In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper the main character is a symbol of the authors personal experience. It is also symbol for all the repressed woman of that her time. You never no the name of this woman who is suffering so, throughout the entire story. She seems to lack any of her own identity. She is treated as weak and un-knowledgeable even when it comes to her own health. Her concerns are considered frivolous. She never questions her husband but instead seems to just hide things from him. Based on the society around her she accepts all the treatment and doubt from her husband as normal. He belittles her. Her illness is supposed to be fixed with just a rest cure and fresh air. She is also isolated to save her strength. She then puts all of her focus into the wallpaper. She becomes obsessed with it. She starts to hallucinate and see a woman in the paper. It seems that the hallucination of the woman in the wallpaper is a reflection of herself. She projects her problems onto this woman. The woman is trapped in the paper, behind bars, then when she is alone the woman is free and she is seen walking around both in and outside. I think this is the author showing the woman trying to break free from the suppression of man. She herself rarely goes outside and most of her time is spend trapped in this musty room, with no company. The nameless woman even starts ripping at the wallpaper trying to release the images in the pattern
The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told she needs to rest constantly to overcome her sickness, so she is forced to stay in the old nursery where there is yellow-orange wallpaper with a busy, obnoxious pattern that she hates. She tries to study the wallpaper to distinguish the pattern, and as time goes on she believes she sees a woman moving around in the background of the pattern. Also, during this period of time the character’s condition is worsening, because her husband is causing her mind to weaken by not allowing her to exert herself at all; he says she is not to think about her condition, walk through the garden or visit family. All she can do is sleep and trace the wallpaper, and being cooped up in the room causes her to begin hallucinating. The narrator sees the woman trying to escape from the wallpaper throughout the night, and she ultimately completely breaks down and believes that she is the woman.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in which she describes the treatment of a woman diagnosed with a nervous disorder by her doctor and is prescribed the “rest cure.” The story describes the submissive, childlike obedience of women to men that was considered typical at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the story, there are many symbols that highlight women’s infantilization within marriage and a sexist society. The symbolism of the wallpaper and the woman trapped within it are essential for the message of Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
The initial description of this woman is of her “stooping down and creeping about.” The woman in the wallpaper is a direct reflection of the narrator’s confidence and feelings of inferiority, and the change they undergo. Initially, the woman in the wall symbolizes the narrator’s fear of presenting herself and her opinions, and being her husband’s equal.
After securing herself in the room the narrator says, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard”! She has began to believe that the women behind the wallpaper is herself and that she must return to her rightful place come night fall, proving that she has gone completely mad. The character’s illness develops form her paranoia and curiosity about the ‘trapped women’ within the wallpaper to
The narrator shares her constant hallucinations of a woman that dwells inside of the wallpaper.
As the reader is introduced to the main character in the story, she is heard talking about strange things happening around her. She secretly wrote her thought in a journal but her husband was against it and never wanted her to do anything. The nameless narrator in her madness sees a woman in the pattern of the wallpaper. In addition, she sees the woman struggling against the bars of the paper and this is a symbol for the struggle of women who attempt to break out from the infringing rules of the society. The woman the narrator sees caught in the wallpapers also parallels her virtual imprisonment in an isolated estate away from her child by her mean husband.
She then determines that the figure that shows up behind the bars in the shadows is a woman, along with many other “creeping women” (Gilman 248). She finally realizes in the end her reflection on the wallpaper, is symbolic of herself and the situation in which she is placed upon. The woman is trapped within the wallpaper in the same manner as she is. They are not to escape and are forced to stay contained behind the shadows. She is told to stay in that bedroom for most of their time there because of the rest cure. Her mental thoughts begin to grow more paranoid the more her interest grows with the wallpaper. She mentions that the woman in the wallpaper shakes the wallpaper as if she wants to “get out” (Gilman 243), comparing the woman to a prisoner, unable to escape from the horrendous wallpapered room, much like she is. Soon after, she finally identifies herself as the woman in the wallpaper, living in a closed off, isolated
I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows!” and, “If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!” The Narrator slowly becomes more and more infatuated with the wallpaper woman until she eventually tears the wallpaper off the wall thus going fully insane. And, the other woman in the story are not like the Narrator.
The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman discovers that the woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper is really herself and reflects that there are countless other women trapped and oppressed by society just as she is. Through her descent into madness, the narrator is able to finally free herself, but not without losing her sanity in the process.
At first, she finds the wallpaper's intricate patterns fascinating, but as her mental state deteriorates, she becomes obsessed with deciphering its hidden meanings and patterns. The oppressive and stifling nature of the wallpaper mirrors the constraints placed upon her by her husband and society. As she becomes increasingly fixated on the wallpaper, it becomes a manifestation of her own internal struggles and conflicts. The gradual unraveling of the wallpaper mirrors the protagonist's descent into madness, culminating in a chilling conclusion where she believes she is the woman trapped behind the pattern. The wallpaper takes on a life of its own in her mind, reflecting her own internal struggles and
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s brilliant work, The Yellow Wallpaper, readers explore the consequences of the ignorance of mental health, as well Gilman’s underlying message of the restriction of women, in nineteenth century America. The author of this story doesn’t want readers to focus on the progression of the woman when realizing her real situation, but in my opinion, how Gilman comments with this piece of fiction to the real oppression of women, and lack of weight Medicine held on the patient 's opinions in Charlotte’s society.
She becomes obsessed with the pattern, trying to trace it with her eyes, but in her intense study of the paper she finds that “There are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will.” What she sees in the wallpaper becomes her secret, something that she can keep from her husband, and without his controlling influence, she is able to find an escape within the wallpaper. Now she no longer sleeps at night because she lies awake and studies the wallpaper’s pattern, what was once an ugly piece of “paper” now, metaphorically becomes her
When her focus eventually settles on the wallpaper in the bedroom and she states, "I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin" (Gilman 260). As the narrator resigns herself to her intellectual confinement, she begins to see more details in the wallpaper pattern. This can be seen as the slow shift from the connection to her family, friends and colleagues to her focus inward as she sinks deeper into depression. She describes that "—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design" (Gilman 262). As she focuses inward, sinking deeper into her depression the figure in the wallpaper takes shape and she states that, "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will" (Gilman 264). And she begins to describe the form of a woman behind the wallpaper pattern, "Sometimes I think there are a
The wallpaper is beginning to take on the role of controlling her life. As the days proceed on and she continues to sit in this isolated room, she begins to notice objects incorporated throughout the patterns. Every day the shapes become significantly clearer to her until one moment it appears to be a figure trapped within the walls (734). This aversion to the color completely shifts at this point toward hallucination. The wallpaper now has complete control of the narrator’s mind and sanity.
with a rest cure. The doctor in the story is much like the doctor that