Jacqueline Pederson
English 101
Professor Dreiling
January 21, 2015
Unjustly Repressed. Charlotte Gilman was an ingenious woman. On the surface, her most renowned work, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” appears to be a simple journal of a women struggling with mental illness. Throughout the story, her husband, whom is also her physician, coins her state as nothing more than a mere nervous disorder. He treats her with the “rest cure.” To begin her treatment, the couple temporarily moves to an isolated summer home, and as the days pass, the wallpaper surrounding their room becomes the item for which the narrator’s distraught mind becomes fixated. On the surface, this interpretation of the wallpaper seems feasible, due to the fact that Gilman
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In the story, this treatment is not a rarity. Whenever the narrator attempts to discuss a serious situation, John refers to her as “his blessed little goose” or a “darling” (Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”). To relate this to the theme, these discouraging words must be analyzed and explained. For instance, the word “little” to depict the narrators heart, portrays a picture of small body matching it, like one would see an infant. This leads into his claim that she is “as sick as she pleases” (Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”). Being as sick as one pleases reflects upon the life of a young child. It mirrors the techniques of a child, in how they conjure up illnesses in order to escape unpleasing tasks. This accurately goes along with John’s diagnosis of “temporary nervous depression;” which in that time, was known as the way in which women bypassed sexual requirements and typical household maintenance. (Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”). Within the unjust treatment and diagnosis, lies the bigger picture as well as the root of the narrator’s eventual insanity. The yellow wallpaper plays a key role in supporting the theme of the short story. Gilman utilizes the wallpaper as a symbol for two things. However, the wallpaper itself is a symbol of symbol. First of all, it represents John, the husband, who is intended to represent the majority of men at that time. As the narrator’s madness grows, she begins to
"The story was wrenched out of Gilman 's own life, and is unique in the
A Critical Analysis of Formal Elements in the Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story, The Yellow Wallpaper was attention grabbing and goose-bump inspiring. The tone quickly shifts from uncomfortable and stifling to eerie and chilling. The narrator begins by passively complaining about the yellow wallpaper, but by the end it drives her to absolute madness. The extremely descriptive imagery of the wallpaper is an important part of this story as it helps to unveil the deeper meaning behind the story. The choice of the color yellow is especially significant as it is repetitive not only in the title, but throughout the story, and adds to the overall perception of the narrators increasing insanity.
John’s views as a doctor forbid any type of activity, because he feels it will only worsen her fragile condition. She says, “So I take phosphates or phosphites- whichever it is- and tonics, and air and exercise, and journeys, and am absolutely for bidden to ‘work’ until I am well again” (Gilman 221). But the narrator believes she would feel better if she could write because she does not believe it to be “work”. “Personally I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman 221). The narrator believes that writing would help her get better more than the rest cure. John addresses his wife as “‘little girl,’ and chooses the nursery rather than one of the adult bedrooms for his wife” (Griffin 11). The narrator has absolute no control over her own care, “she disagrees with her husband’s orders forbidding her to work, yet her opinion goes unrecognized.” (Griffin 11). He treats her like a weak, fragile child, which for the most part is what women were described as in that time period.
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 in the room shows, symbolically, the narrator was being oppressed. The narrator hated the wallpaper because she saw herself as a prisoner of her own husband. Spending so much time in the room, the narrator studied the wallpaper in details and found the wallpaper somewhat represents her. "There is one place where two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other" (pg280), "Such a peculiar odor, too" (pg 285) etc. The confusing pattern, the bar, the woman behind the bar, and the yellow color of the wallpaper allowed her to feel so helpless, as if she was a bird
The Yellow Paper is a symbolic story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is a disheartening tale of a woman struggling to free herself from postpartum depression. This story gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman who is a wife and a mother who is struggling to break free from her metal prison and find peace. The post-partum depression forced her to look for a neurologist doctor who gives a rest cure. She was supposed to have a strict bed rest. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy by as a result of the Victorian “rest-cure.” Her husband made sure that she had a strict bed rest by separating her from her child by taking her to recuperate in
As a woman, the narrator must be protected and controlled and kept away from harm. This seemed to be the natural mindset in the 19th century, that women need to have guidance in what they do, what decisions they make, and what they say. John calls her a “little goose”(95) and his “little girl”(236), referring her to a child, someone who needs special attention and control. His need for control over her is proven when she admits that her husband is “careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction”(49). John has mentally restrained the speaker’s mind, she is forced to hide her anxieties, fears and be submissive, to preserve the happiness of their marriage. When the narrator attempts to speak up, she is bogged down and made guilty of her actions. Her husband makes her feel guilty for asking, he says, “‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!’”(225-226). By making her feel guilty for her illness, John has trapped her mentally from speaking up about it, convincing her that she must be more careful about her actions. Men often impose the hardships placed upon women during this era. They are often the people reassuring them of their “womanly” duties, and guiding them
“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story about a mentally ill women,written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at age 32, in 1892 is a story with a hidden meaning and many truths. Charlotte Perkins Gilman coincidentally also had a mental illness and developed cancer leading her to kill herself in the sixties. The story begins with Jane, the mentally ill woman who feels a bit distressed, and although both of the well respected men in her life are physicians she is put simply on a “rest cure”. This rest cure as well as many symbols such as the Yellow Wallpaper, her journal, and her inevitable breakdown are prime examples of the typical life of a woman in this time period and their suppressed lives that they lived even with something as serious as a
Feminist studies generally focus on the role that hysterical diagnoses and treatments played in reinforcing the prevailing, male-dominant gender roles through the subversion, manipulation and degrading of female experience through the use of medical treatments and power structures. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a perfect example of these themes. In writing this story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman drew upon her own personal experiences with hysteria. The adoption of the sick-role was a product of-and a reaction against gender norms and all of the pressures and tensions that their satisfaction demanded. Gilman’s essay uses autobiographical experiences displayed as doppelganger quality the in the main narrator of the
but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)-- perhaps that is
"There comes John, and I must put this away -- he hates to have me write a
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a masterpiece full of symbolism. This symbolism truly helps and plays a part in developing the theme(s). By writing “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman is effectively able to show how her husband and Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell lead to worsening her condition, by prescribing her to “rest” instead of accepting that she is suffering from depression, thus causing her to almost go crazy. Some of the symbolism that is found in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the wallpaper itself, the mysterious figure in the wallpaper, the diary, the sunlight and moonlight, the garden, the bed, the window, and even Gilman’s baby, and this symbolism helps to show how each of the themes (gender roles (domestic life), freedom and confinement, outward appearance vs. inner life, and mental illness) contribute to and explain the events that lead to Gilman’s downfall.
The narrator’s feelings of inferiority and powerlessness parallels the female figure she sees trapped behind the pattern in the wall-paper adorning her room. She gradually withdraws from both John and reality by locking herself in the room and ultimately merging with the figure. Through the changing image of the pattern from a “fait figure” (Gilman 46) to a “woman stooping” (Gilman 46) behind the paper and “shaking the bars” (Gilman 46) as if she wanted “to get out” (Gilman 46), we can see her becoming one with the figure: “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”(51) Her collapse into madness as reflected in her behavior with the “bedstead [that] is fairly gnawed” (Gilman 51) and her “creeping all around” (Gilman 50) is a direct result of her passive submissiveness to John’s control of her life.