The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

   In the disturbing novel, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting in which the action takes place is extremely important. The author uses setting to focus the reader’s attention into the story in a gradual manner. Also, the manipulation of setting allows the author to subtly introduce symbols in the text. These symbols represent Gilman’s view on the status of women in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth century.

Gilman expresses dismissal of women’s mental health concerns, even if they’re directly seeking help. This descent into the narrator’s stability is a concern as she begins seeing women in the yellow wallpaper while keeping herself awake in the room at night, eventually believing she came out of the wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper itself does not only signify the awful physical discomfort she experiences after her pregnancy, but the visions that she sees in the yellow wallpaper symbolize her deeper feelings toward her domestic constraints. The obsession with the wallpaper grows as her insanity does. The visions in the wallpaper are of a woman shaking and crawling around behind the bars that are the horrid yellow wallpaper.

" Following a protagonist who is confined to a room with grotesque wallpaper, resulting in her descent into madness. Left alone to follow her husband's orders to cure her illness, the protagonist fixates on the yellow wallpaper. Through "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman explores themes of oppression, the emotions that arise from it, and the eventual dissolution of that oppression to create a powerful message. As previously mentioned, oppression plays a fundamental role

In the story”The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman reveals changes in the narrator that expresses the yellow wallpaper which she has to write down in her journal because the 1900’s women didn't get the respect that men all got. At first the wallpaper was nothing to her but now it has her and now she is found of the room. The different symbols used in the,” The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman reveal changes the narrator to a feminist story which shows her frustration by being trapped and not being herself. First symbol that Gilman stated in this reading was the yellow wallpaper. In this symbol the narrator has thoughts of hating the room with this wallpaper but throughout the story the wallpaper dwells in her.

Although, Gilman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, contains numerous symbols, the yellow wallpaper of its title emerges as the most dramatic symbol. The seemingly, harmless yellow wallpaper in the narrator's room takes on a larger than life obsession for the story's narrator. On a basic level, the wallpaper symbolizes the narrator's mental decline. Initially, she feels the unsightliness of the tattered yellow wallpaper is annoying and aesthetically unpleasing. She reveals her aversion to the wallpaper when she describes the pattern as, “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (648). However, as her mental state deteriorates, her repulsion toward the yellow wallpaper heightens. In her worsening mental

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.

Perkins Gilman aptly used narrative voice to shape the meaning of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by writing a first-person narrative about a woman who slowly loses herself to madness. This voice is one of a woman who may possibly have post-partum depression or some other form of manic depression, and her unheard cries for help. She slowly draws within herself, and allows the insanity to take over. Within the first few paragraphs we learn general characteristics about the narrator: she is middle class, as indicated by the phrase “mere ordinary people” (354); we also learn that she is married, suggested a statement about John laughing at her, something she says is only expected in marriage. Though we are never given her name, these generic aspects

In the yellow paper Gilman used symbolisms to illustrate the struggles and oppression of women as well as seeking freedom. The main symbol of course is the title "The Yellow Paper." The yellow paper is the wallpaper in which she attempts to figure out the throughout the story. As Gilman begins to analyze this wallpaper she comes to a conclusion that there are "many women behind, and sometimes only one", and as further analyzation she adds "They get through, and then the pattern strangles them ..." (Gilman). She reflects on all women in her society being trapped and wanting to escape from the roles and the lifestyle they're being put in, but every time it results in failure. Furthermore, she used the colour yellow to enhance the wall paper and depict on how women are being viewed. In literature the colour yellow is an unstable colour, stimulates mental activity, sickness and a disturbing influence (Parker). Gilman achieves one of her main points of women being viewed as "sick" and "unstable" during that time era, and that's how men viewed them as. Lastly she uses the term "nursery" to describe the room she is being put in. In the beginning of the story as she describes the room she points out that she is "up in this atrocious nursery"(Gilman). The terminology she chose to use in this sentence reflects on how women are viewed and treated as "children."

The critic breaks down all symbolism and imagery in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and explains the meaning behind the writing. Hume explains why the protagonists chose the colors, objects, and mental struggles she discusses. Johnston, Georgia. “Exploring Lack and Absence in the Body/Text:

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

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman creates a character of a young depressed woman, on the road to a rural area with her husband, so that she can be away from writing, which appears to have a negative effect on her psychological state. Lanser says her husband “heads a litany of benevolent prescriptions that keep the narrator infantilized, immobilized, and bored literally out of her mind. Reading or writing herself upon the wallpaper allows the narrator to escape her husband’s sentence and to achieve the limited freedom of madness which constitutes a kind of sanity in the face of the insanity of male dominance” (432). In the story both theme and point of view connect and combine to establish a powerful picture of an almost prison-type of treatment for conquering depression. In the story, Jane battles with male domination, because she is informed by both her husband and brother countless brain shattering things about her own condition that she does not agree with. She makes every effort to become independent, and she desires to escape from the burdens of that domination. The Yellow Wallpaper is written from the character’s point of view in a structure similar to a diary, which explains her time spent in her home. The house is huge and old with annoying yellow wallpaper in the bedroom. The character thinks that there is a woman behind bars in the design of the wallpaper. She devotes a great deal of her

The Yellow Wallpaper is a type of story where the narrator writes to herself. Her descent into madness is both seen subjectively and objectively as the narrator portrays. If Gilman had told her story in a traditions first-person narration the events that are from inside the narrators head would not be able to be told and the reader would not know what she is thinking, and the women inside the wallpaper might seem to actually exist. If told in third-person narrative then the political symbolism would not be seen. Gilman also uses a journal to give the story intimacy and allow the narrator to put down thoughts and feelings. Whereas in A Room of One’s Own, the author gives the narrator a place where she can write what she thinks without any input or bother from society. A place for women to put down their thoughts and express themselves.

Gilman's use of narrative structure is important in depicting the fragmentation of the woman's mind. Through the course of the story sentences become increasingly choppy and paragraphs decrease in length. This concrete element of fiction illustrates the deterioration of that narrator's psychological well-being and mental surmise to the yellow wallpaper.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall Paper” uses stream of consciousness from a patient’s point of view to describe the effects of the ‘rest cure.’ The narrator’s description and opinion of each character provides the audience with a base to interpret them for themselves. Each character reinforces the normalized domestic beliefs of the 19th century to an extent. In this story, the narrator represents women during the 1880s, therefore her husband represents men and their relative to her circumstances. “The Yellow Wall Paper” presents John as the embodiment of the socially accepted patriarchal authority permitted to dictate a woman’s life through the abuse of authority in terms of his position as both a physician and a husband to show how power and authority are exploited to maintain dominance.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said, “There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver” (Brainyquote). Gilman’s belief that there really was no difference in means of mentality between men or women is strongly demonstrated through “The Yellow Wallpaper”. “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 take place during a time period where women were oppressed. Women were treated as second rate people in society during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman very accurately portrays the thought process of the society during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using the aspects of Feminist criticism, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through the dialogue through both the male and female perspective, and through the symbol found in the story.