Women In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator is diagnosed with a “nervous disorder” and is ordered by her physician, who also happens to be her husband, to abstain from most activity and all intellectual work. The same treatment Gilman was forced to take part in. The narrator is deprived of any stimulus or outlet for thought or action, and she begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper. Her discovery of the women trapped in the pattern in the wallpaper symbolizes the pattern of behaviors and practices that trap the female sex. For Gilman, the conventional nineteenth-century middle-class marriage, with its rigid distinction between the “domestic” functions of the female and the “active” work of the male, ensured that women remained second-class citizens.

Jane the main character is a married woman who is placed in this situation and recounting this place and how it makes her feel. She has no ability to make choices for herself for her husband John who is a physician and taking care of her. He thinks that all she needs is fresh air, rest, and good food, along with tonics to get better; instead of talking to her and listening to her needs. “He says only myself can help me out of it”” John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.” ” John does not know how much I suffer.” “You see he does not believe I am sick!” (Gilman pg. 202) As the story gets into itself you get the picture that Jane has just had a baby that she loves yet can not stand to be around. That her frame of mind is very depressed and only just happened after the birth. She struggles with this internally which shows she still has maternal instinct and jealousy for those who are caring for him. “It is unfortunate that Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,

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.”

The structure of the text, particularly evident in the author’s interactions with her husband, reveals the binary opposition between the façade of a middle-class woman living under the societal parameters of the Cult of Domesticity and the underlying suffering and dehumanization intrinsic to marriage and womanhood during the nineteenth century. While readers recognize the story for its troubling description of the way in which the yellow wallpaper morphs into a representation of the narrator’s insanity, the most interesting and telling component of the story lies apart from the wallpaper. “The Yellow Wallpaper” outwardly tells the story of a woman struggling with post-partum depression, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman snakes expressions of the true inequality faced within the daily lives of nineteenth century women throughout the story. Although the climax certainly surrounds the narrator’s overpowering obsession with the yellow wallpaper that covers the room to which her husband banished her for the summer, the moments that do not specifically concern the wallpaper or the narrator’s mania divulge a deeper and more powerful understanding of the torturous meaning of womanhood.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is known as the first American writer who has feminist approach. Gilman criticises inequality between male and female during her life, hence it is mostly possible to see the traces of feminist approach in her works. She deals with the struggles and obstacles which women face in patriarchal society. Moreover, Gilman argues that marriages cause the subordination of women, because male is active, whereas female plays a domestic role in the marriage. Gilman also argues that the situation should change; therefore women are only able to accomplish full development of their identities. At this point, The Yellow Wallpaper is a crucial example that shows repressed woman’s awakening. It is a story of a woman who

“The Yellow Wallpaper” By Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a woman 's slow spiral to insanity as she is forced into a mundane, repressive lifestyle by her husband and Doctor. Throughout history inequality has been a prominent political and social issue. Inequality is seen in many aspects of society, such as class, race, and gender. Gender inequality is an issue that has been relevant throughout our history yet only become a true fight near the start of the 20th century. Men and women are forced to play different roles in society. Men are generally seen as the leader of the family, the job holder, and the usual recipients of social and political respect, while women are seen as the home make with the menial roles. Men were respected and seen as superior to women. The fight for gender equality has challenged these traditional roles, women 's place in society has changed since then, but not without a little help. Influential writers, such as Charlotte perkins Gilman 's have helped pave the way for equal rights through their powerful literature. In this story, we see how mistreated women are and the psychological effect that a patriarchal society can have. Gilman explores the female condition during the late 19th century through symbolic and profound literary themes that relate to the treatment of women.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one of the most well-known authors of the (insert decade). Her works propelled the feminist movement through stories than chronicled the oppression of struggles of women, the most famous being The Yellow Wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of an unnamed woman descending into madness from the “rest cure” given by her doctor husband. The story alludes to Gilman’s own experiences with the “rest cure,” meant to “cure” her postpartum depression, after which she fell deeper into depression because of it. In the story, the narrator begins to hallucinate, mixing reality with illusion of figures in the wallpaper. Through her use of reality and illusion, Gilman shows the manipulative nature of oppression, how women are manipulated to think against their conscience.

“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 take place during a time period where women were oppressed. Women were treated as second rate people in society during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman very accurately portrays the thought process of the society during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using the aspects of Feminist criticism, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through the dialogue through both the male and female perspective, and through the symbol found in the story.

During the 19th Century and even in the beginning of the 20th Century men were considered to be the authority figure of all times. They were the breadwinners and the person who makes every decision at home and in the marriage. Men made decisions such as: the type of medicine the wife took, if they were allowed to go outside, if they could further their education. According to Pamela Balanza in the article “The Role of Women in the 19th and 20th Centuries”, “The period of the mid-nineteenth century until the dawn of the twentieth century witnessed a patriarchal male society and female dependence, with women struggling to attain social equality”. Women needed to be the weaker sex and dependent of their men. Women had no opinion, no place in

The illustration on page one drew me towards The Yellow Wallpaper, published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This short story initially conjured up images of macabre events and the supernatural. A husband, wife, and their newborn are “lucky” to find an inexpensive rental and choose the former nursey as their bedchamber, a room with bars on the windows and torn wallpaper. Narrated in the first person by the wife, the setting reminded me of the television series, American Horror Story. As the story unfolds, either the wife has made a ghostly discovery, or she is going insane.

In a male dominated society, women had little choice when it came to the path of life they would trek upon until death. From the first words of the doctor when they announce, “it’s a girl”, amidst cries of the baby and the relief of the mother, the path a woman shall take has already been predetermined. Chalotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a harrowing short story about a woman diagnosed with post-partum depression and her gradual slip into insanity when she is prescribed the rest-cure, a discredited treatment that only allows two hours of productivity each day. Gilman, the author, not only integrates stupendous aspects of gothic literature into her story but she also depicts a deeper, hidden message about the 19th century attitudes towards women from the words written in the journal of the unreliable narrator. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a woman born on July 3, 1860 during an extremely turbulent decade with numerous upheavals in society. After Gilman’s father left the family in 1859, Gilman grew up with the sole care of her cold mother and this childhood shaped her into an ambitious, independent woman. Holding onto her strong dreams and goals, Gilman hesitantly married Charles Walter Stetson, an artist. However, she began suffering from severe bouts of depression and was diagnosed with post-partum depression

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.

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story of a women’s deterioration into mental illness, is a representation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s view on the domination of males in the medical environment, and the patriarchal formation of the household in the nineteenth century. Gilman is informing the reader of the consequences of a male dominated society with fixed gender roles. The man is the authoritative working figure, while the women is confined to her household duties and obeys the authority of her husband. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a depiction of a narrator who is constrained to her gender roles, and develops a worsened illness because of it.

Throughout history the female gender has been considered the lesser sex, where they had little to no power over anything. Eventually they got tired of their mistreatment and those who wanted it to end became known as feminist. They hold the idea that both men and women should be treated as equals. Many feminist were authors who contained the feminist literary theory within their works. The theory mainly focuses on critiquing how women must comply with gender roles and how they have been denied their rights by men. The feminist literary theory has many forms, one of them would be cultural feminism, which focuses on the stereotypical women who is only meant to look pretty and take care of minor jobs such as cooking, cleaning, and watching the children. The feminist literary appears in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which is about an unnamed female narrator who suffers from a nervous condition during the late 1800s, and is locked within her bedroom. The feminist Kate Chopin has written many works containing the feminist literary theory, such as her short story “The Story of an Hour” which revolves around Mrs. Mallard, who has lost her husband in a train accident, so she starts to shed tears of sorrow, however her tears of sorrow transform into tears of joy. One of Chopin 's novel, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier a woman who starts to realize the truth of society. Feminist literary theory can be viewed in many different