The Yellow Wallpaper Research Paper

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 short narrative The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlottle Perkins identify's a focus, the focus being an imagery that is created in order for the reader to see beyond what is written in the text. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short narrative which reflects the importance of how a reader interprets a story. The narrator is living in a new house while an old one is being renovated. She feels unwelcomes in a room she hadn’t had much of a say in while moving in. Although our author is mentally unstable and is permitted by her husband from writing in her journal/diary (the one activity she finds pleasure in) It is not a surprise that no wonder she becomes consumed and plagued with the image or idea of the “yellow wallpaper” in her room. Our narrator then begins panicking and tracing the pattern of the wallpaper over studying the images and soon enough becomes brainwashed that there may in fact be a woman trapped within the paper. Yellow Wallpaper involves many different journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Do to her mental illness our main character is forced to hide her journal from

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, shows the slow progression of madness from the point of view of the person who is going mad. Our narrator, unnamed, but possibly named Jane, says she is sick, as does her doctor and husband, John. This short story can be interpreted in many different ways, but mainly focuses on the oppression of women in the late 1800’s. This woman who is seemly mad journeys through “hell” as she slides deeper into the confines of madness.

Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ both serve a highly horrific purpose which is both good examples for the gothic. The strongest example of gothic is ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ as it established the extreme horror intense and shows the gothic scene of the house.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the idea of “true womanhood” is challenged. The white woman portrayed in the story is prescribed what is known as the “rest cure” due to the overwhelming pressure of being the perfect woman, wife, and mother. Driven mad by the smothering of her husband and her inability to do anything for herself, the woman in this story goes crazy attempting to free herself from the constraints. In stark contrast to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers a speech titled, “Ain’t I a Woman,” in 1851 that shakes people to their very core. A little before “The Yellow Wallpaper” was released, Truth shares a message that is astoundingly different from the

All throughout history there has been a stigma around mental illness and feminism. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the 1900’s. “The Yellow Wallpaper” has many hidden truths within the story. The story was an embellished version her own struggle with what was most likely post-partum depression. As the story progresses, one can see that she is not receiving proper treatment for her depression and thus it is getting worse. Gilman uses the wallpaper and what she sees in it to symbolize her desire to escape her depression and the controlling nature of the patriarchal society of the twentieth century. The story shows an inside look into the thoughts and feelings of a person with a mental illness such as depression. Gilman also uses symbolism to showcase how the male figures in her life had control over her well-being more than she did. Both her husband and doctor hindered her from healing by not listening to her when she expressed what she felt would help her. She does not clearly say that she feels overwhelmed by the patriarchal society of the 1900’s; however, one can infer this by her wording and actions throughout the course of the story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to reveal the truths of a woman’s everyday struggles in a patriarchal society and also the deeper struggles of a woman with depression.

The first example of suppression is the usage of the “rest cure” as a treatment for mental illness, which the author indirectly criticizes by showing the negative impact this treatment has on the narrator of the story. Instead of finding ways to work through her depression, she wasn’t allowed to do any kind of work or leave the house area, which caused her to get lost in her own mind. By not being allowed to work or write, she wasn’t able to deal with her problems. She spent most of the time alone in a room, with just her thoughts. Therefore, it is not surprising that she developed a fascination with the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. Although the rest cure treatment obviously did more harm than good it was widely used in the 19th century to treat nervous illnesses. According to the sciencemuseum.org.uk, patients usually were prescribed the rest cure for six to eight week and it meant that were on a bed

As I started reading this short story, it clearly introduced who the characters are and where it took place. The narrator is a woman; she has no name, remains anonymous throughout the story. She lives with her husband John in a house. This house is isolated from society, since the short story indicates that it is far from village, roads or any means of communication. It also contains locks and gates throughout. The woman is ill and this illness has placed her in a weak position with her husband and everything around her. We know that she likes to write, but her husband doesn’t let her, so she does it in secret. Although this type of writing is mainly to show mild personality disorder in dealing with life,

The Yellow Wallpaper is a story that exemplifies the common belief during the 1800’s. During then women were never held accountable for any duties other than being house bidden due to the weakness of handling stress. In the 1800s society was known to look past women who did anything besides house chores and raising children. Majority of women were then meant to be housewives and mothers and seen as the trophy wife and nothing more. It was extremely uncommon for the average women to want to further herself in life; this caused many nervous breakdowns and was assumed to be Hysteria. The ideals and ideas of conventions for these women did not always sit well with certain people, and in the reexamination, others were far too comfortable with them; this left demographics of humans that did not end up getting along. The only believable cure to Hysteria was to shutting the women inside a “get away” home for days on end. The idea of redemption was deemed noble, inspiring and turbulent; though many women refused to go against these forbidden acts but saw others as strong and encouraging. The pursuit in redemption is one that often came with high cost, what many forget is that there was a slim line between redemption and its equivalents. The Yellow Wallpaper is written from a characters point of view in a journal style which gave the reader descriptions of the home and those involved. The house was deemed as an old mansion and the yellow wallpaper in the narrator bedroom put an

Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts a female narrator descending into insanity as the story progresses. By analyzing the narrator’s decline in health as a direct result of her physician’s actions we can see that Gillman argues that by working with their patients to construct a joint narrative regarding treatment can a physician provide better and more effective care, and that consequences arise when a patient’s claims and concerns are dismissed.

They believed (along with society) this was the best thing for a person in this condition. John never came out and said she was going insane he just said she was stressed and needed rest. He actually told her not to think about her condition it would only make things worse. So for the few weeks they were up there she tried to follow his prescription except for when she would secretly write. It was a favorite passion of hers that gave her a break from societies daily stresses. In this time period women didn’t have as much say as they do now. Both her brother and her husband told her that this was the best thing for her recovery. She couldn’t say no when her husband was telling her not to write. I believe because of her surroundings that her husband put her in she went insane much faster. The fact that she couldn’t write and didn’t really have anyone to talk to drove her to start hallucinating about the women in the wall. The wallpaper in the room became one of her fetishes. “There are things in the wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will.”(Narrator, 534) It wasn’t just a small feddish at the end but a large portion of her day would be spent contemplating about the walls colors and designs. She even believed she could smell the wallpaper, throughout the whole house and even in her hair. Her mind started comprehending her as the woman in the wall. The woman was stuck in the wall night after night just like her being

She moves into a new home with her husband, John. She describes the new home as a “colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house” (Gilman). Her description of the home is a negative feeling she has towards the house. The description of the home being haunted shows her terror because she sees it as an imprisonment. In this home, there is a yellow wallpaper in the room she is staying in. She describes the wallpaper, as “the color is repellent, almost revolting; a shouldering unclean yellow” (Gilman). In this wallpaper, she tries to see the figure out the patterns and comes to find a woman. In comes to conclusion that she is living life like the woman in the wallpaper. In the statement, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody can climb through that pattern, it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman). She empathizes with the woman in the wallpaper because they are both in pattern that they cannot break through. The pattern being in a home that feels that haunted and with a man that watches every move and empowers her through her

Throughout history and cultures today, women have been beaten, verbally abused, and taught to believe they have no purpose in life other than pleasing a man. Charlotte Perkins Gillam uses her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a weapon to help break down the walls surrounding women, society has put up. This story depicts the life of a young woman struggling with postpartum depression, whose serious illness is overlooked, by her physician husband, because of her gender. Gillman 's writing expresses the feelings of isolation, disregarded, and unworthiness the main character Jane feels regularly. This analysis will dive into the daily struggles women face through oppression, neglect, and physical distinction; by investigating each section

The Yellow Wallpaper and the Metamorphosis share a common theme of gaining a freedom from their previous lives. The lady in the Yellow Wallpaper is controlled by her husband and escapes by imagining herself as being the girl in the wallpaper. Gregor was responsible for supporting his family financially and he never took time for himself. He gains freedom by transforming from a human into a bug. The authors have illustrated the theme by conveying their changing mental states.

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