The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The symbolism of multiple aspects of “The Yellow Wallpaper” help to make the reader understand the subordination of women and the heinousness of such subordination. Moonlight is the first symbolism one can see the prominence of. The moon has long been a symbol of the woman as with early

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.

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.

In the 1950’s, women weren’t respected for doing anything besides being an outstanding wife and mother. Women and men weren’t on the same level when it came to rights in the eyes of the law. Also during this time, mental illnesses were not accurately researched, and since doctors weren’t fully aware of all the information about mental illnesses, patients did not always get the best treatment and were treated as freaks. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both of these elements are present. Gilman did a wonderful job portraying how women are not taken seriously and how lightly mental illnesses are taken. Gilman had, too, had firsthand experience with the physician in the story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's believes that there really was no difference in means of way of thinking between men or women is strongly. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband 's lack of belief. The story appears to happen during a time period where women were mistreated. Women were treated as second rate people in community during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the thought process of the community during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using knowledge on equal rights between women and men, one can carefully study “The Yellow Wallpaper” by

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she discusses some of the issues found in 19th century society such as women’s oppression and the treatment of mental illness. Many authors throughout history have written stories that mimic their own lives and we see this in the story. We see Gilman in the story portrayed as Jane, a mentally unstable housewife who cannot escape her husband’s oppression or her own mind. Gilman reveals a life of depression and women’s oppression through her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, was secretly written because her husband John didn’t allow her to write. As told by male doctors, Charlotte found out that she had a temporary nervous depression. Therefore, no matter how many doctors tell her she is sick, her husband John will not believe her. John made Charlotte and their child move to an old abandoned house, where Charlotte has always felt that something was weird about the house, as if the house was haunted. John was not like most husbands, he treated her like she was stupid and would not allow her to do anything. Charlotte felt as if she was a nobody because of how he treated her; also, how he always downed her. John treated her as if she wasn’t important.

What others see about our life is not always truth. Looking from the outside things can seem so put together, as you dive in a little deeper you find things are not aways as they appear. Especially when it comes to the power of the mind. We are all hiding something within the walls of our own lives and minds. 1“The depression malady of the protagonist-narrator deepens as the story progresses and she appears to be totally crazy in the end; but the interior monologue and the sense of relief and freedom experienced by her suggest the triumph of the questing individual. The obstructing man he’s vanquished on the floor and she walks over him, as it were!” The woman in the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is seen as a wife to a successful man, a

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jane’s demise is witnessed firsthand and the factors that slowly lead to the decline of her mental health are shown. Jane shows indications of the classic symptoms of hysteria such as depression, nervousness and fatigue. As the story progresses not only do these symptoms get increasingly worse but her mental health also suffers drastically. There are several factors that contribute to Jane’s eventual insanity. One reason is due to the yellow wallpaper, upon which she acquires an obsessive nature towards.

The yellow wallpaper symbolizes Jane’s depression and her struggle with her overwhelming mental illness. At night, Jane lies awake studying the paper desperately trying to keep watch over the woman behind it (316). Gilman shows that Jane’s depression

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

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator Jane suffers from mental illness during a time in which it is not understood. Because of this, John, Jane’s doctor and husband, assures her that she is perfectly healthy and only needs rest, but simultaneously he leads the reader to believe he understands something is amiss when he prescribes Jane with a “rest cure” that forbids her from exercising her imagination and restricts her to one room with an unusual, yellow wallpaper. While Jane loses touch with the outside world, she steadily becomes obsessed with the wallpaper and views it as a gateway to the life she wants and hopes to discover. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the reader sees Jane lose her sanity while under

Placed in a room of yellow wallpaper the protagonist, Jane, fights the battle of nonfiction versus fiction; Symbolic Order versus Imaginary Order. John, representing social order by only following practical ideas, is in an uneasy relationship with Jane which shows the weak bond between her and reality. Given her isolation, the words that she writes at first constitutes her thoughts, then as her mental state diminishes, her subconscious starts to make up her journal, giving importance to Suess’ ideas that language is the key symbol of women’s inner experience of postpartum depression. Psychotic symptoms of paranoia and hallucinations appear to have formed, and were controlled, before the

jane feels as though she is the woman in the wallpaper so no one else would understand the things she sees “There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will.”. and she hates the fact that it reminds her of herself this woman who is “stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit.” Trapped and suffocating like this hunched back woman without a voice to escape her prison bars that she hates so much. Just as jane is trapped in the small room with the discolored yellow

“The Yellow Wallpaper” provides an insight into the life of the narrator- a woman suppressed and unable to express herself because of her controlling husband- leading the reader down her fall to insanity, allowing for her inner conflict to be clearly expressed. The first person point of the view the author artfully uses and the symbolism present with the wallpaper cleverly depicts the inner conflict of the narrator, losing her own sanity due to the constraints of her current life. However, while it seems that the narrator in “ The Yellow Wallpaper” succumbed to her own insanity, the endless conflict within herself and her downward spiral to insanity is seen through a different light, as an inevitable path rather than a choice taken as the story develops.

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