The Yellow Wallpaper Insanity

However, the most important aspect of this room is the yellow wallpaper. The narrator despises it, loathing the colour and it’s pattern. She writes that it is “. . .dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.” (Gilman). This description of the wallpaper serves the purpose to show the reader the unjust restrictions of society that the narrator is subjected to; “. . .commentators have seen in this description of the wallpaper a general representation of “the oppressive structures of society in which [the narrator] finds herself” (Madwoman 90), . . .” (Haney-Peritz 116). The statement of “dull enough to confuse the eye” and “constantly irritating and provoking study” are alluding to the narrator’s sense of inferiority and burden while the “lame and uncertain curves” are referencing the absurd suggestions that her husband is providing. Finally the “suicide” is the unfortunate fate that is destined to occur if his counsel is followed. When describing the wallpaper the narrator writes that “The color is repellent, almost

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.

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.

The diction and tone demonstrate a wonderful descent into madness. The story is written in first person, allowing us to better understand the narrator’s state of mind. As the story progresses, there is an abundant use of exclamation marks, giving off an erratic, exited tone. Many sentences are short and choppy, portraying the uncertain and off-balance state of mind of the narrator. Although it is clear that the narrator has finally lost her mind, the ending of The Yellow Wallpaper is still fairly ambiguous. It suggests that the narrator was finally able to free herself, although she did lose her sanity in the process. This is evident as she casually remarks that “jumping out the window would be

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is about Jane who has a “nervous condition” (postpartum depression) and her journey to madness. Not only was her husband a doctor, but she went to see a doctor as well who prescribed the “rest cure”. The “rest cure” meant that she was not allowed to write, have company, or do very much of anything at all. Her bedroom was on the top floor away from everyone else and it had bars on the windows, this all made her feel isolated from the rest of the world. Something that we would today find depressing even today. Jane begins to have a fixation on the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and she believes that she sees a woman trapped behind the wallpaper. She

Hysterical, frantic and out of control; these were phrases that people used to describe a woman's state of mind when diagnosed with the condition known as hysteria. Hysteria is a condition that has been around for two-thousand years, but not accepted by doctors as such an issue. (Anderson) There are many examples of hysteria in women within our media today along with media from years before; Emily Dickinson, Charlotte from the Yellow Wallpaper, Tara from The United States of Tara, Abigail from The Crucible and various others. Even though, there are ample amount of examples within media and history concerning women, mental illness and hysteria; men are just as vulnerable to it. Hysteria is a legitimate issue that still exists today, but it is

Pieces of literary works often center around a particular theme. Characters represent this through the qualities they possess, but it can be presented in different ways. “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on a woman who goes insane because she isn’t treated correctly and “The Tell-Tale Heart” centers around a man who is already insane. During the Dark Romantic literary period, men and women reaching the point of insanity was explored; how they got to their breaking point and what happened thereafter usually differed.

In Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which was published in 1892, the author explores the gender ideologies of the time period and how women were seen as inferior, resulting in unfair treatment in cases even involving their personal health. The main character, who is a woman named Jane, is led to insanity due to the unsuitable treatment received for her depression, but the insanity she goes into symbolizes a revelation. As she progresses into this insanity, the author ties in the discovery the main character makes of the hidden figure in the wallpaper to a woman making the discovery of how the oppressions and limitations women face must be challenged and changed in order to escape the lifestyle which keeps them imprisoned to the

John from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a physician, so he could help his wife with her problem of insanity. Jane confronts him with her problem and asks for him to help her, by telling him what is happening. He does not believe her about her problems and this drives Jane to spend more time in the room with the yellow wallpaper. Jane has been spending more time in this room and she notices more and more sinister objects such as rings and things in the wall, the bed

Jane is often irritated from the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper above her bed is stripped off and this bothers her immensely. She claims, " I never saw a worse paper in my life"(4). In fact, she hates it with great passion by saying "no wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long"(4). She refers back to the children from her imagination, the children that were living in the so-called nursery before her. Towards the end of the story, Jane learns to hate the room as a result of spending so much of her time in there. She is really disturbed from the patterns of the wallpaper. Jane comments on the patterns, as "a constant irritant to a normal mind"(12) because she thinks that she has a normal mind. The color is "repellent," that is, "almost revolting." She says that "it is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide" (4).

But, it was also a possibility that "Jane" was the actual name of the narrator, a character who remained a nameless example of female social abuse for the entirely of the story. If this "Jane" was, in fact, the narrator, then Gilman said that the narrator's freedom from sanity and the bars of the wallpaper also means an "escape" from her own sense of

The story The Yellow Wallpaper includes a deeper meaning of the dreadful wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much as a significant symbol in the story. The yellow wallpaper can represent many ideas and conditions, among them, the sense of entrapment and a distraction that becomes an obsession. Examine the references to the yellow wallpaper and notice how they become more frequent and how they develop over the course of the story. Why is the wallpaper an adequate symbol to represent the woman’s confinement and her emotional condition? Gilman uses first person point of view narration in this story to make the description of the color more impactful through her direct association of the color and Jane’s emotional reactions to it.

Her descriptions and obsessions with the wallpaper as viewed from her perspective, truly draw readers into her downward spiral to ultimate insanity. Readers follow her in her mind from a nervous condition through her mild subsequent pleadings for alternative treatment to eventually "creeping" through the wallpaper with her--experiences which readers grasp within a powerful narration indeed. Through her, and only her is precisely how readers clearly knew how she felt at the end when she says, "I've got out at last in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (330). Husband John fainted, he had no idea she had gone that far, but readers did.

Even more disturbing to the narrator is the yellow wallpaper, that is either peeling or was pulled off the walls in strips. In the beginning, the paper’s pattern jolts and annoys the narrator’s sensibilities, but later her attitude has a bizarre change. When John curbs her creativity and writing, the narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense of the wallpaper. She reverses her initial feeling of being watched by the wallpaper and starts actively studying and decoding its meaning. The narrator’s fascination with the yellow wallpaper is the first clue of her sanity going downhill.

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