The Mark On The Wall Feminist Analysis

The narrator feels very imprisoned in the house and tries to find a way to escape it. During the narrator’s rest cure treatment, she has attached herself to the wallpaper: She would “lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately”(260-261). This was the narrator’s way of escaping the oppression she was in. The wallpaper often seemed confusing to her, but she was determined to figure it out: “I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself”(301-302), everytime John takes of her illness lightly, her interest in the wallpaper grows. This is a direct reflection of her loneliness and isolation from her treatment. The speaker’s rest cure treatment directed her not to do any activities that would make her think intellectually or imaginatively, so she is forced to stay isolated from people, books, and chores. However, as her loneliness grows intensely, she finds relief in writing, something she was told not to do. The narrator would often have to hide the fact that she writes when nobody's around, and when someone comes while she is writing she records “I must not let [them] find me writing”(141-142). The oppression the narrator has been put through has made her stronger mentally, she starts to become more and more possessive of the wallpaper and tries

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

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, already suffering with Post-Partum Depression, is further constrained when her husband John prescribes her resting treatment for her illness. John clarifies that she must lie in bed in the same, enclosed room, refrain from using her imagination and especially abstain from writing. This, in turn, forces the narrator deeper into her

The unnamed narrator written in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is characterized as a demure, and obedient woman that heeds to her husband’s commands, all the while desiring the ability express herself. The narrator is married to a physician named John.

The recurring conflict in the short story, leading to the narrator losing her insanity, can be seen in the beginning of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, with the narrator’s point of view illustrating her restricted, mundane life and the misunderstanding of her condition that causes her mental health to deteriorate. The narrator clearly depicts the heavy constraints limiting her from expressing herself through her very first diary entry, in which she says “John is a physician, and perhaps-- (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? Personally, I disagree with

Currently, this generation lies in a time of unprecedented growth and change. The last few decades have endured years of transformation thereby allowing for the evolution of the human mind. The evolution of the human mind and its thought process all lies within cultural beliefs; beliefs affect attitudes and attitudes invertedly affect behavior. These behaviors may implement a form of prejudice and discrimination upon a certain group of individuals. Perhaps the most concurred concept revolving around attitudes and behaviors rests upon gender roles. This flawed concept created by man himself has indoctrinated society to acquire a negative perception of women. Women carry a stigma that they are both unintelligent and are subordinate to their

Women have been downgraded and mistreated because of their gender. From birth, Women and Men grew up with very different rules to follow. Men were raised to be the head of the house and do work for a living. Growing up as little girls, women were taught to raise their kids and make food for their families. “Strong family structures were necessary because the family was the basis for all other institutions. The government, church, and community all worked through the nuclear family unit.”(“Gender and

On the same token, women face unique challenges that throughout their different life stages that places them into the Special Population group when compared to men. Women still face challenges today in areas of social, economic, sports, political and cultural despite the fact that there has been success in empowering women and shattering the glass ceiling for employment promotions. They live 7 years longer than men, make up majority of the world’s population but yet they are greatly ignored. Some women are subjected to part time jobs and lower wage position than their male counterparts. Likewise, women face ageism and sexism in the media on the average profile of a woman.

The yellow wallpaper is a story about John and his wife who he keeps locked up due to her "nervous condition" of anxiety. John diagnoses her as sick and has his own remedy to cure her. His remedy s to keep her inside and deterring her from almost all activities. She is not allowed to write, make decisions on her own, or interact with the outside world. John claims that her condition is improving but she knows that it is not. She eats almost nothing all day and when it is suppertime she eats a normal meal. John sees this and proclaims her appetite is improving. Later in the story, the woman creates something of an imaginary friend trapped behind the horrible looking yellow wallpaper in

In the article “‘Too Terribly Good to Be Printed’: Charlotte Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’” Conrad Shumaker explains the genius of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and how its themes reflect the patriarchal society of the time period. Shumaker identifies one theme as the detriment of suppressing the narrator’s sense of self and that “by trying to ignore and repress her imagination, in short, John eventually brings about the very circumstance he wants to prevent” (590). John confines his wife in a yellow “nursery” in order to “cure” her of her illness, banning her from writing and discouraging her imagination. His plan backfires when her mind, unable to find a proper outlet, latches onto the yellow wallpaper that eventually drives her to madness. Another theme that Shumaker points out is that the dynamic of a domineering husband and an obedient wife is a cage that the narrator is desperately trying to free herself from. John constantly dismisses the narrator’s opinions and thoughts and insists that he knows what is best for her. Shumaker points out that the husband, a representation of the patriarchal society, is clearly depicted as the villain and that he “attempts to ‘cure’ her through purely physical means, only to find he has destroyed her in the process” (592). At the end of the story, because of her confinement and inability to express herself, the narrator fully descends into insanity, “escaping” the

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman creates a character of a young depressed woman, on the road to a rural area with her husband, so that she can be away from writing, which appears to have a negative effect on her psychological state. Lanser says her husband “heads a litany of benevolent prescriptions that keep the narrator infantilized, immobilized, and bored literally out of her mind. Reading or writing herself upon the wallpaper allows the narrator to escape her husband’s sentence and to achieve the limited freedom of madness which constitutes a kind of sanity in the face of the insanity of male dominance” (432). In the story both theme and point of view connect and combine to establish a powerful picture of an almost prison-type of treatment for conquering depression. In the story, Jane battles with male domination, because she is informed by both her husband and brother countless brain shattering things about her own condition that she does not agree with. She makes every effort to become independent, and she desires to escape from the burdens of that domination. The Yellow Wallpaper is written from the character’s point of view in a structure similar to a diary, which explains her time spent in her home. The house is huge and old with annoying yellow wallpaper in the bedroom. The character thinks that there is a woman behind bars in the design of the wallpaper. She devotes a great deal of her

It is believed the narrator (sometimes identified as Jane) in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is diagnosed with temporary nervous depression after having a baby. Her husband, John, denies she has a “real” problem (Gilman 87). He takes

The mood of the story shifted from nervous, anxious, hesitant even, to tense and secretive, and shifts again to paranoid and determination. Her anxiousness is evident whenever she talks to John. She always seems to think for lengthy time when attempting to express her concerns about her condition to him. The mood shift from anxious to secretive is clear when she writes “I had no intention of telling him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper.” (9). She wants no one to figure out the affect the wallpaper has on her and she wants to be the only one to figure out its pattern. The final mood shift to determination is obvious when she writes “But I am here, and no person must touch this paper but me – not ALIVE!” (11). She is steadfast in attempting to free the woman from the wallpaper. She even goes as far as to lock herself in the room to make sure that she is not interrupted. The major conflicts of this story are the narrator versus John over the nature of her illness and its treatment and the narrator’s internal struggle to express herself and claim independence. During the entire story her and John’s views about her treatment conflict with each other, especially when it comes to her writing. He even makes her stay in the room upstairs instead of in a prettier room downstairs that she would prefer. She often keeps her views to herself or writes them down in

In the novel, The Yellow Wall-Paper, the narrator is introduced to the audience as someone who seems normal. She has a husband and a child as well. The narrator begins writing her journal and explaining to us that she has been taken into a summer vacation home wit her husband. She at first describes the house to be an more expensive place and questions their ability to purchase the house. However, she soon begins to explain to us her disorder and how her husband John and her brother as well, doesn't believe in her disorder. John gives her a simple treatment and solution to her issues, he explains to his wife that the treatment she will receive is to do nothing active and that she will get better if she stays in her room in the attic. This room is described as “It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge;

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is written from the perspective of a woman who is diagnosed by her physician-husband as having “a slight hysterical tendency.” The story is from her first-person perspective of this “temporary nervous depression.” Her husband John loves her, but is condescending: “He is very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (648). He calls her