Millett Argues, “the Private Sphere Is Just Like the Public Realm”. How Far Do You Agree That This Criticism May Be Applied to the Yellow Wallpaper?

However, the most important aspect of this room is the yellow wallpaper. The narrator despises it, loathing the colour and it’s pattern. She writes that it is “. . .dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.” (Gilman). This description of the wallpaper serves the purpose to show the reader the unjust restrictions of society that the narrator is subjected to; “. . .commentators have seen in this description of the wallpaper a general representation of “the oppressive structures of society in which [the narrator] finds herself” (Madwoman 90), . . .” (Haney-Peritz 116). The statement of “dull enough to confuse the eye” and “constantly irritating and provoking study” are alluding to the narrator’s sense of inferiority and burden while the “lame and uncertain curves” are referencing the absurd suggestions that her husband is providing. Finally the “suicide” is the unfortunate fate that is destined to occur if his counsel is followed. When describing the wallpaper the narrator writes that “The color is repellent, almost

  “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 The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator uses the psychological gothic genre to present the portrayal of women, women faced in a marriage, within the time frame of the 1890s. Women were seen as the “shadow” as men dominated society. This is presented throughout the book as many readers first interpitation

Not only does the yellow wallpaper represent how the narrator feels physically trapped by the room but also how she feels oppressed by society. Through out her

The vivid descriptions in “The Yellow Wallpaper” help to bring the reader along in the narrators decent into a kind of psychosis. It starts mildly, with her describing the color of wallpaper as “repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 528). As more time passes she begins to see more things in the paper such as “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes start at you,” and for it have “so much expression in an inanimate thing” (Gilman 592). As the pattern and descriptions get more twisted, we get visual clues of the madness that is slowly consuming the narrator. The color of the paper even begins to become a physical thing she can smell descried as, “creep[ing] all over the house...sulking...hiding...lying in wait for me…It gets into my hair” (Gilman 534). In the end we get a graphic visual representation of her full psychosis

The description of the house by the woman is positively somehow. However, she is disturbed by some elements such as; “the rings and things” in the walls, and that the bars on the windows keep showing up. In addition, what was disturbing her the most is the yellow wall paper which is creepy with a formless pattern and that leads her to be totally insane. Readers are introduced to the woman’s desperate thoughts and feelings, yet her husband came and interrupted her thoughts and she was forced to stop writing. Furthermore, she always complains that her husband John who is a physician belittles her illness, her own thoughts and that makes her more depressed. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a deep feminist story that shows the unequal relationship between women and men in the 19th century and uses the yellow

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told she needs to rest constantly to overcome her sickness, so she is forced to stay in the old nursery where there is yellow-orange wallpaper with a busy, obnoxious pattern that she hates. She tries to study the wallpaper to distinguish the pattern, and as time goes on she believes she sees a woman moving around in the background of the pattern. Also, during this period of time the character’s condition is worsening, because her husband is causing her mind to weaken by not allowing her to exert herself at all; he says she is not to think about her condition, walk through the garden or visit family. All she can do is sleep and trace the wallpaper, and being cooped up in the room causes her to begin hallucinating. The narrator sees the woman trying to escape from the wallpaper throughout the night, and she ultimately completely breaks down and believes that she is the woman.

“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

To summarize, "The Yellow Wallpaper" presents the reader with an understanding of gender roles that places

It is known in psychology that your mental state plays a significant role in the way you view the environment around you. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman emphasizes this relationship between consciousness and the outside world through the eyes of an upper middle class woman suffering from post partum depression. This woman, the narrator, escapes the oppression she feels from the outside world and her internal conflict, by creating this fantasy world where the wallpaper is the focus of her frustrations. In the beginning, the narrator is a highly imaginable and creative woman who delights in her summerhouse as a “haunted house…

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” there are two different types of setting for the story. For example, outside of the house it is sunny, bright, and beautiful, but on the inside of the house, the feeling is creepy, dreary, and sad. In this story John has his wife in a room where she has to stay most of the day. She

Shifting away from a traditional feminine image is a concept woven throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, specifically exploring the balance of power between the masculine and feminine. As the narrator begins her descent into madness, her fascination with the wallpaper continues and the narrator becomes “the exemplary subject of power/knowledge” (Crewe 274). The narrator is stripping that power away from the masculine figure. When she first requested to change the wallpaper John refuses on the grounds of “nothing was worse for a nervous patient to give way to such fancies” (28), John wants to dismiss her fanciful feminine imagination as it threatens his sense of control, and “fear can masquerade as calm authority when…embodied in ‘the weaker sex’” (Shumaker 593). However, we see this alter as both he and Jennie become increasingly fascinated with her behaviour and the wallpaper itself, “I’ve caught him several times looking at the paper!” (35) conveying that as the narrator becomes more involved with the paper she is regaining her power over the household. Gilman may also be suggesting that this break away from performing roles can manifest shame or uneasiness, Jennie after being caught staring, reacts “as if she had been caught stealing” (35). She is described as looking “angry” (35) at the prospect of being caught observing the object of the ‘mad woman’ of the house’s obsession. Jennie recognising herself being a part of this power shift becomes uneasy, just as Girlie feels

It was an isolated place, separated from the roads, the villages’ environment and the rest ofsociety. This resembled the narrator’s feeling and position which are also isolated and restricted. The house setting mirrors her emotional state. Moreover, her room in that house was big and airy with the windows and beautiful landscape outside but all those windows were barred to prevent her from escaping or going outside. In this scene, she was a little, cute bird which was caged by her husband. There is a conflict with the house here: the mansion whose original rental purposes were freedom and restfulness for the wife to improve her illness now became the mental prison. It was the reason that her state of health got worse. Another significant setting was the bedroom; the walls were covered with the yellow paper. The mystery of the yellow wallpaper was discovered bit by bit by the narrator’s imagination as it absorbed the readers’ curiosity. The wallpaper was described as an unpleasant symbol: it was ripped, soiled, and was a dirty yellow. But later, it became a symbol with a message of a desperate woman, constantly crawling, stooping, and creeping looking for an escape from behind the main pattern that helps the narrator to see her own situation. The yellow wallpaper was a mirror that reflects her real life. The main pattern of the wallpaper implied the narrator’s husband who controlled her freedom. The setting helps the reader understand the story development more

Reading through this short story may be confusing the first time. As it is read more often, however, new meanings and approaches which the author uses to convey those is revealed. The two personas of the narrator consist of an obedient wife who follows societal norms and behaves accordingly, and another who portrays herself as a woman behind the wallpaper, who is independent and can think for herself. Through the variance in the narrator’s voice, Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the transformation from Jane to the wallpaper lady, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, as a struggle between the narrator’s two identities.

This statement signifies how her unstable state of mind was more clearly apparent at night, which is when she lays awake at night intrigued by what she sees within the wallpaper. She eventually sees the women who appear to be stuck within the wallpaper. At the end, when she realizes she must save the women, she really comprehends that she is one of them and must save herself from the suffocation and control she has been confined to for some time. Symbolically, the woman behind the yellow wallpaper is her inner self, the powerful woman who is independent and strong and resists being locked in.