Yellow Wallpaper Breakdown

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

Trapped in the upstairs of an old mansion with barred windows and disturbing yellow colored wallpaper, the main character is ordered by her husband, a physician, to stay in bed and isolate her mind from any outside wandering thoughts. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes the digression of the narrator’s mental state as she suffers from a form of depression. As the story progresses, the hatred she gains for the wallpaper amplifies and her thoughts begin to alter her perception of the room around her. The wallpaper serves as a symbol that mimics the narrator’s trapped and suffering mental state while she slips away from sanity reinforcing the argument that something as simple as wallpaper can completely

The "Yellow Wall Paper "by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression. The setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the driving force in the story because it is the main factor that caused the narrator to go insane.

  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can by read in many different ways.  Some think of it as a tragic horror story while others may find it to be a tale of a woman trying to find her identity in a male-dominated society.  The story is based on an episode in Gilman's life when she suffered from a nervous disease called melancholia.  A male specialist advised her to "live a domestic a life as far as possible.. and never to touch a pen, brush or pencil..."   (Gilman, 669).   She lived by these guidelines for three months until she came close to suffering from a nervous breakdown.  Gilman then decided to continue writing, despite the physicians advice, and overcame her illness.

            “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an example of how stories and the symbolism to which they are related can influence the perspective of its readers and alternate their point of view. In the “Yellow Wall-Paper”, the unknown narrator gets so influenced by her surroundings that she starts showing signs of mental disorder, creating through many years several controversies on trying to find the real causes of her decease.

   There are more reported cases of clinical depression in women than their are in men. There is also, generalized in western cultures, a stereotype that women are fragile and should be more dedicated to maintaining the home, doing feminine things, that they shouldn't work, and be discouraged from intellectual thinking. In the Victorian period (1837-1901) aside from women's suffragette movements the Victorian woman usually upheld this stereotype of a well behaved wife, more or less a possession then an individual. However, there were a few who defied the odds and took it to heart to let the world know about the indifference's that they went through. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, feminist, was one of

Also, Johns occupation is a physician, and he “does not believe that [the woman] is sick” (Gilman 780). Because the woman suffers from severe mental illness, John treats her more as a child than a wife or a patient. He continuously pats her on the head, makes sure that she has enough nutrients, and checks up on her frequently. The actions that she describes John doing are not normal for a regular married couple, which influences the audience’s opinion on John’s position in the woman’s life. The narrators likes to try and convince herself that John is in fact her husband, and believes that while she is in this “home”, and that he “takes all care from [her]” (Gilman 781).

After learning of Gilman’s personal story, it becomes apparent that “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the struggle of its narrator, carries a distinct message. Gilman grew up in an unhappy and impoverished family with a brother, a single mother, and no father figure. She later went on to marry Charles Stetson (whom she later divorced) and had a daughter with him. After the birth of her daughter, Gilman fell into a deeply depressed state, indicating the relevance of postpartum depression. When she consulted Dr. Weir Mitchell about it, she was prescribed a “rest cure.” It was this event that inspired Gilman to write “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and many similarities can be drawn between

The Story behind the Yellow Wallpaper In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the main character who is a woman in her middle age that struggles with nervous depression and hopes to find some relief and relaxation in a old room with this mysterious yellow wallpaper. This short strory brings across different characters that provide both happy and sad endings by their actions throughout the story. The narrator of the story is presented in first person through the woman who has temporary nervous depression, as the story comes to a conclusion she becomes happy and she’s finally free. Her husband John has a very opposite ending, he learns what is really wrong with his wife and in the end his world comes crashing down.

Although the narrator makes a positive impression about her spouse’s qualities as a husband, she feels uncomfortable about how he enforces obedience upon her. Jane is living in the time where women were not allowed to think for themselves, where the husbands or men make the decisions for their wives. With this, women are often led into a depression and because depression was not found to be a sickness during the time, there were no correct treatment. Doctors and men found it silly for women to let themselves down all the time, as if nothing was ever wrong with them. As John tells Jane, “There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is false and foolish fancy. Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so?” (Gilman 932). Over and over, John repeatedly tells Jane that there is nothing wrong with her and reminding her that because he is a physician, he knows what is best for her. Up until the end of the story, when Jane is completely insane tearing up the yellow wallpapers, the roles her and John’s gender changes. “The narrator’s position in creeping over John conveys a shift in gender roles.” (Golden 53). Throughout the entire story, John had always been watching over Jane, controlling her daily activities. “Critics, as well as some of my own students, often read the husband’s fainting at the

Wallpaper, in general, is never appealing, but usually most wallpaper does not make one go completely crazy and lose their mind. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper, created a wallpaper that did just that. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a husband and wife, who go to a summer house for the wife’s depression. John, the husband, is a doctor and is responsible for treating his wife. His treatment for her illness is to keep her cooped up in an old nursery room with hideous yellow wallpaper.

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

In Gilman’s story The Yellow Wall-paper, we have a narrator, who is nameless who is telling us how she is brought to a house by her husband John, who is a doctor because he is trying to treat her insanity and depression. John leaves his wife in the house all day, in this room with the yellow wall-paper; he never lets her go outside. The narrator in her journal is writing down what the house is like, and what the room is like and she describes the room as having a bad smell to it, almost like a yellow smell. The narrator describes to us how she sees a woman in the yellow wall paper moving around and the narrator says, When the narrator says this it makes you really wonder if she is going insane because how can there be a person trapped inside

“I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I .can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.” (Gilman 652). It is impossible not to think that Gilman is present in the figure of the narrator. “The Yellow Wallpaper” can be regarded as autobiography of her emotions and feelings of her depression. In the same way, both her life, and the narrator’s show the difficulties women had to be noticed, and her illnesses taken into account.

She is trapped in a world where no one listens to her view on things, or how she feels, whether she is getting better or worse, she has to listen to her brother and husband the proper ‘physicians’ even if she is not so sure. Gilman focuses on a room that her main character has to stay in to get better from a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency ”, or so her husband puts it, and whilst living in this room she, the character becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper within the room. The character, who is given no name, calls this wallpaper repellent, and irritating, an assault on the senses, “The colour is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.” However, she must stay in this room, under her husband’s order, even as the wallpaper slowly drives her mad. “The narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social conversation; her physical isolation is in part designed to remove her from the possibility of over-stimulating intellectual discussion. She is further encouraged to exercise "self-control" and avoid expressing negative thoughts and fears about her illness.