Wisdom In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

This gothic horror tale of nineteenth century fiction, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892; during a time that women writers were starting to come out and write about key issues in their treatment. She craftily sets up or spins the story with a setting of isolation and a character who feels trapped, by a husband who chooses not to know her; yet does not listen to her and keeps her trapped on an island, all in her best interest. The tone is filled with desperation, sarcasm, anger, and shows that though she is mentally unstable there is intelligence behind her instability that is kept unseen. The main symbol is the wallpaper which is a constant bane to her.

“It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.” The Yellow Wallpaper was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1982. She wrote this story after her suffering of nervous breakdown. The doctor told her to live in a domestic life and stop writing. Gilman followed every suggestion, but they didn’t work. And her condition even went worse. Later, she stopped doing what the doctor told her to do and gave birth to the article The Yellow Wallpaper. She wrote this to help people that has similar conditions but received wrong regimen. The story mainly described a woman who just gave birth to her child, and was suffering depression. To answer the question that Dr. Molloy asked in video, that well know contemporary diagnoses is postpartum depression, also called

Immediately in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” readers are able to tell that the protagonist feels trapped in the room, in which she is being placed. The female narrator also mentions to us that her husband “John is a physician, and perhaps –– (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind –– perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (Stetson 1892, 129). That is to say, this statement clearly indicates that science triumphs over the fantasy of religion. Therefore, John intellectually dominates his wife as a result of this view and his gender. Throughout the story, readers are able to observe themes from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” such as powerlessness, patriarchy, and lack of independence. As a result, Gilman 's protagonist does not have a room of her own. Despite, the struggles that the narrator faces in the room, “it makes [her] think of English places that you read about” (Stetson 1892, 130). Basically, the narrator tries to make herself feel comfortable while she is in the room and she is also able to express herself on paper, although her husband, John insists that she should not. According to Gilman’s protagonist, “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal¬––having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Stetson 1892, 129). This statement explains that the narrator expresses a need for independence by removing herself from the

Life during the 1800s for a woman was rather distressing. Society had essentially designated them the role of being a housekeeper and bearing children. They had little to no voice on how they lived their daily lives. Men decided everything for them. To clash with society 's conventional views is a challenging thing to do; however, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does an excellent job fighting that battle by writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” one of the most captivating pieces of literature from her time. By using the conventions of a narrative, such as character, setting, and point of view, she is capable of bringing the reader into a world that society

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Gilmans is a short story narrated by a woman who is suffering from depression soon after giving birth. The narrator’s husband is a physician who asserts that he knows what is best for his wife’s health and betterment. As the antagonist in the story he brings his wife to a secluded house with strict orders to rest and recuperate, keeping her away from society, physical exertion, and the writing that is her one true form of expression. Ironically, the narrator being placed into this environment only serves as a reminder and catalyst for her “nervous depression” and “slight hysterical tendencies” (473). Throughout the short story you see constant references in this environment to the inner turmoil of the protagonist until the narrator and her surroundings seem to become one and the same. The setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” not only plays a crucial role in the development of the protagonist, but also acts as a mirror to the narrator’s mental and physical entrapment. As the short story is told first person the reader gets a unique view of the narrator’s description of her surroundings and slow decline into insanity.

Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s utilization of irony throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” highlights various imbedded themes. On the sentence level, Gillman uses verbal irony to highlight the narrator’s internal struggle with the treatment she receives from her husband. Similarly, the treatment that the narrator receives from her husband, John, unintentionally worsens the narrator’s condition. These actions exemplify Gillman’s use of situational irony in order to draw attention to the lack of consideration towards women’s mental health at the time. Gillman also uses dramatic irony at various points throughout the short story to highlight the narrator’s growing distance from reality. Through her utilization of various forms of irony, Gillman reveals themes at the core of the text.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist symbolizes the effect of the oppression of women in society in the Nineteenth Century. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author reveals the narrator is torn between hate and love, but emotion is difficult to determine. The effects are produced by the use of complex themes used in the story, which assisted her oppression and reflected on her self-expression.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Gilman about an oppressive husband and his treatment towards his mentally ill wife. Gilman based her story on her own experience with the rest cure for mental illness. She received a lot of criticism from the average person as well as physicians since she was speaking about the controversial treatment of women during the late 1800’s. She defended her work with this statement, “It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy.” (Gilman, 1913)

The woman: sick, strong, or senseless? The Yellow Wallpaper, an influential short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrestles with the idea that the conduct of women with mental illnesses in the 19th century was that of oppression. The woman, diagnosed by her husband, John, with “temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency” bears her new illness lightly while her husband devotes himself to her care (Gilman). Her mental illness eventually causes her husband to distance himself from her and provokes him to administer questionable methods of the treatment of her illness such as confining her to her room and not allowing her to express her thoughts through writing (Gilman). He possesses affection for her, yet his actions are those

Her passion is to write and by doing so we are able to follow her on a

“I don 't like to look out of the windows even – there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?” the woman behind the pattern was an image of herself. She has been the one “stooping and creeping.” The Yellow Wallpaper was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the story, three characters are introduced, Jane (the narrator), John, and Jennie. The Yellow Wallpaper is an ironic story that takes us inside the mind and emotions of a woman suffering a slow mental breakdown. The narrator begins to think that another woman is creeping around the room behind the wallpaper, attempting to "break free", so she locks herself in the room and begins to tear down pieces of the wallpaper to rescue this trapped woman. To end the story, John unlocks the door and finds Jane almost possessed by the woman behind the wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist background gives a feminist standpoint in The Yellow Wallpaper because the narrator’s husband, John acts superior to the narrator.

Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is centered on the deteriorating psychological condition of the female narrator. As a woman in a male dominating society in the 19th century, the narrator has no control over her life. This persistence eventually evolves into her madness. The insanity is triggered by her change in attitude towards her husband, the emergent obsession with the wallpaper and the projection of herself as the women behind the wallpaper. The “rest cure” which was prescribed by her physician husband, created the ideal environment for her madness to extend because, it was in her imagination that she had some freedom and control.

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

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a famous social worker and a leading author of women’s issues. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's relating to views of women 's rights and her demands for economic and social reform of gender inequities are very famous for the foundations of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In critics Gilman ignored by people of color in the United States and attitudes towards non-northern European immigrants (Ceplair, non-fiction, 7). “Gilman developed controversial conception of womanhood”, by Deborah M. De Simone in “Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the feminization of education”. Gilman’s relation to reading deserves more attention than it has received (“The reading habit and The yellow wallpaper”). Her work about Women and Economics was considered her highest achievement by critics.