Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

Women in the eighteenth century were confined by their husbands, and imprisoned in their own homes. Women had no rights to their own lives, or a say so in how to live it. Women at this time struggled for equality, and they were unable to think or live for themselves. If they showed any signs of being unhappy they were condemned by society and their master. In this process many women transcended into severe nervous depression. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, we observe a woman’s descent into madness, and we can better understand how women of this time suffered with oppression. This story is a glimpse of Gilman’s real life struggle with gender roles, inner conflict,

    The narrator finds herself economically and emotionally dependent on her husband, John.  Many times she questions to herself why she stays in the room all of the time.  She then answers herself by saying, " John says it is good for me" (Gilman, 665).  She thinks of her husband as much wiser and more important than she, which is the way that society treated males during the time period the story was written.  During this era, women were discouraged from joining the work force and were thought to be better suited as a mother, and wife rather than an employee.   This is the common stereotype that women tried to overcome during the women's movement.

Due to their behavior, both men lead their wives to rebel. John’s controlling behavior causes the narrator to abandon him by going completely mad. First, she questions John’s pronouncements. The narrator believes that congenial work, with excitement and change would do her good (p.297). Next, she focuses on the wallpaper. She describes its negative features noting that patches are gone as if school boys wore it out (p.298). Upset by her husband’s actions, the narrator decides to begin writing in secret. . It reaches the point where the narrator has to hide her writings from him, because he gets upset if she even writes a word (p.298). -After time passes, we see her obsession grow. John seems to be oblivious to the narrator’s conditions, telling her “you know the place is doing you good” (p.299). She notices that the pattern is torturing (p.303). Finally, she begins to see a woman hiding behind the pattern (p.304). Looking for the woman in the pattern gives her something to look forward to (p.305). Ultimately she comes to believe that she is the woman in the wallpaper and wants to free herself. She begins peeling off the paper through the night, and by morning removes all the paper she could while standing (p.307). The narrator even begins to contemplate jumping out of the window, but does not

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, The Yellow Wallpaper, portrays the life and mind of a woman suffering from post-partum depression in the late eighteenth century. Gilman uses setting to strengthen the impact of her story by allowing the distant country mansion symbolize the loneliness of her narrator, Jane. Gilman also uses flat characters to enhance the depth of Jane’s thoughts; however, Gilman’s use of narrative technique impacts her story the most. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses interior monologue to add impact to Jane’s progression into insanity, to add insight into the relationships in the story, and to increase the depth of Jane’s connection with the yellow wallpaper it self.

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,

The diction Gilman employs relates directly to the lasting role of women in the home to expose the historical adversities endured within the domestic sphere. The intricacy with which Gilman composes the text highlights the inherent

      If the house is symbolically a metaphor for the biased literary world, her husband John is one of the oppressors.  John is not effeminate in the least, rather he is an archetypal male: "practical in the extreme," he has "no patience with faith," and does not believe in irrational superstitions.  He is the stereotypical male writer who has his eyes on large, tangible topics such as death and war, and cannot fathom anything that is not "felt and seen and put down in figures" such as love, birth, and in this case, insanity (3).  If John symbolizes the biased male writer, it naturally follows that he would not appreciate her

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 Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a great expression of women’s oppression in the 19th century. The story introduces readers to a woman frustrating in her life and suffering from a nervous depression and her marriage as the yellow wallpaper is causing her a real insanity. Having a background about the timing and the setting that the story is written in helps the reader to internalize the whole meaning of the story and understand its important details. The story is told by a narrator using an anxious tone, and she is being angry and sarcastic at the same time. The woman mentions that her husband has taken her to a summer vacation. So, the story takes

To begin with, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by examining the aspect of dialogue through the male perspective. Gilman makes a strong statement about males in society during her time period. The men are portrayed to really see women as children more than as individuals. This is made clear when the Narrator says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- - slight hysterical tendency- - what is one to do?” (Gilman). Gilman shows the male perspective through dialogue because the Narrator explains that no matter what she says her husband shrugs away her illness. He strongly believes that his wife is being overly dramatic and that nothing is wrong. The typical male makes his wife a conformist by enforcing his beliefs on her. The husband truly believes that nothing is wrong with his wife so he ignores the problem and adds to his wife’s illness. The Narrator also falls victim to oppression through derogatory names on behalf of her husband. This is made clear when the husband interacts with the Narrator, “The he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished , and have it Whitewashed into the bargain” (Gilman). The key phrase in the quote is “little goose”, the husband treats his wife like a child and speaks to her as such. This shows how much intelligence the husband thinks his wife has. He degrades his wife by using terms that one would typically use to speak to little

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story told from the perspective of a woman who’s believed to be “crazy”. The narrator believes that she is sick while her husband, John, believes her to just be suffering from a temporary nervous depression. The narrator’s condition worsens and she begins to see a woman moving from behind the yellow wallpaper in their bedroom. The wallpaper captures the narrator’s attention and initial drives her mad. Charlotte Gilman uses a lot of personal pieces into her short story, from her feministic views to her personal attributes. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written from a feminist and autobiographical standpoint and includes elements, like symbols and perspective that the reader can analyze in different ways.

The room that confines Gilman's narrator,is "a cruel, ingenious cage." It is in this room that the wallpaper reduces an artistic and articulate woman to an animal, stripped entirely of her sanity and humanity. Through Gilman's symbolism, the reader can interpret that the paper symbolizes her current situation that she faces with society and her husband. Both restrain and monitor much like the wallpaper and lead the narrator to subsequent mental demise. By placing her in this room, John, the narrator's husband, becomes the main antagonist and a direct reason why she ends up she way she does. He makes gestures at restraining her by locking up the surrounding of the house and speaks to her demeaning as "dear" or " little goose" (1152). The influence her husband has on the narrator is dominant as he hardly lets her " stir without special direction" and in turn makes her "very tired" (1151).

The short story, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and the feminist theory. On one hand the reader witnesses the mind of a woman who travels the road from sanity to insanity to suicide “caused” by the wallpaper she grows to despise in her bedroom. On the other hand, the reader gets a vivid picture of a woman’s place in 1911 and how she was treated when dealing what we now term as post-partum depression. The woman I met in this story was constantly watched and controlled by her husband to such an extreme that she eventually becomes pychootic and plots to make her escape.

Most women in America nowadays are lucky enough to consider themselves to be an independent individual, but females were not always guaranteed their freedoms. Throughout the early 1900’s, authors would characterize husbands to be controlling figures. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins demonstrates just how possessive the husband is to his wife in their marriage. This short story shows just how miserable the woman is to be in a marriage with John because John, thinks it would be best that his wife is isolated to get over her postpartum depression.“The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates how a male dominated society leads to the woman not being their own individual by using characterization, narrator perspective, and conflict between women and society.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said, ‘’There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver’’. Gilman’s belief that there’s no difference in means of mentality between men or women demonstrated through ‘’The Yellow Wallpaper’’. Gilman symbolically portrays that women suffer from psychological disorders caused by lack of love, care, and a constant pressure of secondary roles and personal unimportance in social life. 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 frame where women were oppressed. The short story can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and