Literary Devices In The Yellow Wallpaper

  “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a symbolic tale of one woman’s struggle to break free from her mental prison.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the reader how quickly insanity takes hold when a person is taken out of context and completely isolated from the rest of the world.  The narrator is a depressed woman who cannot handle being alone and retreats into her own delusions as opposed to accepting her reality.  This mental prison is a symbol for the actual repression of women’s rights in society and we see the consequences when a woman tries to free herself from this social slavery.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” we are introduced to a woman who enjoys writing. Gilman does not give the reader the name of the women who narrates the story through her stream of consciousness. She shares that she has a nervous depression condition. John, the narrator’s husband feels it is “a slight hysterical tendency” (266). She has been treated for some nervous habits that she feels are legitimately causing harm to her way of life. However she feels her husband, a physician, and her doctor believe that she is embellishing her condition. The woman shares with the reader early in the story that she is defensive of how others around her perceive her emotional state. This causes a small abrasion of animosity that

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,

There are many ways to view the composition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. These approaches includes looking at this piece’s psychological, and sociological aspects. Much of which influences the story’s focal points. Although most of the story can be seen as tackling a psychological disorder, the story also carries an underlying perspective in addition to what the main character which happen to also be the narrator, is battling. This perspective became more recognized as the story progressed, where the reader as well as the narrator herself comes to the conclusion as to what the leading stimulus was that intensified the conditions of the character’s disorder.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator must deal with several different conflicts. She is diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 221). Most of her conflicts, such as, differentiating from creativity and reality, her sense of entrapment by her husband, and not fitting in with the stereotypical role of women in her time, are centered around her mental illness and she has to deal with them.

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.

Through a woman's perspective of assumed insanity, Charlotte Perkins Gilman comments on the role of the female in the late nineteenth century society in relation to her male counterpart in her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman uses her own experience with mental instability to show the lack of power that women wielded in shaping the course of their psychological treatment. Further she uses vivid and horrific imagery to draw on the imagination of the reader to conceive the terrors within the mind of the psychologically wounded.

The Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a great expression of women’s oppression in the 19th century. The story introduces readers to a woman frustrating in her life and suffering from a nervous depression and her marriage as the yellow wallpaper is causing her a real insanity. Having a background about the timing and the setting that the story is written in helps the reader to internalize the whole meaning of the story and understand its important details. The story is told by a narrator using an anxious tone, and she is being angry and sarcastic at the same time. The woman mentions that her husband has taken her to a summer vacation. So, the story takes

In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her

In the story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman she writes of a woman severely oppressed in her marriage. The women in the story is an open mind individual. John; her husband is a psychologist and thinks that his wife has a mental disorder because of all the free thinking and puts her through the rest cure. Through analysis of the story, we can see that this story displays a creepy tone in order to depict a serious matter at a time when women’s oppression was at large and feminist protest was in full swing to put a stop to it. The writer uses literary devices such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony in order to show the reader how the main character has to overcome her oppression through insanity.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman creates The Mother to recollect her own personal experiences with a new fictional spin. In the short story, The Mother searches for herself to escape the oppression of her husband, while she battles chronic depression. Because in the 1800s doctors did not understand how a woman could become depressed after bringing life into the world, The Mother is thrown into solitary confinement and treated as a crazy woman and child. However through writing, The Mother is able to escape her tragic realities, along with her depression and civil barriers of being a mother and wife. Gilman paints a story embedded with a writing motif; however the wallpaper on the wall is the key symbol because it both represents The Mother’s imprisonment and the means of escape.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses symbols to portray recovery from the depth of mental illness. The main character, Jane, struggles throughout the story with severe depression. She is constantly haunted by the room she has to occupy during her stay. Yet despite it all, Jane sets herself free from her illness’s grasp. Gilman employs the symbols of the yellow wallpaper, the ripping of the yellow wallpaper, and the beautiful door to depict Jane’s journey out of her depression.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of the realism story The Yellow Wallpaper, struggled with depression, which makes a great connection between her and the narrator. Realism, which is an accurate and detailed portrayal of actual life, is what Gilman used to describe how women were treated in the 1890’s and how depression can affect one’s body. The author uses the unnamed narrator in this story to explain the reality and horrors of depression in the 18th century. The purpose was to inform her readers of how mistreated women were in this time, especially because of the apprehension she, and others, had to go through. The narrator’s husband may be a leading cause in the reason she got depression, and also a reason she did not get better.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time period where women were oppressed. Women were treated as second rate people in society during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman very accurately portrays the thought process of the society during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using the aspects of Feminist criticism, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through the dialogue through both the male and female perspective, and through the symbol found in the story.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” has greatly impacted American literature and is regarded today as a true classic. Many of the themes such as female oppression and poor treatment of the mentally ill are issues that are common today. Gilman brought to life a character that became as deranged and insane as the “conventional society” that she was apart