The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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

All along the story, John, the husband believes he can cure his wife, manage her behavior and keep his status

            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.

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.

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

We know it’s third-person narrator, but sometimes this narrator gets so close to the main characters that it almost seems like we're dealing with a first-person narrator. We get to see into the thoughts of Dr. Haber, Heather, and George and learn how they really feel about each other, we learn all about their unspoken fears, and we find out all kinds of secret stuff about each of them. It’s great. Take for instance this quote about Heather: "Why hadn't she been a detective instead of a goddam stupid third-class civil rights lawyer? She hated the law.

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.

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 particular story “A Worn Path” the third person point of is limited to a singular character, a very old and tired black woman who displays signs of hysteria and dementia. Had this been told in a first-person narrative it would have increased the difficulty of which audience or reader would interpret and decipher the events going on. Welty makes a good decision on her part by avoiding the conundrum that would be if it had been told by the old lady. The story at no points require the reader to know what the old woman is explicitly thinking, but occasion monologue is spoke by the old because of what appears to be weakened mental faculties. On multiple occasions the old lady is talking to herself but the piece of evidence that solidifies the infectiveness of making this lady the narrator is when she forgets why she had pursued the long journey that led her to the hospital, “'My grandson.

From the start, it is clearly shown that the story is in the first-person point of view. This type of view is not as direct towards the reader when compared to a third-person point of view. The narrator can influence the reader’s opinion and confused them with her plight. She is the only primary source the reader is in contact with, and that is due to the narrator writing her thoughts in a diary. Throughout her writing, she describes her experience and opinions that she may have. This could promote sympathy

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

Also, Johns occupation is a physician, and he “does not believe that [the woman] is sick” (Gilman 780). Because the woman suffers from severe mental illness, John treats her more as a child than a wife or a patient. He continuously pats her on the head, makes sure that she has enough nutrients, and checks up on her frequently. The actions that she describes John doing are not normal for a regular married couple, which influences the audience’s opinion on John’s position in the woman’s life. The narrators likes to try and convince herself that John is in fact her husband, and believes that while she is in this “home”, and that he “takes all care from [her]” (Gilman 781).

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 narrator is unknown to the readers but describes Catherine’s, and other characters inner thoughts, that would otherwise be reserved to them. Although it is Catherine that is made the main focus, “Catherine’s feelings, as she got into the carriage, were in a very unsettled state; divided between regret for the loss of one great pleasure, and the hope of soon enjoying another”, her narrative representation is sympathetic and pleasant but the third-person structure also allows for Catherine’s nature to be presented without confusing the

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.