Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860, in the city of Hartford, CT. She would later move to California. She would end her own life in 1935, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought for women’s rights and was an advocate of socialism. She wrote novels, poetry and short stories. She was a woman who was educated; her writing reflected her knowledge, relating to her strong thoughts on woman’s rights and independence and how women of Victorian times suffered from this lack of rights. In her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman conveys her views on feminism and how women are treated through characters who represent this treatment. The characters she uses help the reader really get drawn into her story; …show more content…
The narration is in first person only. This allows for the reader to really feel for and understand what the main character is going through. The mental illness she is suffering from over takes her; leading to full blown hysteria by the end of her stay. The first character introduced is, John. He is the husband of the narrator, and her physician. He is the reason she has come to this mansion. She also believes he is the reason she is not getting better faster. “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 in my mind)-perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (Gilman, 1891). This statement, in the beginning of the story opens up the reader’s realization that the narrator is suffering from some mental illness. John is an antagonist of the story. He feels he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, the reader soon realizes, this treatment is only worsening her mental state. He is never home with her; he always has patients to see in town, leaving her locked in this house; alone with her thoughts. He ensures that she gets rest and fresh air to get well. To him, it may seem as though he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, this seclusion she experiences causes serious damage to her mental state. Her husband has control over her that women
Many intellectual artists, who are widely acclaimed for their literary work, live in a world characterized by “progressive insanity” (Gilman 20). Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one such individual. A writer during the early 20th century, Gilman suffered from bouts of deep depression, due part to her dissatisfaction with the limitations of her role as wife and mother. Her writing, particularly her famous story “The Yellow Wallpaper” reflects experiences from her personal life. In doing so, “she achieved some control over both her illness and her past” (Lane 128). Many people still admire the fact that Gilman wrote her piece “to save people from being driven crazy;” however, perhaps she
Her loving husband, John, never takes her illness seriously. The reader has a front row seat of the narrator’s insanity voluminously growing. He has shown great patience with the recovery of his wife’s condition. However, the narrator is clear to the reader that she cannot be her true self with him. In the narrator’s eyes she feels he is completely oblivious to how she feels and could never understand her. If she did tell him that the yellow wallpaper vexed her as it does he would insist that she leave. She could not have this.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman discusses the oppression men have towards women through the story of a nameless narrator during the 19th century. In the story, the unknown narrator, a woman, is telling her struggle for freedom and her fight to escape from the subordination in her marriage with a physician. In the story, the narrator suffers an illness that prevents her from doing things she likes such as writing. Throughout her illness, the narrator slowly becomes aware of her situation and then starts to fight to change her living condition with her husband. Through the use of two major symbols established throughout the text, Gilman brings awareness of women’s struggle to end their oppression by men and their fight to change the way society is dominated by men. In addition, the symbols used by Gilman underline the way women suffrage awareness slowly began to spread during the 19th century.
The surroundings which one is placed in can drastically contribute to their mental state. Deterioration and a lack of stimulation will be reciprocated within the mind of the inhabitant. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, depicts a young, unnamed woman who is suffering with post-partum depression. In this time period, the treatment of mental illness typically did more harm than good as electroshock therapy, and the rest cure were the classic treatments of choice. Similarly, William Faulkner, the author of “A Rose for Emily”, written in 1930, gives the reader an inside look upon an elderly woman experiencing mental distress. Although there are major signs of an issue being present within Miss Emily’s old, southern house, the town chooses to ignore and cover them up as to not disrupt the elderly woman who buys poisons without a reason and sleeps next to the dead corpse of her lover. Theme and setting play two very distinct and important roles within each of these stories allowing the reader to have a more complete understanding of the message the author is trying to convey.
“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.
All along the story, John, the husband believes he can cure his wife, manage her behavior and keep his status
Analysis: The above quotations clearly display the similarity between John and the Narrator’s relationship to that of a father and a daughter. John controls the majority of the Narrator’s behavior to the point she feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for her incapacity as John’s wife. The Narrator is restricted in her actions and is therefore unable to fulfil her wifely duties, forcing her to consider herself as a burden. When is reality, John treats the Narrator as his daughter and does not permit her to complete her duty. For instance, the Narrator dislikes the yellow wallpaper and wishes to have it removed; however, John does not allow her to do so and acts as if it would feed into a child’s stubbornness. His continued belief in his superiority disregards the Narrator as is wife and instead infantilizes her. He believes her identity exists only through him, which merely encourages his paternalistic
The unequal relationship between the narrator and John is a miniature of the larger gender inequity in society. Gilman makes it clear that much of John’s condescending and paternal behavior toward his wife has little to do with her illness. He dismisses her well-thought-out opinions and her “flights of fancy” with equal disdain, while he demeans her creative impulses. He speaks of her as he would a child, calling her his “little girl” and saying of her, “Bless her little heart.” He overrides her judgments on the best course of treatment for herself as he would on any issue, making her live in a house she does not like, in a room she detests, and in an isolated environment, which makes her unhappy and
John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on
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.
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.
treats her like a child and just like a child she is kept in this
I notice the technique First Person Point of View in this section. This is a good choice for the novel because it is able to explain things that go on in the main character’s mind. This is not able to be understood in third person because it is outside of the main character and using a narrator. For example, on page 169 it says this; “I rolled out the carpet farther and found a blue knit blanket, almost newspaper thin. I grabbed it and held it to my face and there, God, yes. Her smell. The lilac shampoo and the almond in her skin lotion and beneath all of that the faint sweetness of the skin itself. And I could picture her again: she unravels the carpet halfway each night so her hip isn’t against bare concrete as she lies on her side.” This
There are several different types of Narration and narrator roles in narratives, with each having a different effect upon the novel. However, each of these different narrator and narration types have their own advantages and limitations in regards the narrative. Each role, ranging from first to third person, has its own unique advantages, including the personal insight into a characters, which can be found in first person, to the understanding of several different points of view, as seen in third person, and so on. Each role contrasts the other, exploring the novel, and understanding the characters, in different ways to produce a different effect within the novel. Some of these contrasting, and differing elements, can be found in The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood and Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, where there is shown a clear difference between one narration style and another. These can range from first person and third person narrator, a shifting and alternating narration, as can be seen in Atwood’s The Edible Woman, to 3rd person omniscient narrator, , and an indirect interior monologue narration style, as can be seen in Mrs Dalloway by Woolf. Each text provides a different insight and perspective into a narrative form, from narrator roles to Narration type, that helps bring the story to life for the audience of the novel, and each has its own limitations and advantages to do with telling the story.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a true reflection of the imaginative nature of literature. In this narration, Gilman presents her opinions on the nature of the relationship between men and women in the 19th century. However, she incorporates various stylistic devices particularly symbolism which make the story complex. In fact, it requires the audience to read the story several times to understand how it flows. Despite the complex approach, Gilman explicitly explains the subordination of women during the 19th century, which was extended to the medical profession. Gilman explores the historical and sociological understanding of the role of women in patriarchal American society.