The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis Essay

Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilizes her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper to demonstrate the treatment towards women and the mentally ill in the late nineteenth-century. She wrote this short story as a way of sharing her knowledge with other women of the faults in the patriarchal society as well as, to show men the faults in their ways. Likewise, The Yellow Wallpaper demonstrates the effect that women being ostracized from society has on the mental health of these individuals. Gilman criticizes nineteenth-century society for the oppression of women, patriarchy, their treatment of mental illness, and the way people were forced to stay in unhealthy marriages; similarly, Gilman also criticizes the narrator for not standing up for herself,

Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ both serve a highly horrific purpose which is both good examples for the gothic. The strongest example of gothic is ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ as it established the extreme horror intense and shows the gothic scene of the house.

The passage I took from The Yellow Wallpaper is a scene where the speaker is describing her feelings and the environment of the bedroom. It’s quite interesting and gives the reader an idea of the tone in this particular passage. She starts off by remembering her old furniture in her old bedroom and house and recalls how friendly and comforting the furniture was. For example the speaker described the knobs on her old bureau as friendly and how it would give her a “kindly wink”. She also described a chair that “always seemed like a strong friend.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the idea of “true womanhood” is challenged. The white woman portrayed in the story is prescribed what is known as the “rest cure” due to the overwhelming pressure of being the perfect woman, wife, and mother. Driven mad by the smothering of her husband and her inability to do anything for herself, the woman in this story goes crazy attempting to free herself from the constraints. In stark contrast to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers a speech titled, “Ain’t I a Woman,” in 1851 that shakes people to their very core. A little before “The Yellow Wallpaper” was released, Truth shares a message that is astoundingly different from the

Tyler Stollings Mrs. Klueh ENGL 102 August 29, 2014 The Yellow Wallpaper Theme: Fear and depression I. Jane and her husband went to stay at ancestral halls over their Summer break. A. In Jane’s opinion the house looked like it was haunted. B. The whole time that the couple had spent there, Jane felt as if there was something different/creepy about the home.

All throughout history there has been a stigma around mental illness and feminism. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the 1900’s. “The Yellow Wallpaper” has many hidden truths within the story. The story was an embellished version her own struggle with what was most likely post-partum depression. As the story progresses, one can see that she is not receiving proper treatment for her depression and thus it is getting worse. Gilman uses the wallpaper and what she sees in it to symbolize her desire to escape her depression and the controlling nature of the patriarchal society of the twentieth century. The story shows an inside look into the thoughts and feelings of a person with a mental illness such as depression. Gilman also uses symbolism to showcase how the male figures in her life had control over her well-being more than she did. Both her husband and doctor hindered her from healing by not listening to her when she expressed what she felt would help her. She does not clearly say that she feels overwhelmed by the patriarchal society of the 1900’s; however, one can infer this by her wording and actions throughout the course of the story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to reveal the truths of a woman’s everyday struggles in a patriarchal society and also the deeper struggles of a woman with depression.

The story literary states that the narrator’s husband is loving, caring and kind, but by the context clues it can be denoted that her husband is a high-ranking physician who is obsessively controlling. This contrasting aspects expresses the narrator's hopefulness, that is constantly contradicted by its reality. However, this helplessness does not make her less confident, as she acknowledges her mental illness and disagrees with her family’s ideas of secluding her in order to “heal”, as stated when she says, “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me

Physicians in all fields take an oath to do no harm. Needless to say, this is an impossible feat; a doctor cannot place an I.V. without first puncturing the skin. Nevertheless, the intent of a well-meaning physician is to do the most good for a patient by any appropriate means even if said means are a cause for patient discomfort. In theory, medical care is a benign and wholesome endeavor, and the patient’s overall well-being is always the top priority. Unfortunately, this intent is often misconstrued when the patient begins to only feel the harm without any glimpse of the good.

Her husband is a physician named John. He is practical in the extreme. John believes deeply "temporary nervous depression" is the best treatment for his wife. He made this decision without discussing about the treatment with his wife. He did everything for his wife that

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written in 1890 around the beginning of the feminist movement. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, uses her short story to illustrate the negative effects of unequal treatment against women. She uses the narrator's husband, John, as an example of the male superiority thriving in her time. As the narrator's illness worsens, the style of the narrative develops to accompany her mental state. Throughout the narrative, Gilman uses symbolism and style to illustrate the severity of unequal treatment towards women.

Angelou expresses the hardship endured through not only being a woman but also racially inferior, a parallel can perhaps be drawn between the plight of the oppressed middle-class white woman of the nineteenth century and the oppression faced by the black women of the 1970's and their inability to overtly rebel. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper exploits her journal as an outlet for rebellion over the three months she is imprisoned, during which John attempts to cure his wife's "nervous condition" through the 'rest cure' proposed by Weir Mitchell. Whilst the rest cure suggests intellectual stimulation damages a woman physically and psychologically, the narrator disregards the ideology as it is outweighed by the sense of alleviation it provides

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s grim short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” of female empowerment and equality was read four times by her first husband whom considered it “the most ghastly tale he ever read. Says it beats Poe (Moss and Wilson 427).” The story opens from the perspective of a nameless woman, who lives in the attic of an ornate house. The house is a very elaborate property, yet the female character must not leave the constraints of an old nursery room. Her husband, John, is a doctor and is supposedly a good one.

Throughout the course of history, women have often been subjected to systematic oppression, hardships, and mistreatment as a result of their gender. This can especially be seen in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, which explores the emotional journey that the unnamed main character faces as she navigates through postpartum depression in a period where men dominate medicine. More specifically, she is seen to have endured Mitchell’s Rest Cure, a treatment commonly prescribed to women with postpartum in the nineteenth century. As per the treatment, she was required to isolate herself from people for six to eight weeks in a distasteful room with horrid yellow wallpaper. There, she started to progress into a state

People who try to overcome their mental illness alone generally become more unstable, and her husband only made her condition worse. On the first page of the short story, the reader becomes aware of the narrator’s “temporary nervous depression.” Her husband and brother, both physicians, believe that is the case and not something else. This is one problem already.

Throughout history and cultures today, women have been beaten, verbally abused, and taught to believe they have no purpose in life other than pleasing a man. Charlotte Perkins Gillam uses her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a weapon to help break down the walls surrounding women, society has put up. This story depicts the life of a young woman struggling with postpartum depression, whose serious illness is overlooked, by her physician husband, because of her gender. Gillman 's writing expresses the feelings of isolation, disregarded, and unworthiness the main character Jane feels regularly. This analysis will dive into the daily struggles women face through oppression, neglect, and physical distinction; by investigating each section