Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

There are many ways that people can isolate themselves. Isolation is not always something brought upon one’s self. Isolation can be optional, or a person may have no option in isolation. Stevie Smith, Nathaniel Hawthorne and E.A Robinson show, develop, and illustrate the theme of isolation in their short story and poems.

Whether a story is written short or long, in a novel, or in a movie, it always has a main theme that attracts the reader. The theme helps connect all the plots together to come to a final resolution. Being lonely, isolated and unwanted are the feelings that most affect people. Loneliness is about feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. Being isolated have a negative impact on society, but it will also have a negative impact on the person being isolated. The two short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Ms. Brill” by Katherine Mansfield focuses on the way two women experience loneliness, isolation, and social expectation in their society. Social expectations may hold back women from achieving their fullest potential because they are obligated to stand by a series of rules that may be counter-productive to them. Throughout these two stories, the readers are able to see a lot of similarities between the stories just that they are presented in different ways.

The “rest cure” was a common treatment for depression in women in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Women were locked in a room involuntarily and forced to “rest.” The patient was locked in a room and not allowed to leave or function in any type of way. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper is subjected to this cure. The story is written to expose the cruelty of the “resting cure”. Gilman uses the wall paper to represent the narrators sense of entrapment, the notion of creativity gone astray, and a distraction that becomes an obsession.

The main character was suffering from more than just a post-partum depression but possibly a severe case of schizophrenia. While in the confinement, the narrator takes the reader through her declining mental journey and how she is affected by the solitary confinement in a yellow papered room. She was psychologically affected by her mental state and the confinement away from everybody. Her mental state became a fanatical delusional survival situation for her freedom which led to her mental demise.

In various works of literature, characters that are isolated serve to convey various meanings and illustrate various arguments. Throughout the novel The Asylum, the author John Harwood places characters in contexts of isolation to demonstrate a change in their thoughts, actions, and emotions. The contextual isolation of Georgina Ferrars and Rosina Wentworth exemplify the ways that their notions change and their feelings build with exposure to isolation. When both protagonists experience forms of isolation, they contemplate and re-evaluate their actions and decisions, which in turn lends themselves to a change in their various perceptions and emotions.

In today’s society, there is an abundance of ways to isolate one’s self. Many do not realize the complications that come with prolonged isolation. Arthur Miller, an American playwright of multiple plays, specifically Death of a Salesman, has won multiple awards, such as; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a Tony Award for Best Play. Miller, is able to distinctly represent complications, that are coupled with isolation, for Linda and Willy Loman, coping mechanisms for isolation are vastly different from one another, and still they both succeed in contributing to Willy’s own isolation.

The Painted Door, by Sinclair Ross published in New York in 1941. Is isolation the enemy of our improvement, or is our worst possible counselor? The letter "i" in illness is isolation, it is a feeling through which a person feels and has thoughts about being rejected by others, which leads us to the conclusion that being in that state of mind leads a person in the company of our worst enemy, the one within ourselves. Being Isolated from John was the loneliness Ann had felt which made her feels like it was forced upon her, like a punishment.

Isolation, meaning a state of separation, is often misperceived by many as people frequently believe that isolation is always a negative state of being; that isolation due to emotions is non-realistic, and that isolation is always involuntary. These myths are commonly accepted; however, the novel Crow Lake takes a different stand from these myths. Mary Lawson, author of the novel, demonstrated isolations in many of its forms through the protagonist, Kate, and a small, desolated rural community that represented the primary setting of the novel, Crow Lake. By doing so, Lawson reveals the counterfactual nature of these myths and thus correcting the misconceptions that the society has about isolation.

The two stories “ The Lamp At Noon” by Sinclair Ross and “The Painted Door” by Sinclair Ross, both deal with the theme isolation. This is significant because it reveals that in the two stories, isolation had varied negative effects on each of the families. In the two stories, there is emotional isolation that influences the characters in multiple different ways. In “The Lamp At Noon” Ellen is driven insane by the loneliness she feels from the isolation which drives her to make the decision to try to run away which results in the baby’s death “The child was quite cold.

In To Room 19 by Doris Lessing and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists, Susan Rawlings and The Yellow Wallpaper’s narrator become increasingly isolated. What are the causes of this isolation? How did Susan and the narrator cope with their crisis, and what is the ultimate outcome of their isolation?

What is isolation? Isolation is the state of being alone that can either produce happiness or misery depending on the situation. How does isolation come into being? The solution lies within the books Scarlett Letter, Anna Karenina, and Frankenstein. In each of the books, the characters that undergo isolation share a common theme: Shame.

Isolating the sick is only necessary if the ailing is contagious. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the isolation of Jennie was the major foundation of her illness. If Jennie was surrounded by loved ones, she would feel their love and be encouraged to get stronger. By being isolated from family and friends Jennie slips into her abandoned, bleak thoughts.

In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator talks about several things: She feels she is sick and her brother and husband do not believe her, her husband moved her to a deserted house and keeps her isolated, he controls her every move, and she feels that she has no companionship. All of these things contribute to the theme of alienation and loneliness in this story.

Intimacy and Isolation focuses on the person knowing who they are. Intimacy characteristics include a person knowing exactly who they are, having a good sense of the people around them, trusting their surroundings, being emotionally balanced, and one characteristic that really sticks out is the fact that they are secure in being alone. They can trust themselves alone as well as knowing that they will be okay (Hamachek, 1990). On the other hand when someone goes through the Isolation stage they hold characteristics that include: they do not posses who act of knowing who they are, they do not know or accept the people in their general surroundings, and they also do not mind going through separation after separation with people that they run into (Hamachek, 1990). Ethel displayed a strong sense of a woman who knew actually who she was, she did not have a problem with compromising and committing to emotions, and Ethel also knew where she came from and was grateful for al of her experiences (Finchum & Bishop,

In the novels So Far from God and Guardians by Ana Castillo and Beloved and by Toni Morrison we see how isolation can create a need for community and support from others. Isolation as demonstrated in these texts is something that is not dealt with properly. Getting through a tough situation may be hard, but it does not have to be a solo act. It can be said; a person who feel they need to ‘isolate’ themselves from their community are only going to make their situation worse, and if support from the community is not accepted isolation becomes more of a threat than a danger to the person who is not accepting the help. It can be debated, that La Loca in So Far From God, Sethe in Beloved, and Regina in the Guardians have all demonstrated how isolation can be dangerous for a person should not be taken lightly, and community support should be taken advantage of if offered. Any kind of support given to help a person through a tough time is better than dealing with it alone.