The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting is very symbolic when analyzing the different the meanings of this book. The main character in the story is sick with nervous depression. In the story, John, her husband, and also a physician, takes his wife to a house in the middle of the summer and confines her to one room in hopes of perfect rest for her. As the story progresses, it is made clear that confinement, sanity, insanity, and freedom are all tied together and used to make the setting of the story symbolic.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a woman driven insane by postpartum depression and a dangerous treatment. Nevertheless, when you study the protagonist, it shows that the story is more about finding the protagonist’s identity. The protagonist’s proposes of an imaginary woman, which at first, is just her shadow against the bars of the wallpaper. The pattern shows her identity, expressing the conflict that she experiences and eventually leads her to a complete breakdown of what is her identity and that of the imaginary shadow.

An anonymous author once said, “What consumes your mind, controls your life.” In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is suffering from severe depression, at the very least and constantly tries to get better. While trying to get better she becomes increasingly fixated on the yellow wallpaper that encompasses her in her room. It gets to the point where the wallpaper is all she thinks about and slowly, it starts to control her life. The yellow wallpaper in this story is a representation of the narrator’s relationship with her disease.

Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the experience of a nervous woman named Jane who falls into psychosis during the “rest cure” treatment prescribed by her husband John. The rest cure admits the patient to bed rest with limited activity for the body and mind allowed; Dr. S. Weir Mitchell advocated the rest cure and is mentioned by name in the short story by Gilman who had him as her doctor (Gilman 80). During Jane’s rest cure, she is banned from creative work like writing her thoughts but finds “great relief from writing on dead paper”, even if it includes hiding her banned writings from being discovered. The one main complaint Jane has in her writings is the yellow wallpaper that surrounds the room without pattern or end and slowly grows more bothersome to Jane during her rest cure. Jane describes how the colors remind her of disgusting yellow things, how even the wallpaper smells up the rental house, and shakes by a woman within the wallpaper (Gilman 85-86). With nothing to occupy Jane’s mind the wallpaper becomes an obsession that torments her anxiety and consumes her sanity towards the end of her rest cure. Gilman experiences the same madness from her rest cure treatment as Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The horrid treatment of “rest cure” from doctor Silas Weir Mitchell led author Charlotte Perkins Gilman into writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” sharing her experience of madness resulting from her treatment to represent the

Hysteria is mentioned almost immediately in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s semi- autobiographical short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. We encounter the narrator through epistolary-like entries that she tells us is in a journal. The main character is a well off, married woman who is suffering from, what we now know to be, post-partum depression. She is taken by her husband to an isolated country house where she can rest, and upon their arrival to the house she is placed in a former nursery covered in a hideous, yellow wallpaper; which slowly drives her insane.

Often times we can see that a writer's personal life or "Biography" can have a large impact on their stories. That seems to very much be the case in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper," where we see the author's life greatly influence her work. The biography of Gilman is a fascinating one starting in 1860, on July the 3rd, the day she was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She was born to Mary Perkins and Frederick Beecher Perkins. Gilman's great aunts were Harriet Beecher

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a thrilling story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman back in the 1860. The setting is the Victorian era when women had no place in the society because the society was dominated by men. Therefore, the women character Jennie try to rise and discover their place in the society, but different obstacles prevented them from realizing their dreams. In this regard, the paper will discuss how Jennie, the narrator needed to have the opportunity to work, to grow and to make connections outside of the home. Jennie is treated like a child of being a house wife by her husband. He wouldn’t allow her to communicate with others outside of home. Jane her sister-in-law also housekeeper to help Jennie with her chores. An article by Dr. Aşkın Haluk said “a married women was legally the slave to her husband (Haluk 47) Relating to Jennie husband slaving her to take care of her chores.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's story "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written before the 20th century, which was a time when women 's roles were defined by men. Women living in a male dominated society at the time were portrayed as being unable to make their own decisions without a man 's consent. The cult of domesticity was an idea that women would be submissive and responsible for the home and family while at the mercy of her husband. Gilman 's story depicts the life of a strong woman who is the wife to her husband John and the mother to a newly born baby. While being passive and compliant under the rule of her controlling husband, she does not hesitate to take the role of a caring and nurturing mother. Unfortunately, unknown to society at the time our narrator suffers from depression and anxiety after giving birth to her child.

Bars on windows, locks on doors, no communication with the outside world. Does this sound like a good treatment and conditions for someone who has a mental illness? In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we follow a woman through her journey with the rest cure. The narrator of the story is prescribed the rest cure after having a “slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 648). She is sent up to live in the attic of the home that she and her husband are renting for several months. The attic has bars over all the windows and rings on the walls. It sounds as though it is more like a room in an insane asylum than in the attic of a home, and definitely not a favorable place to shove someone that is trying to be treated for a mental disorder.

Depression is a rising topic nowadays, however it has been present in human history for a long time. It is highly important to treat this sickness properly, since it can have big repercussions in someone’s life and health. In class, we discussed the case of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This story is a clear example of a depression case treatment gone wrong. It illustrated the effects and consequences of negligence in the treatment of depression, centering on patients of the Victorian age. The “rest cure” was the common treatment given to women who suffered from depression or hysteria (Poirier 15). This treatment was not only ineffective but it was prejudicial to their mental health. In Gilman’s story, the narrator is diagnosed with nervous depression by her husband and brother, physicians of high standing. Her husband decides that the best way to treat her is making sure she rests, isolating her from everything that can harm her. She is left alone with nothing to do and no one to interact with, not even her own son. Additionally, the narrator was forbidden to express her emotions, especially through her writing, which ends up worsening her illness. A feeling of loneliness overcomes her and with nothing more than her room’s yellow wallpaper as a source of entertainment, she slowly falls into madness. The Yellow Wallpaper is the perfect example of how the treatment given to mentally ill women in the Victorian age was deficient, and in many cases

Throughout the course of history, gender roles have seen a drastic reform and reversal. The late 19th century and early 20th century have represented a time period where American women were restricted to common household jobs, and prevented from being part of much social or economical progress. Women were expected to maintain an image of moral standard and were frequently cast in an insignificant role in society, ironically, due to the worries men had with the higher population of women ("Women in the Twentieth Century and Beyond." 1). As a strong advocate for women 's rights, Charlotte Perkins Gilman played a significant role as she fought against the common, marginalized label that had been put on women during the time period. In her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", Perkins utilizes recurring, vivid imagery to highlight the theme of the unjust isolation of women. With the use of a distant house, a secluded garden, a shut window, and a useless wallpaper, Perkins conveys the message that the 20th century was plagued with the oppression of men by the social segregation of women in the United States. The century marked an era of deterioration of not only the emotional well being of women, but also caused detrimental mental issues as well.

In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which takes place in the 1800’s, the main character and her husband are staying in a vacant colonial mansion that has been in the family for many generations. She and John have come to this “hereditary estate” (Gilman, 1) so that she can rest and heal from her ‘nervous condition.’ John a physician has prescribed absolute rest, not even allowing her to take care of her baby, so this isolated mansion that was the home for someone else’s ancestors becomes their home for the summer. “If a physician of high standing and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do?” (Gilman, 1) Although, she feels that “air, work, exercise and journeys”, will do her good, it is forbidden, and the reason why she is not getter better quicker “John is a physician and perhaps that is one reason I do not get better faster.” (Gilman, 1) She has come to this mansion for one reason to rest; she is not allowed to go outside, because it is believed that it will increase her nervousness. From the context of the story the reader can infer that the narrator is suffering from post-partum depression a condition that some women can get after childbirth caused by changes in hormones, fatigue and the psychological changes

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The author of this short story was known in the 19th century as a feminist intellectual journalist. She was a follower of woman rights. Gilman was most concerned with political inequality and social justice in all, but her focus was of her writing about the unequal status of women in marriage. Gilman did not like that men saw women as an obligation to stay in the domestic sphere, which gave them no power express their emotions, creativity, or intelligence. Although, they could not show their abilities of profession and of public life. Most of Gilman’s writings were about women rights or feminism. One of her most known writing is the “The Yellow Wallpaper” published in January 1892,

The ‘Annual Global Writing Competition’ had various entries this year, which proved the wonderful talent we have all over the world. The semi finalists were Henry Lawson with ‘The Drovers Wife,’ Barbara Baynton with ‘The Chosen Vessel,’ Katherine Mansfield with ‘The Fly’ and Shirley Jackson with ‘The Lottery.’ We had a high calibre of contestants this year and the winner is Charlotte Perkins Gilman with ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a short story that emphasises a young woman struggling with the negative impacts of mental illness such as depression and nervous breakdowns. Through the fantastic use of repetition, convoluted sentence design, sophisticated language, active voice and evocative accounts of her surroundings, Gilman effectively plays with the feelings and emotions of the audience by creating a setting in which has jumping wallpapers and woman trapped behind the incarcerate designs. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ won this prestigious award due to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s use of extensive themes, various gothic elements, captivating motifs, outstanding techniques, engaging symbolism, gripping plot and the fantastic use of characterisation.

with a rest cure. The doctor in the story is much like the doctor that