The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a first-person narration of madness experienced by an unnamed woman in the Victorian era. The madness is exposed through a “nervous condition” diagnosed by the writer’s husband, a physician, who believes the only cure is prohibiting all intellectual thought and to remain in solitude for a “rest-cure”. The act of confinement propels the narrator into an internal spiral of defiance against patriarchal discourse. Through characterization and symbolism, “The Yellow Wallpaper” exhibits an inventive parallel between the narrator’s mental deterioration and her internal struggle to break free from female oppression imposed on her through her husband and society.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator must deal with several different conflicts. She is diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 221). Most of her conflicts, such as, differentiating from creativity and reality, her sense of entrapment by her husband, and not fitting in with the stereotypical role of women in her time, are centered around her mental illness and she has to deal with them.

“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

“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 “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, already suffering with Post-Partum Depression, is further constrained when her husband John prescribes her resting treatment for her illness. John clarifies that she must lie in bed in the same, enclosed room, refrain from using her imagination and especially abstain from writing. This, in turn, forces the narrator deeper into her

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a short story, published in the late 1800s, about one woman’s descent to madness. Finding herself plagued with postpartum depression after the birth of her son, the narrator’s ailment is overlooked by everyone around her. Her husband, “...a physician of high standing..” (Gilman) describes the narrator’s illness as “temporary nervous depression...a slight hysterical tendency.” Her brother and male doctor, also agree with this diagnosis and because so, the narrator is forced to go through a rather peculiar treatment plan that was commonly practiced on women who were considered hysterical during that time period. Considered a societal norm this treatment plan, created by the dominate male,

The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by nineteenth-century feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was first published in 1892 in New England Magazine. Gilman 's story, based upon her own experience with a “rest cure” for mental illness, was written as a critique of the medical treatment prescribed to women suffering from a condition then known as “neurasthenia.” The significance of “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a feminist text, however, was not acknowledged until the critically

In “The Yellow wallpaper”, the wallpaper is a metaphor that expresses women’s protest against the repression of the society and their personal identity at the rise of feminism. During the Victorian era, women were kept down and kept in line by their married men and other men close to them. "The Yellow Wallpaper", written By Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a tale of a woman, her mental difficulties and her husband’s so called therapeutic treatment ‘rest cure’ of her misery during the late 1800s. The tale starts out in the summer with a young woman and her husband travelling for the healing powers of being out from writing, which only appears to aggravate her condition. His delusion gets Jane (protagonist), trapped in a room, shut up in a bed making her go psychotic. As the tale opens, she begins to imagine a woman inside ‘the yellow wallpaper’.

The constant act of avoiding the worth women have in society spirals down to the core fact how women are envisioned inferior to men. In The Ways We Lie by Stephanie Ericsson, the simple declaration, “We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy’s institutions.” Depicts how far lies have come to fit in the spectrum of society, which has inevitably caused women to lose their voice in established lies – mistaken as truths – into thinking that the unfair treatment they receive is what they deserve.

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

do and maintain which is why they are so quick to frown upon women when they do not succeed these goals. Through this reading, you will begin to understand the suffering that women had gone through in order to break free of their cages. Two English literature stories that prove this are “The Yellow Wallpaper” which was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which gives the point of view of a man through a woman, and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, told from the point of view a man. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” the reader is able to see how women are treated in this time period when something occurs to be wrong with them. While in the story, “A Rose for Emily”

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the text was seen as a woman who suffered from an illness that she identifies as real, but her blinded husband, John, thought she wasn’t sick and all she needed was to rest for a while. As the text progressed, the narrator began to connect to the yellow wallpaper in the nursery room she was staying at, seeing things move within the wallpaper and even seeing women trapped within it as well. The narrator’s illness progressively got worse as she had to stay strong and fight her illness by herself since her husband and his sister, Jennie, were no good for help and she would get judged harshly for showing any signs of a mental illness as a woman. Many symbols could be seen from the narrator seeing delusional things within the text, such as the women in the wallpaper shaking the bars within it like they’re in a prison and the women only being calm in the daytime, but restless in the evening. These symbols gave a strong rise to that fact that the narrator was actually sick and suffered a condition that would be called postpartum depression in today’s time, but due to her inability to talk to her husband and his sister about her illness and/or concerns and the fear of being harshly judged by society for being sick, her illness caused her to go insane from locking all the thoughts and feelings inside of her. Society, which included her husband and his sister, was to blame for the narrator going insane, since the

Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is centered on the deteriorating psychological condition of the female narrator. As a woman in a male dominating society in the 19th century, the narrator has no control over her life. This persistence eventually evolves into her madness. The insanity is triggered by her change in attitude towards her husband, the emergent obsession with the wallpaper and the projection of herself as the women behind the wallpaper. The “rest cure” which was prescribed by her physician husband, created the ideal environment for her madness to extend because, it was in her imagination that she had some freedom and control.

The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” usually means the cover of the book could mislead the actual meaning of the text. Just like that if the author states that the genre of the book is supposed to be horror doesn’t mean it is actually horror. Audience could view the novel or the text different ways. Certain genre has certain rules and criteria that they need to follow in order to create that genre. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she shows how the narrator who may or may not be Jane, moved into this big house with her husband John for few weeks. He is also her doctor, treating her for postpartum depression. She wasn’t supposed to do anything or meet anyone. Since she was so bored, she started to look in depth in the wall paper, and noticed a lady, the monster trying to get out of the pattern. Toward the end of the story she got worst because her illness became the monster in the wall paper. In “The Nature of Horror” by Noel Carroll, he explains how to decide if a text is classified as horror or not. There are many techniques he suggested, like a horror text should have discovery plot, or audience and narrator should feel disgusted and horrified. There should be a monster and the monster have to be from a foreign place. Based on Carroll’s text, Gilman’s story does qualifies as horror because she used the discovery plot to set the story and explained how the monster from the wall and her illness was from a foreign place, and it was threatening

The setting and narrative of Charlotte Perkin Gilman's story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is crucial to the reader's understanding of one women's plight from depression to her descent into complete and total madness. A mixed account of Gilman's personal life and fiction in efforts to better the mental institution as a whole. It takes place in the late 1800s where women were already submissive and oppressed by men, this coupled with the Narrator's throes of depression only made it worse for her. “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage”(Gilman 226). Societal roles such as being the wife make her feel as though she is a second-rate citizen and not someone with dignified emotions. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gillman depicts the inconsistencies and the contradiction of the resting cure using the elements of a secluded mansion, a dominating alpha male, and most importantly the wallpaper itself. All of which turns the narrator into a passive victim of circumstances.