The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator uses the psychological gothic genre to present the portrayal of women, women faced in a marriage, within the time frame of the 1890s. Women were seen as the “shadow” as men dominated society. This is presented throughout the book as many readers first interpitation

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.

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

First and foremost, the article discusses the symbolism of the room that the narrator is locked away in. The article states, “confined in a room she thinks is a one-time nursery because it has “rings and things” in the walls, she is literally locked away from creativity” (905). I believe that the room represents the metaphorical box that all women were confined to and the expectations put on them during that time period, rather than just the narrator being locked away from creativity. For example, a line from The Yellow Wallpaper states, “Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way” (394). Even when the narrator is dealing with her own

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.

Gender roles seem to be as old as time and have undergone constant, but sometime subtle, revisions throughout generations. Gender roles can be defined as the expectations for the behaviors, duties and attitudes of male and female members of a society, by that society. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a great example of this. There are clear divisions between genders. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century where a rigid distinction between the domestic role of women and the active working role of men exists (“Sparknotes”). The protagonist and female antagonists of the story exemplify the women of their time; trapped in a submissive, controlled, and isolated domestic sphere, where they are treated

“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

It was commonly casted that women during the 19th century were not to go beyond their domestic spheres. If a woman were to go beyond the norms and partake in a “male” activity and not assign to “womanly” duties, it were to take an ill effect on her, because she was designed to act merely as a mother, wife, and homemaker. The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, demonstrates the status of women in the 19th century within society, revealing that madness in this story stems from the oppressive control of gender on woman. A woman who is trying to escape from confinement may result in madness. The use of madness characterizes women as victims of society, suffering the effects of isolation brought on by oppression driving

In the short story “Miss Brill”, the primary conflict is internal between herself: “But today she passed the baker’s boy, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time… But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying” (Mansfield 105). Miss Brill realizes she is no longer a part of the youth. She old, and now sees herself as isolated from the play she used to be part of. She “heard something crying” (Mansfield 105). This, results an internal conflict with herself of how she feels. Likewise, “The Yellow Wallpaper” also plays an internal conflict between herself: “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman 473). The protagonist is living further away from society where she is treated as an individual, isolated by others, even her baby. She is given limited opportunities controlled by her husband and her brother as an attempt to do what’s best for her as a sick woman. They both force her to accept the idea of her own thoughts do not qualify reality, which represents the insanity of loneliness.

            In order to treat this "temporary nervous depression," John isolates her from society and orders her to do nothing but rest.  He even becomes upset when she wishes to write, causing this story to be "composed" of writings she manages to do in secret.  John places her in the attic of the mansion, like a dirty secret, in what she believes to be a former nursery.  There is, however, strong evidence that the narrator is not the first mental patient to occupy the room.  There are bars on the windows, gouges in the floor and walls, and rings fastened to the walls; the bed is bolted down and has been gnawed on, and the wallpaper has been torn off in patches.

1) and states, “It is quite alone, standing well back from the road quite three miles from the village” (pg. 2). The isolation of the mansion gives the reader the idea that because it is far away from society that it is a place for the insane. The mentally ill people would only live in something that could be considered a haunted house. It is a beautiful place that is about three miles from the village. This refers to it being in an isolated area for anyone that is ill. The narrator being alone helps the reader understand she has alone time to cure her insanity. She states, “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please… But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way” (pg. 15). The narrator being in an isolated room at night creeping around, as she pleases, lets the reader understand that her insanity is really starting to show. She is finally “getting better” and working her way out of the wallpaper. She is pulling herself out along with all her troubles. She’s found her way out and cannot lose it in the big open room where she creeps around. The husband catches her in time and says, “ ‘What is the matter?’ he cried. “For

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

My perspective of Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is influenced by a great number of different and diverse methods of reading. However, one cannot overlook the feminist theorists’ on this story, for the story is often proclaimed to be a founding work of feminism. Further, the historical and biographical contexts the story was written in can be enlightened by mentioning Gilman’s relationship with S. Weir Mitchell. And I can’t help but read the story and think of Foucault’s concept of Panopticism as a method of social control. Lastly, of course, there’s the psychological perspective on the story, although in my readings of psychology, particularly the psychological knowledge surrounding both women and queers, I find the

The cult of true womanhood defined women as “ladies”(pure, diligent). When we talk about American woman, we have to specify their religion, sexual orientation, race, social class (it is therefore essentialist to talk about “women” in general. Depending on the group which they are in, certain coordinates are applicable.

The wife told John that she was not okay. John being a doctor, instead of seeking someone who was trained in the field of mental health, took matters into his own hands. He thought that he the wife problem was not that severe and that he would be able to cure her himself. His solution to this problem was to put the wife in a room with very little and yellow wallpaper. This proved to not be very beneficial as the wife became worse. The wife was also a writer and so john took the ability for to write. This also, affected the wife because she was not able to communicate her thoughts and feelings. SHe would use writing as a way to do that and when took that away from it felt the wife had lost a piece of herself. John is an example of the stereotype in the 1950s where women were expected to whatever the husband said and keep quiet about it. The wife still finds to keep writing even after John took her journal away. She hides a journal from John so she can still because she that it helps ease the depression. After being in the room for so long. The narrator becomes increasingly interested in the yellow wallpaper the longer she is in there. Into the the Wife becomes more upset over johns patronizing ways of handling her. John is the stereotypical 1950s husband. The Wife knows that wall paper has become a problem and she tries to ask to John to repaper he refuses to. By