The Yellow Wallpaper Conflict Analysis

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, portrays the life and mind of a woman suffering from post-partum depression in the late eighteenth century. Gilman uses setting to strengthen the impact of her story by allowing the distant country mansion symbolize the loneliness of her narrator, Jane. Gilman also uses flat characters to enhance the depth of Jane’s thoughts; however, Gilman’s use of narrative technique impacts her story the most. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses interior monologue to add impact to Jane’s progression into insanity, to add insight into the relationships in the story, and to increase the depth of Jane’s connection with the yellow wallpaper it self.

     Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is as a wonderful example of the gothic horror genre. It was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1970’s that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was recognized as a feminist indictment of a male dominated society. The story contains many typical gothic trappings, but beneath the conventional façade hides a tale of repression and freedom told in intricate symbolism as seen through the eyes of a mad narrator.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she describes a woman plagued by major depression who is confined to her home in hopes of being cured. As she suffers in solitude, the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom slowly beings to take life and haunt her. The author uses an unreliable narrator, symbolism, and relatable themes to draw readers into her fascinating story. All of these elements work together to bring about a sense of uneasiness and eventual loss of sanity. The narrator is incredibly unreliable, as we see her sanity quickly degrading as the story goes on.

In the “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, there are many of literary techniques that illustrates the theme to express the story. Irony, imagery and symbolism are some literary devices that is presented among the story.  “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 acceptance and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The story appears to take place during a time where women were oppressed. Women were treated as if they were under one’s thumb in society during this period which is approximately the 19th century.

Charlotte is a woman who has just given birth, and has, what we now know as, post partum depression. Her husband and brother are both physicians, but neither believe her to be sick. Gothic horror stories are based around the scariest things in life from death to divorce to disease, and circle their elements towards the effects they have on other people. In The Yellow Wallpaper, powerlessness because of male dominance of the time frame overpowers Charlotte, forcing her to retreat into her mind as a sort of gossip relief. Madness and insanity are obvious elements because not only does Charlotte become obsessed with a wall pattern, but she drives herself to the edge as a resolution to her belief that since she is trapped inside the room staring at the horrid paper that somebody is stuck living inside of it that she must help release.

In the yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The main character suffers from many conflicts, including Man V.S Self and Man V.S Man. Nevertheless the major conflict identified in the story is Man VS Man, where the struggle between the narrator and her husband dilemmas, is the main cause of the development of the story’s minor conflicts. Additionally as the story unfolds, the main character becomes overwhelmed by her insanity and nevertheless the conflict of the story does not get resolve.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, dank room covered in musty wallpaper all play important parts in driving the wife insane. The husband's smothering attention, combined with the isolated environment, incites the nervous nature of the wife, causing her to plunge into insanity to the point she sees herself in the wallpaper. The author's masterful use of not only the setting (of both time and place), but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to participate in the woman's growing insanity.

Their differences created the conflicts between them. John, as a physician, is very practical and rationalistic. He disregards the existence of anything that cannot be seen or felt and therefore does not believe that his wife was ill even though through reading her thoughts and emotions it was clear that she was suffering severely. The woman on the other hand, is very imaginative and sensitive. John believes that all his wife needs is rest and therefore her treatment is that she does no work and especially no writing. He felt that her condition would be made worst if she does any form of work or writing. The woman strongly disagrees with John on the type of treatment that he has suggested. She thinks that having daily activities, freedom, and interesting work would help her condition and so she starts to create secret journal in an attempt to alleviate her mind and to prevent her illness from getting the best of her. John continuously suppresses her thoughts, feelings and concerns about her illness which portrays him in a sense as a “villain”. He does not provide her with the space or opportunity to try other alternatives other than the “rest cure” so that she might overcome her illness. The woman wants to write about her feelings and her conditions but she is not allowed and so she has to struggle to hide her writings from John and his sister. The fact that she cannot freely write and openly express her feelings to John strains her and drains

A conflict is the opposition of two people and in this story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the main conflict described as both internal and external. The internal such as the depression that narrator seems is suffering from and external, the opposition of the narrator from her husband. The Yellow Wallpaper is written in first person, but since the narrator’s condition is not in an normal state, she’s an unreliable narrator.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story told from the perspective of a woman who’s believed to be “crazy”. The narrator believes that she is sick while her husband, John, believes her to just be suffering from a temporary nervous depression. The narrator’s condition worsens and she begins to see a woman moving from behind the yellow wallpaper in their bedroom. The wallpaper captures the narrator’s attention and initial drives her mad. Charlotte Gilman uses a lot of personal pieces into her short story, from her feministic views to her personal attributes. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written from a feminist and autobiographical standpoint and includes elements, like symbols and perspective that the reader can analyze in different ways.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the readers many gothic elements and images. The protagonist is supposedly shown to have a mental illness that keeps deteriorating that can be traced back to her complicated marriage. The story revolves around who she needs to be and what her role should be in this complicated marriage. What shows many gothic images is one the protagonists troubled marriage and the way their household works. This “yellow wallpaper” would be another gothic element because it’s frightening and even though it doesn’t describe light and darkness that refers to gothic it still represents something musty and rotten in a way.

The geographical, physical, and historical settings in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" were more than the primary character could handle. The geography would lead to think she could enjoy the environment, but she chose not to. The physical setting showed us the reader just how grotesque and unbearable it would be to live a room in which the wallpaper to over the narrators mind. Lastly, we looked at how historically women were not allowed to speak their minds about how they felt. Maybe now that John has seen his wife go completely insane for himself he will finally seek extra attention for

  "The Yellow Wallpaper," written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late nineteenth century, explores the dark forbidding world of one woman's plunge into a severe post-partum depressive state. The story presents a theme of the search for self-identity. Through interacting with human beings and the environment, the protagonist creates for herself a life of her own.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" tells the story of a woman living in the nineteenth century who suffers from postpartum depression. The true meaning implicit in Charlotte's story goes beyond a simple psychological speculation. The story consists of a series of cleverly constructed short paragraphs, in which the author illustrates, through the unnamed protagonist's experiences, the possible outcome of women's acceptance of men's supposed intellectual superiority. The rigid social norms of the nineteenth century, characterized by oppression and discrimination against women, are supposedly among the causes of the protagonist's depression. However, it is her husband's tyrannical attitude what ultimately

Trapped in the upstairs of an old mansion with barred windows and disturbing yellow colored wallpaper, the main character is ordered by her husband, a physician, to stay in bed and isolate her mind from any outside wandering thoughts. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes the digression of the narrator’s mental state as she suffers from a form of depression. As the story progresses, the hatred she gains for the wallpaper amplifies and her thoughts begin to alter her perception of the room around her. The wallpaper serves as a symbol that mimics the narrator’s trapped and suffering mental state while she slips away from sanity reinforcing the argument that something as simple as wallpaper can completely