The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

He found a solution and he cured the man. “I realized how important it was for this precious man to have his “own” doctor – one who would meet him on his terms and provide care for him as he would a family member. It was a great day.” states Withers.

An anonymous author once said, “What consumes your mind, controls your life.” In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is suffering from severe depression, at the very least and constantly tries to get better. While trying to get better she becomes increasingly fixated on the yellow wallpaper that encompasses her in her room. It gets to the point where the wallpaper is all she thinks about and slowly, it starts to control her life. The yellow wallpaper in this story is a representation of the narrator’s relationship with her disease.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a woman driven insane by postpartum depression and a dangerous treatment. Nevertheless, when you study the protagonist, it shows that the story is more about finding the protagonist’s identity. The protagonist’s proposes of an imaginary woman, which at first, is just her shadow against the bars of the wallpaper. The pattern shows her identity, expressing the conflict that she experiences and eventually leads her to a complete breakdown of what is her identity and that of the imaginary shadow.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting is very symbolic when analyzing the different the meanings of this book. The main character in the story is sick with nervous depression. In the story, John, her husband, and also a physician, takes his wife to a house in the middle of the summer and confines her to one room in hopes of perfect rest for her. As the story progresses, it is made clear that confinement, sanity, insanity, and freedom are all tied together and used to make the setting of the story symbolic.

In the 1950’s, women weren’t respected for doing anything besides being an outstanding wife and mother. Women and men weren’t on the same level when it came to rights in the eyes of the law. Also during this time, mental illnesses were not accurately researched, and since doctors weren’t fully aware of all the information about mental illnesses, patients did not always get the best treatment and were treated as freaks. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both of these elements are present. Gilman did a wonderful job portraying how women are not taken seriously and how lightly mental illnesses are taken. Gilman had, too, had firsthand experience with the physician in the story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's believes that there really was no difference in means of way of thinking between men or women is strongly. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband 's lack of belief. The story appears to happen during a time period where women were mistreated. Women were treated as second rate people in community during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the thought process of the community during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using knowledge on equal rights between women and men, one can carefully study “The Yellow Wallpaper” by

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she discusses some of the issues found in 19th century society such as women’s oppression and the treatment of mental illness. Many authors throughout history have written stories that mimic their own lives and we see this in the story. We see Gilman in the story portrayed as Jane, a mentally unstable housewife who cannot escape her husband’s oppression or her own mind. Gilman reveals a life of depression and women’s oppression through her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Many people know what it feels like to be “trapped” in the emotional sense of things, but how many can say they have been both physically and emotionally trapped. Charlotte Perkins Gilman used her personal bout with depression to create a powerful fictional narrative, which has broad implications for women. When the narrator recognizes that there is more than one trapped, creeping woman, Gilman indicates that the meaning of her story extends beyond an isolated, individual situation. Gilman’s main purpose in writing The Yellow Wallpaper is to doom not only a specific medical treatment but also the misogynistic principles and resulting sexual politics that make such a treatment possible. Those things lead to the major themes of the story: freedom, confinement, and madness.

Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the experience of a nervous woman named Jane who falls into psychosis during the “rest cure” treatment prescribed by her husband John. The rest cure admits the patient to bed rest with limited activity for the body and mind allowed; Dr. S. Weir Mitchell advocated the rest cure and is mentioned by name in the short story by Gilman who had him as her doctor (Gilman 80). During Jane’s rest cure, she is banned from creative work like writing her thoughts but finds “great relief from writing on dead paper”, even if it includes hiding her banned writings from being discovered. The one main complaint Jane has in her writings is the yellow wallpaper that surrounds the room without pattern or end and slowly grows more bothersome to Jane during her rest cure. Jane describes how the colors remind her of disgusting yellow things, how even the wallpaper smells up the rental house, and shakes by a woman within the wallpaper (Gilman 85-86). With nothing to occupy Jane’s mind the wallpaper becomes an obsession that torments her anxiety and consumes her sanity towards the end of her rest cure. Gilman experiences the same madness from her rest cure treatment as Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The horrid treatment of “rest cure” from doctor Silas Weir Mitchell led author Charlotte Perkins Gilman into writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” sharing her experience of madness resulting from her treatment to represent the

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s brilliant work, The Yellow Wallpaper, readers explore the consequences of the ignorance of mental health, as well Gilman’s underlying message of the restriction of women, in nineteenth century America. The author of this story doesn’t want readers to focus on the progression of the woman when realizing her real situation, but in my opinion, how Gilman comments with this piece of fiction to the real oppression of women, and lack of weight Medicine held on the patient 's opinions in Charlotte’s society.

The constant act of avoiding the worth women have in society spirals down to the core fact how women are envisioned inferior to men. In The Ways We Lie by Stephanie Ericsson, the simple declaration, “We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy’s institutions.” Depicts how far lies have come to fit in the spectrum of society, which has inevitably caused women to lose their voice in established lies – mistaken as truths – into thinking that the unfair treatment they receive is what they deserve.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman starts “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the narrative of a character in first person perspective. Gilman writes in a style and attitude that is reflective of the character 's feelings towards her current situation. The character’s doctor who is coincidentally her husband decided it was best to move her into a remote house for some time away to get plenty of rest and to heal mentally. The character was moved into a nursery that was covered with yellow wallpaper and as time passed the character started to go insane from the seclusion. The character in the story describes her relationship with her husband, John, while explaining how she feels towards him after he excluded her. The character’s sanity transforms into an irrational mentality after her attitude transitions from positive to negative, from her husband’s condescending tone and excessive control, and when she is left constantly alone in seclusion causing her to hallucinate.

treats her like a child and just like a child she is kept in this

Stuffed animals may help to console a fussy child into a soothing sleep, while an inspiring story told by a veteran grandparent may encourage a timid student enough to successfully complete a classroom speech. Personal possessions, whether tangible or not, can have the profound effect on the owner of helping him or her to cope with uncontrollable life events. The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the tumultuous life of narrating character, referred to as Jane, whose attempts to hold onto things around her to prevent her declining mental state. The story is set in the late 1800’s, subjecting Jane and her husband, John, to the misconception of roles as women to be subordinate and men to dominate adds to the burden of ignorance over women’s health and welfare. Furthermore, Jane clings to her sparse possessions as desperate attempts to gain control over herself, while John holds onto items which support his pursuits of exerting control over others.

If we are to believe our mothers, we are aware that time heals all wounds. Everyone feels sad or low sometimes, but these feelings usually pass with time. When one starts to experience these feelings of feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, guilt, or worthlessness for longer than two weeks, it is likely that they suffer from depression. Depression is a mood disorder that causes symptoms that affect how we feel, think, and handle daily activities. Due to its widespread occurrence, scientists have been searching for an effective treatment for this mood disorder for decades. During the late 1800s, one of the treatment options available for those suffering with depression and other nervous illnesses was the rest cure. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we never learn the narrators’ name, which begs the question could Gilman be narrating her own life. The tale was written in the late eighteen hundreds as a private diary of sorts and is a lugubrious narration about a woman who has quite possibly went mad. The narrator’s husband John and her brother both respected physician diagnosis her with nervous depression and at the time, a Victorian era of time, the cure for losing one’s mind was to rest. While she may have indeed been suffering from depression which dictionary.com defines as “sad and gloomy; dejected; downcast” (dictoionarycomdepression) she just had a child so she may have actually been suffering from postpartum depression. Due to her diagnosis and because she tired so easily, she was forbidden from working, her attempts at conversations were stifled and her hallowed writing was even frowned upon.