’s not the case in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Insane thoughts come to a person out of the blue, and to them those ideas are no different than normal thoughts. They are sometimes small but can grow into larger ideas which can be bad in some situations. The Yellow Wallpaper is a great example of how a normal person can slip slowly into madness and insanity.

The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman illustrates how a girl becomes insane over other the color of a wall. She becomes so intrigued with the color, which was yellow, that she would constantly observe it every moment she could. There seemed to be a picture of a girl hiding behind the wallpaper, so the narrator would try to help her out behind the cage bars that she was in. Her husband would try to help her as much as possible by telling her not think about certain things and preventing her from trying to do something that would hurt her. There were many times where the narrator would think of something, and her husband would tell her to stop thinking about bad ideas, because it would put her into a worse state of mind.

And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous. ”(649) Her husband who she calls a physician of high standing has decided that he ultimately knows what is best for her, and bands her from her exercising her mind in any way, ultimately driving her insane.

Is insanity brought through artificial circumstance, or is it a natural state of being that the human mind tends towards? The narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a very deep character, psychologically and emotionally, manipulated by a society that creates artificial difference between her and those around her, such as the differences between men and women, and the ideologies of pragmatism as opposed to creativity. This is a mirror of the society that feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman found herself trapped in for her entire life. This novel is a commentary based on the neglectful state of subservience and helplessness that women were forced into during their time period. This realistic mindset towards the society of the 1800s and

The woman in the story is not allowed to do anything or tire herself much. The yellow wallpaper expresses the idea of how an ideal woman should be and the struggles a women face to free her

In my article managing madness in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about how she didn’t mean to drive the readers crazy but Gilman wanted them to understand that she was serious. The author tends to think that Gilman wanted people to realize and understand the medical judgment and wisdom of this story and not just the crazy yellow wallpaper. The critics think that after Gilman has read Poe’s story “The Black Cat”, they think that she may have related it to domestic violence. Another thing the critic say is that they don't think that she is aware of the domestic nightmare she has created by telling the story and what she visioned as she turns mentally ill. They really have a fear of violence in this story and the emotions, as well as how

In situations like having a wife with a certain type of illness, one could have many different reactions. One way John acts toward Jane is how he cares for her. Gilman describes John’s actions towards Jane when Jane says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (311). This generally shows how much John really cares about Jane. It shows that he is very impatient with her, and how he cares for her. In most cases, one would get very impatient only because of the fact that we are all human. In this case, Jane says, “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious… John does not know how much I really suffer” (312). This also shows how much John really cares as well. It shows that he has grown impatient with Jane’s illness. The way people act can interpret how someone understands something, yet Jane thinks that John does not have any idea to how she

This insanity is projected by nineteenth century women writers into their works to convey the dilemma, problems, and the isolation that the Victorian women were facing in their everyday life. The mad diabolical heroines in their works are not any out of place characters but are most often the counterparts to the women writers representing their own needs and desires. Desires, isolation, problems, and rebel of the main heroine give the image of writer’s own anxiety and rage, giving a sense of being author’s double. The madness projected by female writer does not only represent their everyday lives problems but also demonstrates their strong sense of resistance to the conditions imposed on them by the patriarchal order. As in Michel Foucault’s