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The Yellow Wallpaper Reaction Paper

Decent Essays

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman originally published in January 1892, is a short story about a woman with a mysterious illness and with the help of ignorance of her overbearing family it leads to her insanity. There are many themes in The Yellow Wallpaper, one particular theme that stuck out to me would be the validation of a woman’s voice. The exploration of a woman’s voice becomes a main theme in the short story. Gilman suggests that the woman behind the wallpaper resembles the narrator’s struggle with the expected role in a male dominated world. The narrator uses the wallpaper to represent the society she lives in. Women during that period in time were held no rights, one was not allowed to not marry for love but for Puritan beliefs and status. Due to the narrator’s unspecified illness her husband rented a huge estate in hopes his little wife will recuperate. She is a placed on the top floor of a mansion instead of the first floor in the pretty and comforting room she originally wanted. Even though she preferred the bedroom downstairs she was fine with all the shortcomings of the large atrocious nursery, except for the …show more content…

That means no writing for the narrator until she makes a full recovery. The narrator’s response to the yellow wall paper was not pleasant. She describes the color as being revolting and oddly menacing Not only did the wallpaper affect the narrator, but also it has an effect on everyone that comes in contact with it. The behavior of the woman behind the wallpaper also mirrors the narrator's behavior. For she too is trapped. She describes the pattern of the wallpaper to be gaudy and one that twists and winds. Like the pattern, society is also very complex and intertwined, and in order for many individuals to follow society’s written and unwritten rules they must suppress their true desires and do what is expected by them to fit into

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