The Yellow Wallpaper Analyzed
The word mental illness implies different things to various individuals, yet collectively, our society’s thoughts come down to what can be bluntly put as "shun it". Charlotte Perkins Gilman, however, addresses this perception with a different approach through her short story. It revolves around the narrator, who is diagnosed with temporary nervous depression and is consequently prescribed a treatment that forbids her from doing the one thing she could do all day – write, but instead spend all her time imprisoned in a room with a disturbing wallpaper. Gilman gathered inspiration from a personal encounter with a similar mental illness due to which he was prescribed rest cure, which she found very ineffective (Gilman 669). Similar to some of today’s psychiatric hospitals’ treatment methods, Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts the society’s undeveloped negative approach towards psychological sickness.
Gilman’s style of writing employs many stylistic features that include anaphora and irony that play a role in conveying the theme. Anaphora is used throughout the story, for example, when the narrator uses the word “personally” in both the consecutive sentences “personally, I disagree with their ideas” and “personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman 658). The reiteration of “personally” emphasizes the depth narrator’s disappointment with her husband’s decision of confining her to a room. This
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to show how women undergo oppression by gender roles. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman’s changes in mental state. The narrator in this story becomes so oppressed by her husband that she actually goes insane. The act of oppression is very obvious within the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and shows how it changes one’s life forever.
Gilman's use of narrative structure is important in depicting the fragmentation of the woman's mind. Through the course of the story sentences become increasingly choppy and paragraphs decrease in length. This concrete element of fiction illustrates the deterioration of that narrator's psychological well-being and mental surmise to the yellow wallpaper.
The narrator of Gilman’s story may be envious of Truth and her freedom in the sense of being able to work. Meanwhile, Truth is arguing she is a woman just as much as the white woman is, yet is treated drastically differently. While the white woman in Gilman’s story is forbidden to work because it has seemingly made her ill, Truth has been forced to live a life full of work.
By taking situations many have personally experienced or know someone who has, realistic fiction authors are able to reach their readers on a deeper level. Charlotte Perkins Gilman has expressed she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” because of her own personal battles with mental illness in an attempt to prevent others from “going mad”. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman introduces us to a mentally ill narrator. The narrator is the wife of an established physician and forced to “rest” in a room covered in tattered yellow wallpaper and bars so that she can cure herself of her disease. Throughout the story we follow the narrator through her days in this room and see her eventually be driven to
As I started reading this short story, it clearly introduced who the characters are and where it took place. The narrator is a woman; she has no name, remains anonymous throughout the story. She lives with her husband John in a house. This house is isolated from society, since the short story indicates that it is far from village, roads or any means of communication. It also contains locks and gates throughout. The woman is ill and this illness has placed her in a weak position with her husband and everything around her. We know that she likes to write, but her husband doesn’t let her, so she does it in secret. Although this type of writing is mainly to show mild personality disorder in dealing with life,
The queering of gender roles in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman discussed through the destabilization of the gender roles of the 19th century commonly attributed to women and how the narrator threatened those through writing as a profession. The narrator is in direct opposition to the separate sphere mentality which is implemented by her husband and his sister, Jennie. Jennie is the angel of the house and the narrator is shunned to the yellow wallpaper and trapped. Her masculinity disallows her from being a woman and there is no other place for her in the society. Because of the imprisonment meant to ‘cure’ her the narrator escapes these roles through madness.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” both tell us that some women have a lack of independence because of being told what to do, having limitations put on their abilities, and having a family member being an authoritarian figure in their life. Both stories are very similar when discussing the lack of independence that women may have. Women are always being belittled or controlled somewhere.
Gilman's writing becomes more disordered as the story develops, for she is allowing her illness/insanity to take control. Her punctuation is limited near the end because her thoughts are all fragmented as her illness progresses. The story took place in 19th century, a time and place when women had
The stigma of mental illness in addition to the oppression of women are battles that are still being fought in society today. Charlotte Perkins Gilman authored the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper’ which depicts the story of a woman who has recently had a baby and whose husband has moved them into a summer house rental in the country in the hopes of helping her to recover from her mental ailments. Through a nameless narrator, Gilman uses a series of diary entries to portray the story of a woman suffering from mental illness who is prevented from getting the treatment that she requires due to being oppressed by the men in her life which is attributable to the constraints of gender roles set by society which results in the narrator’s descent
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a troubled woman who has a fascination with some old yellow wallpaper in her room. As the story progresses her interest and fantication with the wallpaper increases to the point where it could be considered an obsession. The woman in the story has some obvious mental health issues, this is reflective on the author's own life. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, stated that she suffered from “severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia”. Unfortunately in many cases melancholia, or melancholic depression, is considered treatment resistant, meaning that it often fails to respond to two or more consecutive medications.
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
Mental illness is a pressing condition that requires a doctor’s acceptance and understanding to be treated. One must respect the disorder and be aware of its side effects and characteristics in order to comprehend what is happening to the affected individual. In today’s society, most people are accepting of people’s handicaps and take into consideration their limits, but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people were unaccepting of impairments and were quick to misjudge individuals leading them to be wrongly diagnosed. No piece of American literature better demonstrates this concern than Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman uses her background filled with her own struggles with mental illness and
In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman highlights the issues that come with sexism as well as the issues in healthcare at the time by writing the story of a mentally ill woman’s experience with the rest cure. She is able to effectively shed light on these topics through the clever use of the first person perspective in order to give the reader a better grasp of the narrator’s experience, the storyline progression as the narrator responds to her difficult position, and the masterful use diction to evoke imagery that supports a greater understanding of the narrator’s feelings.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a detailed account of the author’s battle with depression and mental illness. Gilman’s state of mental illness and delusion is portrayed in this narrative essay. Through her account of this debilitating illness, the reader is able to relate her behavior and thoughts to that of an insane patient in an asylum. She exhibits the same type of thought processes and behaviors that are characteristic of this kind of person. In addition, she is constantly treated by those surrounding her as if she were actually in some form of mental hospital.