7. What is the significance of this line to the changing relationship of the narrator and her husband? "Lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or seperately" (Gilman 1664).
The patterns that Jane is trying to figure out are symbols of their relationship. The "front pattern and back pattern [moving] together or separately" indicates her and John as well as their relationship. The two patterns being together indicates the two has a close relationship and the opposite means they have distant relationship. At the beginning of the story, Jane is acting well-behaved and obedient. She loves and trusts John and listens to his advices, however, the long period of depression alters
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During the day time, the wallpaper appears to be "hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing” (Page 16). The above description paints a rebarbative mood for the readers. In contrast, during the night time it seems like there is "a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern"(page 13) and the “woman behind it is as plain as can be” (Page 16). A mysterious and unknown figurine vividly portrays an eerie and gloomy mood for the readers. Through the altering appearance of the wallpaper through day and night, the mood of the story is able to change greatly according to …show more content…
I was very excited by this program when I reregistered for it. By the time I arrived there, I was shocked by the dreadful sight- the hard bunks, the broken windows, the faded curtain, and many other unimaginable circumstances. I had to share a spacious but humble room with seven other girls in four bunks; each bed was creaking or crumbling down in their own way. Everyone who attended the program was complaining about the terrible environment and that includes me. One by one, we needed to line up in a straight single file line to get a half-torn “shower card” that restricted us to running only five minutes of hot water each day. Without any other options, I had to take a shower at lightning speed under a small trickle of water in a communal washroom. Apart from the shabby and run-down beds, the massive amount of mosquitoes were bothering me the most. As soon as I fell asleep, I was woken up from their "calling", buzzing beside my ears in a more annoying frequency than a five A.M. alarm. I slapped the air around me, trying my best to fend them off, but it was in vain. I was having a hard time falling asleep at night which incited my thought to wander aimlessly. One night, I could not bare the itchiness all
The narrator is being forced to stay in her room, and since there is nothing else to do, she starts looking for a pattern in the wallpaper. She begins to see faces in the wallpaper, and it appears that the narrator's nervous condition has grown into something more serious. Shortly after this occurs, she begins to see complete human figures in the wallpaper. "This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so--I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design" (108). The narrator continues to regress. Her rational thinking is being replaced more and more with ramblings about the wallpaper. Since she is not really allowed to
In the beginning, the paper has little potential other than being ugly. The longer she fixates on the wallpaper the more power it seems to have, and the more power she believes it always had. She remarks about the odor oozing from the wallpaper that is so powerful it gets in her hair and around the house, yet she never commented on it before. She believes she “noticed it the moment” (Schwiebert 232) her and John entered the room, but only her readers know this was never true and never mentioned before. She states suspected the front pattern was moving, from the very beginning, even though she never references it until the paper is so powerful it has a woman living behind it. She never even mentions the patterns existing before then. The narrator isn’t lying to us, the narrator is sick and believes her story, but by this time, its inconsistencies make it unreliable.
Berenji, Fahimeh Q. "Time and Gender in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”." Journal of History Culture and Art Research, vol. 2, no. 2, 1 Jan. 2013, pp. 221-234, Database: MLA International Bibliography -- Publications. kutaksam.karabuk.edu.tr/index.php. Accessed 18 Nov. 2017.
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
Conversely, the narrator, “I”, is the representative of women who try to fight against the oppression of the society and strive for the real self-liberation. Many of her behaviors in the text can show that she used to be a sensitive, imaginative and optimistic person. Before the narrator moves into the “haunted house” (647), she mentioned that “there is something queer about it”. She also says that her physician husband “perhaps is one reason she does not get well faster” (648), which all show that she knows what is benefit to her and what is not. From how she describes the patterns on the yellow wall-paper, “they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds
In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" the story arises from gothic literature because the author takes the reader through the conception of insanity. This fear and haunting around a rest cure was supposed to be a treatment for nervous conditions but the side-effects would only make their patients undergo mental problems and self-loathing. The genre of women's fiction provides a lens into what it is like being a 19th century woman and from my understanding, the social stature was very crude as far as women's role in society, and medical practice for treating stress that women took on. These short stories provide a lot more insight to the feelings these women experienced because instead of a historical analysis, they give an introspection
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the form of journal entries of a woman undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Her form of treatment is the “resting cure,” in which a person is isolated and put on bed rest. Her only social interaction is with her sister-in-law Jennie and her husband, John, who is also her doctor. Besides small interactions with them, most of the time she is left alone. Society believes all she needs is a break from the stresses of everyday life, while she believes that “society and stimulus” (pg 347, paragraph 16) will make
My perspective of Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is influenced by a great number of different and diverse methods of reading. However, one cannot overlook the feminist theorists’ on this story, for the story is often proclaimed to be a founding work of feminism. Further, the historical and biographical contexts the story was written in can be enlightened by mentioning Gilman’s relationship with S. Weir Mitchell. And I can’t help but read the story and think of Foucault’s concept of Panopticism as a method of social control. Lastly, of course, there’s the psychological perspective on the story, although in my readings of psychology, particularly the psychological knowledge surrounding both women and queers, I find the
First the narrator sees only curves in the pattern, but then she finds they "commit suicide" by their motion, and soon she fills the curves with human features-"two bulbous eyes" (6) that have a "vicious influence" (7). [...] far she is resisting her surroundings, pitting herself against its energies and apart from the system of the room.
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 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.
“He told me all his opinions, so I had the same ones too; or if they were different I hid them, since he wouldn’t have cared for that” (Ibsen 109). As this quote suggests Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Henrik Ibsen, in A Doll House dramatize that, for woman, silent passivity and submissiveness can lead to madness.
The great writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string" (p. 1033). How surprised he would be to find out that a half century later this type of idea would culminate in a growing restlessness among American women unsatisfied with their lives and with their roles in society - a society dominated by men with little or no place for women outside the home. One of these female writers who helped lead the battle for domestic and social reform was Charlotte Perkins Gilman. One of her more particularly forceful works is "The Yellow Wall-Paper," meant to highlight the submissive and highly undervalued role women play in
"There comes John, and I must put this away -- he hates to have me write 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.