The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman Essay

    "The Yellow Wallpaper" takes a close look at one woman's mental deterioration. The narrator is emotionally isolated from her husband. Due to the lack of interaction with other people the woman befriends the reader by secretively communicating her story in a diary format. Her attitude towards the wallpaper is openly hostile at the beginning, but ends with an intimate and liberating connection. During the gradual change in the relationship between the narrator and the wallpaper, the yellow paper becomes a mirror, reflecting the process the woman is going through in her room.

The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

The essay, "Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was written primarily for the purpose of explaining the meaning and reasoning behind her semi-autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper". Before stating these reasons, Gilman explains that she had been suffering from a "severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia--and beyond" (Gilman, 1913). After three years of this torment, she decided to go see a specialist in nervous diseases. The doctor she went to was named Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell advised Gilman to be put to bed and to apply the rest cure, along with living a domestic life with limited amount of intellectual interaction and to never "touch pen, brush, or pencil again" (Gilman, 1913). As intimidating as this sounded, Gilman took the advise of her doctor, and followed his every suggestion for about three months. She had reached a point of almost complete mental ruin at the end of these three months, that she had to cast aside the specialist's advice. Instead of following his instructions, she began to work again. Ultimately, this is when and where "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written.

Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction

In her story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman expresses exasperation towards the separate male and female roles expected of her society, and the evident repressed rights of a woman versus the active duties of a man. The story depicts the methods taken to cure a woman of her psychological state during Gilman’s time, and delineates the dominant cure of the time period, “the resting cure,” which encouraged the restraint of the imagination ("The Yellow Wallpaper: Looking Beyond the Boundaries") Gilman uses the unnamed narrator to represent the average repressed woman of her time and how her needs were neglected in an attempt to mark a fixed distinction between the standards and expectations of men and women. John, the narrator’s husband, take the designated and patriarchal role of a man who believes he knows everything there is to know about the human mind. His belief of his superior knowledge pushes him to condescend, overshadow, and misunderstand his wife. As a result, his wife loses control of her life and escapes into her own fantasy world, where she is able dominate her imagination, free her mind, and fall into insanity. Gilman describes her era’s approach toward female psychology in order to criticize the patriarchal society she lived in as well as to reveal its effects on the women of her time.

Immediately in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” readers are able to tell that the protagonist feels trapped in the room, in which she is being placed. The female narrator also mentions to us that her husband “John is a physician, and perhaps –– (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind –– perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (Stetson 1892, 129). That is to say, this statement clearly indicates that science triumphs over the fantasy of religion. Therefore, John intellectually dominates his wife as a result of this view and his gender. Throughout the story, readers are able to observe themes from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” such as powerlessness, patriarchy, and lack of independence. As a result, Gilman 's protagonist does not have a room of her own. Despite, the struggles that the narrator faces in the room, “it makes [her] think of English places that you read about” (Stetson 1892, 130). Basically, the narrator tries to make herself feel comfortable while she is in the room and she is also able to express herself on paper, although her husband, John insists that she should not. According to Gilman’s protagonist, “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” (Stetson 1892, 129). This statement explains that the narrator expresses a need for independence by removing herself from the

A review of the house itself suggests that an architectural hierarchy of privacy increases level by level. At first, the house seems to foster romantic sensibilities; intrigued by its architectural connotations, the narrator embarks upon its description immediately--it is the house that she wants to "talk about" (Gilman 11). Together with its landscape, the house is a "most beautiful place" that stands "quite alone . . . well back from the road, quite three miles from the village" (Gilman 11). The estate's grounds, moreover, consist of "hedges and walls and gates that lock" (Gilman 11). As such, the house and its grounds are markedly depicted as mechanisms of confinement--ancestral places situated within a legacy of control and

Her passion is to write and by doing so we are able to follow her on a

“I don 't like to look out of the windows even – there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?” the woman behind the pattern was an image of herself. She has been the one “stooping and creeping.” The Yellow Wallpaper was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the story, three characters are introduced, Jane (the narrator), John, and Jennie. The Yellow Wallpaper is an ironic story that takes us inside the mind and emotions of a woman suffering a slow mental breakdown. The narrator begins to think that another woman is creeping around the room behind the wallpaper, attempting to "break free", so she locks herself in the room and begins to tear down pieces of the wallpaper to rescue this trapped woman. To end the story, John unlocks the door and finds Jane almost possessed by the woman behind the wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist background gives a feminist standpoint in The Yellow Wallpaper because the narrator’s husband, John acts superior to the narrator.

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.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a famous social worker and a leading author of women’s issues. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's relating to views of women 's rights and her demands for economic and social reform of gender inequities are very famous for the foundations of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In critics Gilman ignored by people of color in the United States and attitudes towards non-northern European immigrants (Ceplair, non-fiction, 7). “Gilman developed controversial conception of womanhood”, by Deborah M. De Simone in “Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the feminization of education”. Gilman’s relation to reading deserves more attention than it has received (“The reading habit and The yellow wallpaper”). Her work about Women and Economics was considered her highest achievement by critics.

Throughout Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the unnamed woman is controlled by her husband in the male dominant society. Many Ideals of patriarchy are seen throughout this story which has negative effects on the woman. Even today in 2017, women and men are still discriminated against. Women have made it a long way since this story was written in 1892, only gaining the right to vote in 1920, by the 19th amendment. Also before 1789 women were not even seen as “people”. Even though by law women and men are equal today, men still seem to dominate society and still have more power socially. This story is used to express the feminist views of Gilman, illustrating hardships faced by women during the eighties. This is expressed through the setting of the story and the actions of John, her husband. Throughout the story, the author speaks of the captivity and the everyday struggles placed on women by society during this time in age. Many people think that she wrote this story to express her personal experiences. In her outlook, gender roles should be eliminated from the social order for women to be unrestricted. By looking at this story by Gilman, we can see the symbolism of mistreatment of all women in general, which most readers don’t see; this is important because to this day women are still discriminated against and it needs to change.

As a well-known author, sociologist, and feminist during 19th and 20th century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman will spend most of her adult life publishing stories to highlight social injustices and work with feminist groups to fight for gender equality (Davis, Cynthia). Gilman uses personal experiences to influence her written and political work. Feminist criticism understands and exploits the “social forces that have historically kept the sexes from achieving total equality” (criticism). In the late 1800s, society expects men and women to behave certain ways based on the stereotypes created by society. Gilman challenges these stereotypes of gender-specific roles in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Through her depiction of the dominating husband, the submissive wife, and the misunderstanding and treatment of women’s health, Gilman makes the reader question the inequality between men and women.

At first glance, Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” appears to simply be a tragic telling of a woman’s descent into madness. It is a story told through the diary entries of the protagonist, the woman, as she battles with postpartum depression but ultimately succumbs to it—losing her own sanity in the process. It is an interesting narrative, and while taking the story at face value is indeed sufficient, the message behind it becomes severely diminished if read plainly. More often than not, literature mirrors the society and societal values that it was created in. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is no exception to this. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a depiction of the unbalanced social equality between men and women in the late 19th century. Women were seen as lesser individuals back then and were treated as such. And Gilman, through various literary devices, seeks to unveil the oppression that women in marriage had to undergo in the late 19th century.

As a well-known author, sociologist, and feminist of the 19th and 20th century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman will spend most of her adult life publishing stories to highlight social injustices and work with feminist groups to fight for gender equality (Davis, Cynthia). Gilman uses personal experiences to influence her written and political work. Feminist criticism understands and exploits the “social forces that have historically kept the sexes from achieving total equality” (criticism). In the late 1800s, society expects men and women to behave certain ways based on the stereotypes created by society. As a feminist, Gilman challenges these stereotypes of gender-specific roles in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Through her depiction of the dominating husband, the submissive wife, and the misunderstanding and treatment of women’s health, Gilman makes the reader question the inequality between men and women.