The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis Essay

She has found purpose in this paper. Indeed she cannot be understood by anyone except the woman in the yellow wallpaper. Her creeping about is symbolic of her hiding, sometimes in broad daylight, from a world that looks at her as an outcast because she doesn’t want to be a typical domestic ornament. Perhaps the yellow wallpaper acted as a mirror for our narrator. As she peered into the wall’s secrets night after night her vanity gradually became insanity. She knew she could not free herself in the world she lived in.

As the story progresses, the narrator thinks that maybe she could gain some control over things. She begins to gain mental strength from the wallpaper. Her mind begins to churn and she commits the ultimate crime in John’s eyes . . . she thinks. She thinks that maybe John is not entirely correct about everything. However, she knows that she cannot have John know about it. She has to do it in her mind for now. She begins by analyzing the wallpaper. John has told her that she should not let such things bother her. She focuses on it for that simple fact. She feels she knows something that John does not. This is clear when she says, "there are things in that paper that nobody knows but me" (488). The narrator is certain that she now has some knowledge that her "all-knowing" husband does not. Eugenia C. Delamotte says that the husband "uses his exclusively masculine knowledge as a source of power over his wife" (206). She is now beginning to realize that she has a mind of her own and is able to use it.

Trapped in the upstairs of an old mansion with barred windows and disturbing yellow colored wallpaper, the main character is ordered by her husband, a physician, to stay in bed and isolate her mind from any outside wandering thoughts. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes the digression of the narrator’s mental state as she suffers from a form of depression. As the story progresses, the hatred she gains for the wallpaper amplifies and her thoughts begin to alter her perception of the room around her. The wallpaper serves as a symbol that mimics the narrator’s trapped and suffering mental state while she slips away from sanity reinforcing the argument that something as simple as wallpaper can completely

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.

As the story progresses, the narrator thinks that maybe she could gain some control over things. She begins to gain mental strength from the wallpaper. Her mind begins to churn and she commits the ultimate crime in John’s eyes . . . she thinks. She thinks that maybe John is not entirely correct about everything. However, she knows that she cannot have John know about it. She has to do it in her mind for now. She begins by analyzing the wallpaper. John has told her that she should not let such things bother her. She focuses on it for that simple fact. She feels she knows something that John does not. This is clear when she says, "there are things in that paper that nobody knows but me" (488). The narrator is certain that she now has some knowledge that her "all-knowing" husband does not. Eugenia C. Delamotte says that the husband "uses his exclusively masculine knowledge as a source of power over his wife" (206). She is now beginning to realize

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.

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 Yellow Wallpaper” a short story about a mentally ill women,written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at age 32, in 1892 is a story with a hidden meaning and many truths. Charlotte Perkins Gilman coincidentally also had a mental illness and developed cancer leading her to kill herself in the sixties. The story begins with Jane, the mentally ill woman who feels a bit distressed, and although both of the well respected men in her life are physicians she is put simply on a “rest cure”. This rest cure as well as many symbols such as the Yellow Wallpaper, her journal, and her inevitable breakdown are prime examples of the typical life of a woman in this time period and their suppressed lives that they lived even with something as serious as a

She explained this in Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper. After the loss of her child she admits she suffered from a sort of mental breakdown but never had any sort of hallucinations. The actual yellow wallpaper in the story was described to be hideous just as her situation was. This ugly situation “the wallpaper” is what had her trapped and she felt she need to free herself by tarring it down. The nursery room she was staying in resembled her being stuck in a period of morning for the lose of her child. Her doctor at the time and the doctor in the story was of the male gender along with the males being the ones that told her what to do and what was wrong with her and how to feel symbolizes how she felt oppressed by men and how other women in society did as well. This oppressing lead her to seeing the women in the wallpaper. She felt the need to free this woman and capture her because she initially wanted to free herself from the situation as well as find herself and her dignity

This type of first person narration adds to the unsettling feeling readers get when seeing through her eyes. She describes the walls as moving and she panics to figure out the meaning behind the wallpaper. These scenes would not be as profound or interesting had the story been written from another point of view. Because we are able to to see through the narrator’s eyes, we are able to read into her insanity more clearly. She describes herself as

Examine the symbolic significance of barriers in The Yellow Wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story based on the mental deterioration of a young woman, trapped by the controlling persona of her antagonist husband who believes it is in her best interests to be cured by resting after the birth of their child. The narrator speaks through many journal entries to describe the room and the wallpaper with its “yellow smell” and “breakneck pattern” this suggests that there are other, darker twists that contribute adding a gothic, mysterious feel. With nothing other than the wallpaper patterns and colour and the barred windows, the patterns become increasingly intriguing to the narrator and therefore, the audience; Gilman skillfully uses this

The Story behind the Yellow Wallpaper In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the main character who is a woman in her middle age that struggles with nervous depression and hopes to find some relief and relaxation in a old room with this mysterious yellow wallpaper. This short strory brings across different characters that provide both happy and sad endings by their actions throughout the story. The narrator of the story is presented in first person through the woman who has temporary nervous depression, as the story comes to a conclusion she becomes happy and she’s finally free. Her husband John has a very opposite ending, he learns what is really wrong with his wife and in the end his world comes crashing down.

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

The Woman Behind the Wall Much like a house, the human mind is comprised of rooms and levels. There are rooms with no doors, they are open to host family, friends, and transient guests. However, there are also rooms with doors and locks; rooms to which only the owner of the house has access to. Similarly, the human mind has qualities which are to be displayed openly, and qualities which are to be kept hidden. In her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilizes symbols which could be mirrored to her personal life and mental condition.