The Yellow Wall Paper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In 1892, a short story by the name of “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a well-known author and feminist of the late 19th century. The story was initially inspired by her personal experiences and the actions that followed after. Although the story was correlated to actual events, many of the scenes described in “The Yellow Wallpaper” prove to be exaggerated in comparison to the author’s experience. Similarly, the author and narrator of the story (who goes by no name) both suffer from the same condition known as neurasthenia, misconstrued to be identical to hysteria. The story was created in spite to denounce the treatments prescribed to her, as well as to personify the misogynistic influence that lead to these treatments that pertained to women. Gilman represents the feminist position being oppressed by the swift judgements of their male counterparts to highlight the negligent idea that created such unusual treatments.

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, is a great example of early works pertaining to feminism and the disease of insanity. Charlotte Gilman’s own struggles as a woman, mother, and wife shine through in this short story capturing the haunting realism of a mental breakdown.The main character, much like Gilman herself, slips into bouts of depression after the birth of her child and is prescribed a ‘rest cure’ to relieve the young woman of her suffering. Any use of the mind or source of stimulus is strictly prohibited, including the narrator’s favorite hobby of writing. The woman’s husband, a physician, installs into his wife that the rest treatment is correct and will only due harm if not followed through. This type of treatment ultimately drives the woman insane, causing her to envision a woman crawling behind the yellow wallpaper of her room. Powerlessness and repression the main character is subject to creates an even more poignant message through the narrator’s mental breakdown. The ever present theme of subordination of women in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is advanced throughout the story by the literary devices of symbolism, imagery, and allegory.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting is very symbolic when analyzing the different the meanings of this book. The main character in the story is sick with nervous depression. In the story, John, her husband, and also a physician, takes his wife to a house in the middle of the summer and confines her to one room in hopes of perfect rest for her. As the story progresses, it is made clear that confinement, sanity, insanity, and freedom are all tied together and used to make the setting of the story symbolic.

In the 1950’s, women weren’t respected for doing anything besides being an outstanding wife and mother. Women and men weren’t on the same level when it came to rights in the eyes of the law. Also during this time, mental illnesses were not accurately researched, and since doctors weren’t fully aware of all the information about mental illnesses, patients did not always get the best treatment and were treated as freaks. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both of these elements are present. Gilman did a wonderful job portraying how women are not taken seriously and how lightly mental illnesses are taken. Gilman had, too, had firsthand experience with the physician in the story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's believes that there really was no difference in means of way of thinking between men or women is strongly. “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 happen during a time period where women were mistreated. Women were treated as second rate people in community during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the thought process of the community during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using knowledge on equal rights between women and men, one can carefully study “The Yellow Wallpaper” by

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she discusses some of the issues found in 19th century society such as women’s oppression and the treatment of mental illness. Many authors throughout history have written stories that mimic their own lives and we see this in the story. We see Gilman in the story portrayed as Jane, a mentally unstable housewife who cannot escape her husband’s oppression or her own mind. Gilman reveals a life of depression and women’s oppression through her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860, in the city of Hartford, CT. She would later move to California. She would end her own life in 1935, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought for women’s rights and was an advocate of socialism. She wrote novels, poetry and short stories. She was a woman who was educated; her writing reflected her knowledge, relating to her strong thoughts on woman’s rights and independence and how women of Victorian times suffered from this lack of rights. In her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman conveys her views on feminism and how women are treated through characters who represent this treatment. The characters she uses help the reader really get drawn into her story;

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a woman driven insane by postpartum depression and a dangerous treatment. Nevertheless, when you study the protagonist, it shows that the story is more about finding the protagonist’s identity. The protagonist’s proposes of an imaginary woman, which at first, is just her shadow against the bars of the wallpaper. The pattern shows her identity, expressing the conflict that she experiences and eventually leads her to a complete breakdown of what is her identity and that of the imaginary shadow.

Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the experience of a nervous woman named Jane who falls into psychosis during the “rest cure” treatment prescribed by her husband John. The rest cure admits the patient to bed rest with limited activity for the body and mind allowed; Dr. S. Weir Mitchell advocated the rest cure and is mentioned by name in the short story by Gilman who had him as her doctor (Gilman 80). During Jane’s rest cure, she is banned from creative work like writing her thoughts but finds “great relief from writing on dead paper”, even if it includes hiding her banned writings from being discovered. The one main complaint Jane has in her writings is the yellow wallpaper that surrounds the room without pattern or end and slowly grows more bothersome to Jane during her rest cure. Jane describes how the colors remind her of disgusting yellow things, how even the wallpaper smells up the rental house, and shakes by a woman within the wallpaper (Gilman 85-86). With nothing to occupy Jane’s mind the wallpaper becomes an obsession that torments her anxiety and consumes her sanity towards the end of her rest cure. Gilman experiences the same madness from her rest cure treatment as Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The horrid treatment of “rest cure” from doctor Silas Weir Mitchell led author Charlotte Perkins Gilman into writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” sharing her experience of madness resulting from her treatment to represent the

The yellow wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that takes place in the mid-1900s. This literary work shows how one person’s depression can turn into complete psychosis. My initial response to Charlotte’s story was one of confusion. As I reread the piece given the title “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I realized that the author Gilman uses the description and symbolism of the wallpaper to show how depression can spiral into complete madness. It gives an interesting insight into the mind of a mentally unstable person. But what caused her to reach into the mental unstable corners of her mind?

Humans are flawed individuals. Although flaws can be bad, people learn and grow from the mistakes made. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, gives one a true look at using flaws to help one grow. Gilman gives her reader’s a glimpse into what her life would have consisted of for a period of time in her life. Women were of little importance other than to clean the house and to reproduce. This story intertwines the reality of what the lives of woman who were considered to be suffering mental disorders were like and elements that make one as a reader feel as though they are living the hell that Charlotte Perkins Gilman lived herself. This story can be interpreted several different ways, yet one can ultimately realize that Gilman’s goal was to show the horrors she faced. Looking at the life that Gilman lived, one better comes to understand what “The Yellow Wallpaper” is truly about.

treats her like a child and just like a child she is kept in this

John demonstrates the power of male to stop his wife’s complaints. John holds resolutely to the conventional lines of the marriage plot and produces authority out of a distanced and ironic critique of women diseases. Janice Peritz stated in her journal that, ‘’Author, Williams Howell, had nothing to say about the provocative feminism of Gilman’s text after he added her short story to his collection which caused Gilman’s story to be completely ignored’’. Gilman makes a strong statement about males in society during her time period. The men are portrayed to really see women as children more than as individuals. The dominance of men is undeniable, ‘’ He does not believe I’m sick’’. The narrator has lost control to decide is she’s sick or not, which is one of the most basic things a person can determine. The narrator stated, “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, what is one to do?” Gilman portrays that women ‘‘invented” their emotional illnesses in order to attract attention and sympathy of other relatives. It is possible to say that male physicians prefer to find any excuse not to treat psychological disorders seeing them unimportant and even “imaginary”. The typical male makes his wife a conformist by enforcing his

The story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” written by Charlotte Gilman .It brings to light how much the narrator hates wallpaper and is a significant symbol portrayal of awful state. The yellow wallpaper can have a representation of many conditions and ideas, among them, the mental state of the narrator. The paper is going to survey what the yellow wallpaper represents and notice how it is being depicted over the progression of the story. In addition, it will be explored why the yellow paper is likened to the narrator’s mental state. We start this by looking the state of women in the 19th century.

with a rest cure. The doctor in the story is much like the doctor that

The perception of the Other in literature can take on several forms and on one line of thought it is considered to be “an individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging; as being different in some fundamental way” (The City University of New York). The group sees itself as the standard and judges those who do not meet that standard. The Other is almost always seen as a lesser or inferior being and is treated accordingly. They are perceived as lacking essential characteristics possessed by the group. For an example, Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” portrays a woman narrator as being the Other. The gender division, an important component of the late nineteenth-century society, is exemplified in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” much more significantly than in the typical “American” literary work. It attempts to shed light on the fierce alter egos and divided selves of the dominant tradition. However, the narrator seems to contradict the traditional feminine roles and becomes hysterical as her way of revolting. Gilman effectively uses the narrator’s intuition, obedience, and secret rebellion to challenge the authority John embodies as a husband and physician. This also engages the basic issue of late nineteenth-century assumptions about men and women. In this aspect, this essay aims to explore in detail the gender otherness present within the story and how this contrasts the central idea of what it is to essentially be “American”.