The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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.

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 Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she explores the world of madness, torture, and imprisonment. In the story, the narrator is suppressed by her husband and his ‘‘superior wisdom,’’ leading to the loss of her sanity. Although it seems as though her husband is trying to help her, in actuality, his methods of healing her are detrimental to her health, both emotionally and mentally. The destruction of her sanity in relation to his attempt to help her are strategically illustrated by Gilman throughout the story.

Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, originally printed on the New England Magazine became the model literature of feminism and women’s oppression after its publication in 1892. Gilman in her short story emphasises the roles of women and their oppression against a male dominant society during the 19th century. According to Elizabeth Carey’s article, “Controlling the Female Psyche: Assigned Gender Roles” and many other critics, Gilman’s story refers to the consequences and impact on women’s gender roles. In her article, she explains the difference between the roles of men and women, “the man’s role being that of the husband and rational thinker, and the woman’s role being that of the dutiful wife who does not question her husband’s authority.”(Carey 1) This passive role of women and the authoritative figure of men is a prime example of the relationship between John and the narrator and what ultimately drives the protagonist to madness in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” While I agree that the setting in which the story took place greatly affected the relationship between the narrator and her husband. Other factors like the undeveloped medical care for mental illness and the author’s own experience greatly added to the outcome of the story.

If we are to believe our mothers, we are aware that time heals all wounds. Everyone feels sad or low sometimes, but these feelings usually pass with time. When one starts to experience these feelings of feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, guilt, or worthlessness for longer than two weeks, it is likely that they suffer from depression. Depression is a mood disorder that causes symptoms that affect how we feel, think, and handle daily activities. Due to its widespread occurrence, scientists have been searching for an effective treatment for this mood disorder for decades. During the late 1800s, one of the treatment options available for those suffering with depression and other nervous illnesses was the rest cure. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s

In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses this story give a voice to the women that were dealing with oppression from men. Women during the time when this story was written were almost exclusively under the dominance of males. They were mainly house wives, and did what the male forced them to do. Many women were working in the house, and not allowed to leave, consequently making them lonely and depressed. Because of this, women were not as educated as men were, and did not have the power to do what they wanted to accomplish. The narrator is locked into an upstairs room with this wallpaper that she describes as “repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight”( p.480) . The color yellow means “the color of sickness” The wallpaper symbolizes her oppression.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is about the internal struggle and confinement of a nameless woman. This woman confesses she is indeed not well and that her husband, John, who is a physician, diagnoses her with nervous depression. The treatment of said nervousness is where the story’s conflict arises. John decides his wife needs solitude in order to recover. He believes this solace will be found in an estate he rented. The narrator’s ultimate insanity is prompted by the isolation, denial, and self-judgment that she is forced into by her husband.

The terms “social status” and “influence” are two that go hand in hand. When one is given a high ranking on the social ladder, they are also given influence, a powerful tool that can be used for good, but also as a weapon if mishandled (which it often is). Many things in society make up social status and can also be found to have a direct relationship with influence, including wealth, sex, age, profession, education, and even race. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this correlation and abuse of influence is portrayed through an inside look into the deteriorating mind of a woman whose life is being controlled by her influential, high in social status husband. Although he believes that he is doing the

“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.

The standing that women have had in the past was so bad that often times they were deemed less than their counterparts. May a times a woman’s intuition of themselves were ignored, because the male doctors were certain they were the ones correct not the females. In the time period in which physiological heath was relatively new, certain diagnostics would have been overlooked and patient were given the wrong type of help they need, especially woman that often times knew they had something different. Other times if a woman desired to do something they had to ask there significant other, if they were refused they had to refrain themselves from asking again. As it was in the case in the story made by Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”, in which a young mother opinions and wants were all but ignored. A question that some people have while reading the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was if the young woman was suffering from oppression or depression. However one might feel that she might be subject to both, it is more than clear that depression is the higher factor involved here. Depression can be defined like an example given Merriam-Webster “by a state of feeling sad : dejection (2) : a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies” The emphasis of

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper represents an early utilisation of a mentally unstable unreliable narrator. Gilman’s narrator is, in fact, so unreliable that her name is the subject of critical discussion over a century after the story’s initial publication. Whilst the descent of Gilman’s narrator into madness has been the subject of various conflicting literary interpretations it is certain that Gilman’s own experiences of mental health problems and subsequent inadequate attempts at treatment provided the mainstay of her inspiration for the novel. In her autobiography Gilman stated that "the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell [her doctor], and convince him of the error of his ways’. Gilman’s use of such a forwardly unreliable narrator was not ground-breaking, the technique has been utilised by authors from Chaucer to Sterne. Yet Gilman’s choice utilisation in order to explore both her own condition and broader societal attitudes towards the management of the mentally-ill was unprecedented. Some seventy years later, as critics began to flesh out formal approaches to unreliable narrators against the backdrop of emergent war-scarred and drug-enveloped countercultures the scene was set for further similar explorations of mental health through Gilman’s established means.

People are constantly changing, whether it is physically, emotionally, or entirely. Different events in a person’s life will cause them to change their character for the better or sometimes for worse. Most of the time one does not have control over the events that force them change, but one does have control over how they change. For Jane, it was the opposite. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jane’s final shift in character is brought about by external events and her susceptibility to a powerful paranormal being. Jane goes through a series of events that were beyond her control and combined with her weakened mental state cause a forceful shift in her character that was not in her control.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” what is hoped to be a dream vacation for relaxation becomes a nightmare for the protagonist. This protagonist, who plays the role of narrator, is in the midst of a nervous breakdown who has left her village for recovery. The narrator, along with her husband, lives in a house that they have taken on rent so that she can recover efficiently. During this period, the protagonist passes her time observing the yellow wallpaper and after some time of observation, she finds attractive patterns in that wallpaper which changes with light that falls on it during night and day. The protagonist becomes so acquainted with that pattern that she sleeps all day and wakes up all night to observe the changes that happen in that pattern. After some time, the narrator gets much tired with the place that she wants to leave that house even if they have rented it for three months. On the other hand, pattern in the yellow wallpaper keeps the protagonist’s interest in that house which was a headache for her and she lives there for three months only to observe the pattern which changes with sunlight.

A brave woman sang a sombre song from inside a birdcage in the late 19th century. As a novelist and also a well-known feminist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman fearlessly spoke up about her conception, freedom, in her masterpiece, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She proposed big issue-divorce- around that time. In this semi-autographical story, she describes her conflict of marital discord. Gilman intertwines her frustrations about a relationship with her husband and depicts the distress through many symbols, so that people should be aware what genuine happiness as a human being is.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” By Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a woman 's slow spiral to insanity as she is forced into a mundane, repressive lifestyle by her husband and Doctor. Throughout history inequality has been a prominent political and social issue. Inequality is seen in many aspects of society, such as class, race, and gender. Gender inequality is an issue that has been relevant throughout our history yet only become a true fight near the start of the 20th century. Men and women are forced to play different roles in society. Men are generally seen as the leader of the family, the job holder, and the usual recipients of social and political respect, while women are seen as the home make with the menial roles. Men were respected and seen as superior to women. The fight for gender equality has challenged these traditional roles, women 's place in society has changed since then, but not without a little help. Influential writers, such as Charlotte perkins Gilman 's have helped pave the way for equal rights through their powerful literature. In this story, we see how mistreated women are and the psychological effect that a patriarchal society can have. Gilman explores the female condition during the late 19th century through symbolic and profound literary themes that relate to the treatment of women.