Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a woman who suffered greatly from depression. Her husband and mother persuaded her to see a specialist in women’s “nervous disorders” that prescribed a “rest cure”. Her battle of depression became a key influence in her literary work. Gilman writes “The Yellow-Wallpaper” portraying a narrator who is constantly battling her own entrapment but builds a one-on-one relationship with the “trapped women” inside the wallpaper who symbolizes what the narrator is feeling inside of her head. The narrator conceives the illusion of a trapped woman, who represents herself, in her time of confinement whom she confides in and tries to control in order to gain her freedom from the entrapment of her husband. In the beginning …show more content…
Gilman writes, “There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer everyday. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (Gilman 797). This dabble ganger is created and being controlled through the narrators hallucinations. The connection between them enhances the narrator’s determination to free the woman who symbolizes her own …show more content…
Gilman writes, “I think that woman gets out in the daytime! And I’ll tell you why---privately---I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most woman do not creep by daylight” (Gilman 801). The narrator finds it humiliating that she would creep around in the daytime because no one would ever “creep” in the daytime. She didn’t want anyone to let this woman out at night unless it was herself. Upon noticing the woman’s creeping, the narrators urge to let the woman out of the wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
“There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” The late 19th century hosted a hardship for women in our society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed a form of patriarchy within the story. Gilman never addressed the woman in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by a name, demonstrating her deficiency of individual identity. The author crafted for the narrator to hold an insignificant role in civilization and to live by the direction of man. Representing a hierarchy between men and women in the 19th century, the wallpaper submerged the concentration of the woman and began compelling her into a more profound insanity.
During this time period women did not encompass the same rights as their male counterparts, nor where they encouraged to participate in the same activities as they. Gillman describes the yellow wallpaper to the readers as a rationalization of what it means to be a woman during this time period. Women were expected to be child-like and fragile as noted, within the text, “What is it child(Gilman, 1998)?” The color yellow is often associated with sickness; in Gilman’s case her sudden illness refers to oppression. She notes as the story, progresses the wallpaper makes her feel sick. Gilman notes, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” as a symbol in which refers to the restrictions and norms society places on women. Within her literature she addresses restrictions placed on women. Gilman states, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.” Meaning, she believed men denying women the right to equality was absurd, and when they did grant women’s freedom it was not equivalent rather a “slap in the face [it knocks] you down and tramples you (Gilman, 1998).” Through her essay she consistently refers to a figure behind the wallpaper. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out (Gilman, 1998).” Meaning, women during this time period seek to feel free from oppression. The women behind the wallpaper represents the need to speak out, “you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow (Gilman,1998).” Creeping placed significance on the experience of being a woman in regards to, how they should think, feel, act, dress, and express themselves. Gilman notes, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back! " The author used this quote to signify, the woman realized she was
Gilman has stated in multiple papers that the main reason for her writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” was to shed light on her awful experience with this ‘rest cure’. However, she also managed to inject her own feminist agenda into the piece. Charlotte Perkins Gilman chose to include certain subtle, but alarming details regarding the narrator’s life as a representation of how women were treated at the time. She wants us to understand why the narrator ends up being driven to madness, or in her case, freedom. There are untold layers to this truly simple, short story just like there were many layers to Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
“The Yellow Wallpaper:” a Symbol for Women As the narrator presents a dangerous and startling view into the world of depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman introduces a completely revitalized way of storytelling using the classic elements of fiction. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” combines a multitude of story elements that cannot be replicated. Her vast use of adjectives and horrifying descriptions of the wallpaper bring together a story that is both frightening and intensely well told. Using the story’s few characters and remote setting, Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the wallpaper as both a representation of the narrator and the story’s theme, as well as a symbol for her descent into the abyss of insanity. As the story opens, the suspiciously unnamed narrator and her husband, John, temporarily move into a new home (226).
She first sees a confusing pattern and as she follows the pattern she sees a woman behind the wallpaper. The narrator describes the woman in the wallpaper as a ‘creeper’ and also admits that she has same habit of creeping as well. “I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don 't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight ! I always lock the door when I creep by daylight” (Stetson 654). Throughout the story, ‘creep’ becomes the narrator’s favored adjective for describing how she feels and how she personifies the woman behind the wallpaper. Apart from creeping the other characteristics of women behind the wallpaper such as being plain, trapped and insane are also very likewise to the characteristics of the narrator. In Freud 's understanding the concept of the ‘double’ is that the self becomes confounded, or the foreign self is substituted for his own in other words, by doubling, dividing and interchanging the self (Freud 9). To get away from feeling imprisoned the narrator invented the “creeping women” in her mind and pictured it in the wallpaper to cope with her anxiety and
In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her experience. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the main character is going through depression and she is being oppressed by her husband and she represents the oppression that many women in society face. Gilman illustrates this effect through the use of symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the nursery room, and the barred windows.
Gilman writes, “This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had!” Instead of just being a simply disagreeable object, the wallpaper starts to become a threat. Not only has it started to personify Jane’s mind, it is a danger in her mind. This personification of the wallpaper/misfit continues as Jane spends time with it.
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman in isolation, struggling to cope with mental illness, which has been diagnosed by her husband, a physician. Going beyond this surface level, the reader sees the narrator as a developing feminist, struggling with the societal values of the time. As a woman writer in the late nineteenth century, Gilman herself felt the adverse effects of the male-centric society, and consequently, placed many allusions to her own personal struggles as a feminist in her writing. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a psychological journey that correlates with the advancement of her mental condition. The restrictions which society places on her as a woman have a worsening effect on her until illness progresses into hysteria. The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression." In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
When the narrator states, “I can see her out of my windows! I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden” (Gilman 1006). The reader knows there is no actual woman trapped behind the wallpaper; in fact this is a hallucination that seems to be caused by forced isolation as part of her treatment.
“John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.”(Gilman) She is now imagining the woman out of the paper and creeping around outside. She wants to catch her even though there is no one to even catch, but she doesn’t know that. Her husband is at work all day which gives her the opportunity to creep around, explore and find this woman. Her husband John would suspect her of something if she left the room at night so she must do it during the day. This quote shows symbolism in relation to the fact that the woman in the paper is symbolizing the narrator wandering around outside. Moreover, she is clearly hallucinating about this woman in wallpaper. Her visibility of insanity is quite clear when the author says, “That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.” (Gilman) The narrator is imagining interactions that have occurred with the woman she sees in the wall. They begin to peel off all the paper, working together in her mind. She then begins to imagine the wallpaper laughing at her when the sun is out. It can be concluded that her husband should not be taking care of her because he is the sole reason she is insane in the first place. This quote demonstrates symbolism because the woman in the wall represents the psychotic state that the narrator’s husband has driven her to. With this in mind, the narrator becomes connected with the woman in the wall. “I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anyone come in, till John comes. I want to astonish him. I’ve got a
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.